
SEOmoz: My Startup Experience  - GVRV
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/my-startup-experience-vc-entrepreneurship-selfanalysis-the-road-ahead
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dshah
I'm a Pro member as well.

I think the subscription fee is well worth it if you are looking to draw more
traffic to your website via SEO. It's the combination of the tools and the
community.

Disclaimer: Rand Fishkin's a friend (but I would have been a customer
regardless).

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byrneseyeview
I'm surprised that they were unprofitable. How does a consulting business with
great brand recognition, in an industry that's _still_ growing fast, not make
boatloads of money? They should be like all those Whateverilents of the late
90's, paying people $50/hour and billing them to companies at $200/hour. (At
least, I know of plenty of companies that would pay that much, and plenty of
SEOs who would make that much -- and having a middleman with the best brand
name in the business could definitely make it happen).

So what gives?

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randfish
byrne - I think you might have misread the piece; we were profitable when we
took investment the first time and are profitable again now. The "dip" was
during a period when we burned the investment capital to grow faster.

And yeah - our rates are $1,000 per hour, which helps moderate demand, but we
rarely outsource anything (and even when we do, it's to other very high priced
vendors). Strategic SEO (vs. the tactical keyword research, link building,
site editing, etc.) requires lots of deep knowledge.

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byrneseyeview
Interesting. I figured the most likely explanation was that you were investing
in growth. I just assumed you were more like McKinsey, less like Amazon.

$1,000 an hour! Definitely gives me something to shoot for! I've noticed that
in my SEO work, too: the first 10% of the work (planning and strategy) seems
to have many times the value of the next 90% (the research and
implementation). It's just tough to charge wildly different amounts for the
same person's time. I guess doing just that first 10% is a solid solution.

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mdolon
Out of curiosity.. is anyone here a SEOmoz Pro member and is it worth the
money?

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patio11
I am.

I think your perception of value is going to be heavily influenced by your
level of SEO expertise and what your SEO workflow looks like. Aaron Wall has a
great pyramid for expertise in an arbitrary market -- the beginners always
outnumber the intermediates who outnumber... SEOMoz Pro is targeted at, if I
don't miss my guess, high beginning/low intermediate. If you can't look at the
SERP for [bingo cards] and say "This is competitive but not nearly as
competitive as [student credit cards]" then they have a tool which will tell
you exactly that and that provides value. For businesses who are in that sweet
spot it is totally a no-brainer.

With regards to the workflow bit: SEO is primarily a game of link acquisition
at the competitive levels. One common strategy for acquiring them is to
identify pages on the Internet that would be good links and then email the
people in charge of them to ask for the link. A lot of the SEOMoz tools are
designed to make this process more efficient. I have deep misgivings about it
(from both a it-is-a-nuisance and the-ROI-is-inferior-to-less-annoying-
alternatives perspectives) and don't practice it myself, so those aren't so
useful for me.

I would like to flatter myself and say I'm a wee bit above low-intermediate in
SEO. I mostly use the Rank Tracker, and the other tools have not frequently
given me actionable information. That said, I am not displeased with my $80 a
month or whatever it was. If there is ONE thing I wish everyone at HN
understood in their bones about SEO, it is that the ROI on it is just freaking
amazing. Pick a number beyond your wildest dreams, no, it is better than that.
In that context, I often spend speculatively on it, and ~100 a month is easy
to justify even if it only results in positive decisions once a year.

(Edited to add: Don't let the Internet Marketing crowd fleece you, though.)

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macroz
"Don't let the Internet Marketing crowd fleece you, though." -- mind
explaining that? I'd love to hear more. Thanks

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bint
Ya, Patrick, I don't really understand that statement. Please can you explain?

Secondly, I remember you writing previously that you got a free membership to
the site? Or do you now pay for it?

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patio11
I'm a moderator at SEOBook, which is not SEOMoz.

The aside about Internet Marketing -- if you ever look up the terms Internet
Marketing or Make Money Online you'll find a wealth of squeeze pages with long
copy attempting to convince you that $79.95 or $500 is all you need to make
millions on Google. These places are little better than scams targeting the
desperate and ignorant. So when I give advice like "Hey, don't sweat the small
stuff, speculative spending on SEO is smart even if it doesn't immediately
result in sales this time" I wanted to add a disclaimer "But don't get
suckered, because exactly those words get repeated by people looking for
suckers".

