Do you think Seomoz is worth the monthly fee if you're not a professional SEO ?

[randfish]

I hear you. I love the Keyword Difficulty tool for the analysis of this, but actually providing recommendations would be, IMO, dangerous. It's too simplistic to say that any machine-programmed logic could apply to each unique situation effectively, hence we focus on the analytics and diagnosis through software and leave the recommendations (at least in the complex areas) to professional marketers who can properly consider all the paths.

[ezpnet-ss]

I'm in the same boat. I've been a member for eons. I consider it a learning expense really.

[ezpnet-ss]

Wow kerplow, that seems a bit excessive, even if your $1000k US per month is a typo and you meant 100k... or even 1k. I mean, if you are paying $100/m for the account here, and you manage to increase your revenues by even $101/m, then perhaps it's "worth it".

Of course you need to factor in the labour you put into your site to extract that extra revenue, but I think my point is clear.

[ShaMenz]

Hi again Alan,

I would pretty much have to agree with all that's above. It really must come down to ROI and for someone who is just running a single site, then the decision you're faced with is how much up-front investment you are prepared to make and whether you are prepared to sustain that investment in the long term.

While all of that is obvious, I thought I would share the one thing included in the SEOmoz Pro subscription that I think is potentially the most valuable and perhaps the most under-utilized by Pro members...

1 Free Private Question per Month!!

Yes, I made it bold and underlined it because this is the one feature that could provide you with the professional input that changes your business completely. The pity of it is that many members completely forget about their private question. Maybe this is because they don't realize it actually means you can ask a question and have it answered by a member of the SEOmoz Staff or Associate.

Yes, that means you could actually have the help of someone as awesome as Dr Pete,  John Doherty, Jen Sable-Lopez, Keri Morgret, Casey Henry, Michael King, Gianluca Fiorelli, Dan Shure, Cyrus Shepard and many more...

Even Rand Fishkin?

Yes. Even Rand answers private questions. The fact is, your question will be assigned to a person on the SEOmoz team who has the skills and experience to best help you.

Obviously, your private question needs to fit within the subject categories available here in Q&A and you should be careful not to waste it on something you could as easily get answered here in regular Q&A. With that in mind, I would consider the potential value of such a benefit to your business and think carefully before giving it up.

Hope that helps,

Sha

[randfish]

Personally, I think the community as a whole is even smarter than those folks individually But glad you like that feature so much Sha!

[Francisco_Meza]

There are many people like me who help newbies like you. I enjoy helping out answering questions in my spare time. Once in a while, I have to ask questions too.

[ShaMenz]

Hey Rand,

Bad news for someone...I'm cooking up a doozy at the moment!

[ezpnet-ss]

Sha, the thing is I think, is that most of us can't narrow it down to 1 question.

I mean, really that's been my biggest holdup. There are so many basic things I still have to put in place that getting around to figure out and phrase that 1 question & submit it is pretty darn tough.

[ShaMenz]

Ah, but that is the beauty of getting one question per month

When you are just starting out there can be a whole lot of very simple technical issues that could be hurting or slowing down your progress without you even knowing.

I actually used my first private question to ask about a nagging feeling I had and something weird I was seeing in Open Site Explorer results for a new client's e-commerce site.

An Associate answered my question and pointed out a fundamental flaw in the Template the client had used which was stopping it from being crawled beyond the first level!

That question paid for itself many times over.

Just pick one of those things that has been nagging at you and ask...you could be totally surprised

Sha

[salemtas]

Another perspective, if you have the time to apply the stuff you learn here yourself to your websites - think about how much that would cost you for monthly SEO from an outside company. If you want to do it yourself and you do it properly then it is definitely worth it.

[Boodreaux]

I think it is worth it.  I have to be a part of this cutting edge community because of all the changes we are doing to our website. I don't want to have to go back and change lots of stuff later on.    It has been great and I bug the heck out of all these professionals on here.  I like associating with all these smart folks.  Plus it is kinda fun to learn a whole new world of information. Hoping that some of there smarts rubs off on me somehow.

[whitbycottages]

Hi Rand

I think that your whiteboard Friday videos are very informative and enthusiastically presented along with all the other experts I am becoming familiar with and I can definitely see why professional SEO marketers can find this website must have.

Also I really appreciate all the interesting answers from everybody.

If I were perfectly honest I think that even though I am an amateur SEO I probably will continue with my subscription to Seomoz because I do market my own holiday cottage, and I'm just starting a holiday letting agency. And I also market my own alarm and CCTV installation website so a big percentage of my spare time is now spent on Internet marketing. My only reservation has been that to be perfectly blunt I have managed by just applying common sense and hard work to already get pretty good results considering my SEO technical abilities are not that extensive.

My holiday cottage is appearing fairly high on Google search results, managing first page for most of the main heavy traffic short tail keywords like "Whitby Holiday Cottages" and seems to be competing against a large established letting agencies who advertise throughout the UK with a great many more cottages than I have on my website currently.
I also have a website for my main business which is for the installation of CCTV and wireless security alarm, but I found that very easy to be very prominent on local searches because  there is not much competition regarding installation companies in one particular town.I moved up a gear by trying to appear in Google search results for just the brand name of a security alarm system that is sold by some of the largest retailers in the UK and I am once again getting reasonably good results, so it looks like it is doable for a one-man band like me.

So I guess what I'm really thinking is how important is it to get a great deal more technically informed, but obviously if I do I'm assuming I should get better results that will justify the time and money spent.

I'm looking at it this way that if I had to pay for the number of organic hits I get on Google search just for my cottages website through some service like Google ad words it would probably cost it about £1000 a month which makes the time and effort well worthwhile.

I think I probably will dig deeper into the technical aspects and hopefully try to become a valued member of Seomoz.

[whitbycottages]

Hello Jennifer

Thank you for pointing this service out I will definitely try to  makethe time as soon as possible in he future

all the best Alan

[whitbycottages]

Hello FranciscoI have been very impressed by the quality and willingness of people to help out I think what tends to happen is that the people who are this website are all very interested in the subject it's not just work. I know in my case it's become like a hobby/work which is nice. All the best Alan

[randfish]

Wow - that's very impressive work; congratulations! I think getting more technical depth is a great goal, but I wouldn't let it overwhelm the equally important practice of creativity in content, branding, UX, design, etc. The "softer" practices and metrics that touch on inbound marketing / SEO are a huge part of how you win authority, links, brand reputation, trust, etc. and those all lead to both better rankings and more customers.

Glad you're sticking around here, too

[whitbycottages]

Hello Jennifer thank you for pointing the service out I'll try make it as soon as possible

[whitbycottages]

Hi Sha

I'd noticed the opportunity to ask one question per month, but never really considered how important worthwhile could be but I definitely do now

[BenRWoodard]

Not much to add except that I feel it has paid for itself every month for me as a freelance SEO.  I have started including it in my resume and have had several opportunities simply because I emphasize my membership so much.  I know that if I didn't have the membership I wouldn't be where I am now in my freelance career.

[NoahsDad]

I want to chime in and say that as a a normal person who wants to learn SEO in order to have content found, and ultimately help people, I find SEOmoz to be extremely useful. Without sounding over dramatic, I can even say it has been life-changing for me, and my "career."

The info you will learn from the White Board Friday's, this q&a, and the rest of the staff of SEOmoz is invaluable. There is so much junk info online about SEO, and I personally enjoy having a "home base" so to speak. SEOmoz is the place where I go to line up other info that I hear about. I can trust that the info that I read/watch here is accurate.  Time is one of our most value assets, so if you value your time, SEOmoz is a great place to come and learn (and build your business/brand/story, etc..)

And on a personal level I have to say that the people here are great. A lot of "seo junk" you find online (free or paid) just seems to be ran by shady people, hard core salesman, and just generally untrustworthy people. But you won't find that here. I could type for days about my personal experience, but I'll save you details, and just say you can trust these guys. They aren't out to get you. They don't try to sell you on stuff. They don't "over-promise." And they aren't into SEO just to make a buck. It's the way the company is led from the top down.

If you back and read some old posts by the CEO (Rand) you'll find lots of stuff about how we wants to be in business to help people. To do the right thing. To change the way people think about "SEO." And above all he cares about his customers. And I think that counts for something. A big something. I enjoy supporting organizations  I feel generally have in interest in their customers, and you will find that here.

/rambling

[Click2Rank]

My response is whether your desire is for long-term success online or not. If you aren't or "it's just a hobby", it may honestly not be worth the value, though even if it is just a hobby, imagine being able to eventually earn enough from a hobby that you can quit your day job.

Is it a guarantee you'll get enough value from a pro membership?  No - of course not.  Yet I only wish I'd joined all those years ago back when it was "just a couple sites" that I wanted to get better results from.  Because in my case, that couple of sites effort grew into an amazing career.

So what it comes down to is how passionate you are to see success from your efforts, whatever scale they're on.  And the more passion and/or the bigger the goal, the more valuable this place can be.

Heck - if you were to add up the hourly rate some of us in the Q&A area charge for the same kinds of answers we provide here, you'd likely find you're getting thousands of dollars worth of guidance for pennies on the dollar.  (Admittedly lately I'm only answering questions here once in a while due to current workload, however there are plenty of great professionals who participate).

Throw in the ability to make use of some of best data evaluation tools in the industry (I get more value from Moz tools than from any other "similar" product) and it really can be a gold mine of value.

(posted by Alan Bleiweiss - Click2Rank's Search Director)