Do you think Seomoz is worth the monthly fee if you're not a professional SEO ?
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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Hello Jennifer thank you for pointing the service out I'll try make it as soon as possible
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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
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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.
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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
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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)
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I believe monthly fees repay itself if we can spend 15 mins a day on seomoz.. it is definitely a one of the best internet community .. just stack overflow for programmers
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Hey Alan!
...and we miss your awesome answers, but it puts a smile on my face when you are able to drop in
Sha
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its too late to reply but better late thn never.. If I am a website owner. I would surely have specific budget for SEO , Social Media and in Online Branding.. monthly or target based but it should be continuous effort to make scalable business
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Hi Ketan,
Never too late...we're still here!
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This post is deleted! -
Hi Marc,
Good to see you here in Q&A.
If you're still finding your way around SEOmoz, this post has a few resources that will help you figure out where things are.
Have fun with it,
Sha
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I actually feel that quality tools are essential to learn SEO properly without spending masses of time gathering the information in other ways. I was thinking that there is good scope for SEOmoz to do some sort of deal with Distilled's Learn SEO program so that you could get some sort of combined membership for people at the early stages in their SEO career.
For SEOmoz aspiring professionals get comfortable with your tools and are more likely to use them and advocate them than your competitors. Also these are people who otherwise it may be several months before they would be thinking of taking out professional SEO tools. If you combine this with some sort of deal on hosting (so people can test the theories that they are learning), it is easy to see that for 100-130$ a month for a few months someone would have all they need to learn SEO. This is really cheap when you compare it with what it cost me to study counselling (my day job), or what it costs to learn most disciplines.
My skills really lie (much as I have them) in a broader internet marketing strategy rather than in the nuts and bolts of technical SEO and I hired an SEO firm to carry out my SEO but I have found the tools invaluable (even if they did not pay for themselves in the consulting work I do) as a way of both auditing their work and being able to play a key role in ensuring the SEO firm I use fits within my broader marketing strategy.
How many SEO Firms are there that charge a lot but ultimately deliver little?
How many provide reports that are useful enough for decision makers in a business to ensure SEO fits within the strategic objectives of an organisation? Many SEO professionals want to be left alone to do their work even if it will not provide the business with the best ROI. Digital marketing is a huge source of referrals for my counselling business and UK expansion is intrinsically linked with the success and the strategy used in the campaign. Without access to SEOmoz I would be far less able to ensure that the SEO works within my business goals and judge when the business is ready to expand into new cities.
If weekly crawl reports do not show improvement, if keywords are not rising up the rankings?, if links are not being added or if they are they are from spammy sites it would take much longer to track and find this out without the SEOmoz tools. 100$ a month to ensure easy to understand data that is independent of your SEO firm that has the depth for you to use to make business decisions without massive time investment will be worth many businesses investing in even if they do not actively get involved in SEO themselves.
I know a lot of businesses judge their SEO outsourcing based on very crude indicators such as short term SERP position or Alexa rank rather than the foundations on which they are based. I am sure the industry can only be stronger if managers and business owners have access themselves to the tools to effectively assess and participate in the strategy and execution of their digital strategy.
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I'm not a professional SEO, and perhaps because of that I really feel I am getting my subscription's worth.
Each month I'm discovering new aspects of SEOmoz.
This week it was 'On-page Optimization', and the only regret I had was that I hadn't come across this little gem three months ago!
You'll soon know if it works for you, and if it does, it's not hard to find that $99 per month (Rand, don't go putting it up now).
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Hi all,
I'm a newbie to SEOMoz, but I've spent months and months researching, looking for free SEO tools, getting as much free info as I can, and (almost) every day, I end up on youtube checking out things such as whiteboard friday, or in the Q&A forums.
In fact I can say it would have been easier if I'd just bitten the bullet and gone with SEOMoz immediately, but we have to convince ourselves don't we?
I'm covering the costs of membership, and not currently making a fortune, but to be honest, it's immaterial - the wealth of knowledge on the site is priceless.
I'll be in it for the long haul. Hope that helps someone.
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Worth every penny, but I would like to use it for free.
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Hi Serge,
Well it's not impossible to get to use Pro for free!
If you spend some time helping out others here in Q&A and can earn 200 mozpoints in a month, SEOmoz will credit you with a free month in the future to say "Thank you" for your contribution to the community
It does take some time and generosity, but you do get repaid in kind.
Look forward to seeing your around in the future.
Sha
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