What's brewing on YouMoz? (And how you can Help)

[ronell-smith]

In the last year, we've searched for ways to make YouMoz more interesting, more exciting and more inviting for the Moz community. The blog really does belong to the community, for it's the place where many novel ideas are shared, discussed, and further developed.

Aside from being a great place to share ideas, though, YouMoz is also the primary vehicle by which many now-household names in online marketing were discovered. (Many of the top posts on YouMoz eventually find their way onto the main Moz Blog.)

YouMoz belongs to the community. The blog was created as a place for the community to share and engage around bright ideas, in addition to being a vehicle for provoking thought around new concepts, strategies and tactics. For both aspiring and established authors, YouMoz has become a popular destination in the online marketing space.

In the quest to make YouMoz even better, we’ve come with a few ideas to ensure that everyone continues to feel as though they can contribute to the blog.

Beginning today, we’re introducing what we hope becomes four common formats for YouMoz: My Story, Headsmacking Tips, Problem Solved and Here’s How:

• My Story: The name pretty much says it all. Share with the community an interesting story related to online marketing. The story could be funny, personal or informational. As long as it’s interesting, well-written, and a benefit to the community, we’d love to hear it. A great example of the type of post we’re looking for is Mike Ramsey’s From Zero to a Million: 20 Lessons for Starting an Internet Marketing Agency.

• Headsmacking Tip: We’re bringing this format, first shared by Rand years ago on the main blog, out of the mothballs. Simply share with the audience an awesome online marketing-related tip that could make their jobs easier. (Example:Headsmacking Tip #21: Write Better Headlines Than Anyone Else.)

• Problem Solved: Tell the audience how you solved a significant marketing problem, making it easier for you to do your job. Share the nitty-gritty details, and include any graphics or tips needed for the community to solve the problem for themselves. (Example: A Simple Guide to Overcoming Ad Blindness for Publishers.)

• Here’s How: This style of post is meant to be a little more wide-ranging, allowing you to share with the audience ways they can successfully deploy a technique, tactic, strategy, tool or anything else you’ve gleaned that might be of value to marketers. (Examples: How to Write Emails That Get Opened Every Time and The 10 Tools I Use to Monitor Social Media More Effectively. A big shout out to Katy Katz for the inaugural post in this category: Here’s How to Write an Email That Throws off a Whole Room’s Productivity.)

Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? Don’t overthink it. Read our guidelines, then dive in and get started.

Also, we’d love to hear what you think about these new formats. Plus, we welcome your comments or questions.

Feel free to share your thoughts below

[Ria_]

In my opinion, a good blog post would cover all four of those formats. Maybe even in that order.

[Highland]

Someone needs to make a Blackboard Thursdays...

[MoosaHemani]

Interesting idea indeed even from the reader’s point of view, if someone is looking for a tip, they know the place to go instead of finding posts from within the Youmoz section.

I might contribute to my story and problem solved as usually write these kind of stuff on my personal blog as well J

Thanks Ronell, I love the overall idea here!

[DonnaDuncan]

Can you clarify a few other questions that come to mind? Do you still only want original content and what is the expected turn-around from submission to decision. Days? Weeks? Months? I

Obviously if folks can share canonicalized content they've already published on their own blog, there'd be a HUGE incentive to submit. I ask about timing to align expectations and to help folks decide if it's worthwhile submitting posts that are time sensitive.

Are there any other changes to the submission / approval process that I have not thought to ask about?

Thanks!

[ronell-smith]

Hi Donna,

Yes, original only. We don't accept posts that have been published elsewhere.

Turnaround has more to do with the quality of the post than anything else. Almost all posts will need some work, even the best pieces. But if a writer can adhere to these guidelines and incorporate the elements outlined here, the turnaround can be very short.

Below I list the main elements we look for in a YouMoz post. (Assuming the post is, first and foremost, TAGFEE

- Accuracy

• Quality writing

• Depth

• Actionable takeaways

• Novel ideas

The first two are must-haves, but if you can deliver in at least one other area, the post has a good chance of making it onto the blog.

Thank you for asking about the YouMoz process, Donna. We strive to make it as easy as possible for authors to contribute.

RS

[Joe.Robison]

For clarification, are these additional blog post categories that are being added? Or are these just ideas for styles of posts? Or are these the only accepted styles moving forward? Or are these just types of posts that you guys want more of? Thanks!

[ronell-smith]

The latter, mostly. Think of it types of posts we're hoping to see. They'll become veritable categories, however, as they are created and shared, highlighting to other members of the audience how they can share their best ideas.

RS

[DirkC]

Hi Ronell,

Nice ideas but when you do a post to promote Youmoz you might also consider speeding up the review process a bit. Not really motivating if you submit a post to get the message "We'll review your article as swiftly as we can, but because of the high volume of posts we receive, it could take several weeks for us to get to yours. ".  This is not really in line with your answer to the question of Donna ("Turnaround has more to do with the quality of the post than anything else") - you can't judge the quality of a post before reading it.

Dirk

[KeriMorgret]

Hi Dirk,

I'm not with Moz anymore, so I can't speak to how things are at this very moment, but there was a good conversation in the comments of the following post earlier this year that talked about some of the tensions in the review process and factors that affected the timeline. https://moz.com/blog/moz-community-managers#comment-318875. I imagine many of them still hold true.

[ronell-smith]

Hi Dirk,

Your comments are apt. However, I respectfully disagree with the assertion that the quality of the post has nothing to do with review time.

For example, we do a daily quick pass through the queue and the spreadsheet where the articles are kept, with an eye for any gems that might jump out at us. These "gems" are articles that hit the nail on the head for what we're looking for in a YouMoz post. Those posts go right to the top of the pile.

The posts that need the most work aren't excluded, however. It simply takes more time to go through them and make suggestions, which must then be shared with the author.

Over the last several months, I've done an informal analysis of the review process, in hopes of getting more posts on the blog.

Here's what I've found:

• Roughly 90% of the posts we send back to authors are either never returned to us, or they are returned without any changes being made. This rings true for posts that need only minor elements that only the author can provide. As you might imagine, these posts eat up quite a bit of time.
• Typically, when posts are returned to us with the needed changes, the turnaround time is 3.5 weeks. Often it's months.
• The No. 1 reason posts don't make the cut is the author attempts to do too much in a single post and lacks the details needed to make the post work.

YouMoz belongs to the audience. However, we're not willing to trade quality for quantity.

RS

[DirkC]

Hi Ronell

Just to clarify - I don't argue that there is a the link between review time & quality of the post. I am quite happy with the quality of most of the  posts on Youmoz so you are certainly doing a good job.

I am not a native English speaker. If I get a message that it can take weeks before an article is reviewed for me this is equal to "it can take weeks before we read your post". Hence my remark - you can't judge the quality of a post before reading it and so your reply to Donna sounded a bit odd to me.

I understand from your answer that you do a quick review of the new posts every day. Probably it would be better to state this in the initial message (we did a quick review and it's a gem/interesting but will need some rework/needs to be completely rewritten/completely rubbish) rather than stating a generic message that it will take weeks to review.

Reading between the lines - by getting the generic message I understand that my post is simply not good enough at this point and is hidden somewhere at the bottom of the pile

Dirk

[ronell-smith]

Dirk,

You are making me chuckle

My apologies if I'm further confusing things. The generic message is created initially/immediately, as we log the post into the system. Everyone gets that message, unless the post is spam or an obvious poor fit.

Every other post is reviewed in-depth, at which point we begin to separate them out based on return to to the author or deny. Whether the post is accepted or denied, however, in nearly all cases, it will need to be returned to the author with questions.

Also, Dirk, don't hesitate to reach out to me - ronell.smith@moz.com - if you'd like to run an idea by me in advance of creating a post. All I ask for is at least a sketch/outline first, not simply a headline, and I can provide feedback.