Top Three Reasons to Become an SEOmoz Premium Member

With the ongoing interest in SEOmoz’s Premium Membership Landing Page contest, and this recent post from Sphinn which caught my attention in last night’s feed, I thought I would weigh in with my two cents on the value of this service from the SEO industry’s hottest Emerald City crew.

For SEOs - Why YOU should join:
1) SEOmoz’s Premium Toolbox. Regardless of whether you’re an in-house marketer for a large firm, a solo SEO focused on affiliate websites, or part of a small company that handles client projects, there are some incredibly valuable tools here.  The Term Targeting and Juicy Link Finder tools are among my favorites, but PageStrength and Keyword Difficulty are great additions to your kit also.

2) Q&A With SEOmoz Experts. I have sadly not taken enough advantage of this feature yet as I’ve been just too busy developing sites since the guys & gals at SEOmoz released this a couple of months ago.  It’s basically a public (or private, but the number of private versions you can send in a month is limited) email to one of the top SEO firms in the country where you can ask them for advice about a particular problem you’re having & they tell you how they’d go about fixing it.  Given that they’re charging $1000/hr for consultations, and the Premium Membership only costs $399, you could justify the cost of membership on this feature alone, assuming you ask more than three questions throughout the year.  Plus, you get access to their ever-growing Knowledge Based of posed questions and responses asked by other SEOs, who very likely have had similar problems to the ones you’re facing at the moment.

3) Access to Premium SEO Articles.   These are comprehensive (and when I say comprehensive, a better word might be exhaustive) guides to the absolute fundamentals of SEO.  Link Building, Search Friendliness, Keyword Research, and very soon Social Media, are the four topics to-date; new articles seem to be added about every two months.  If you feel that your knowledge, or your company’s knowledge about any or all of these topics is a bit lacking, or you could just benefit from a refresher, you couldn’t find a better source.

BONUS) Build a reputation in one of the most visible SEO communities online. As many of you know, Rand Fishkin and his team are some of the foremost advocates for the industry as a whole, often going out of their way to correct mis-information and bad PR that tends to pop up from time-to-time in the print and TV media.  Partly as a result of this status, SEOmoz has a thriving community of several thousand users.   Premium Membership gives you access to training and networking events with this diehard community you wouldn’t get anywhere else, and it’s an absolutely terrific way to meet new friends in the industry both on- and off-line.

For the general public - Why YOU should join:
1) Understand how SEO works from the absolute best.  If you’ve been struggling to understand this whole Internet Marketing thing, you couldn’t start with a better place than the Premium Articles that come as part of your membership.  They’re detailed, written in an easy-to-understand manner, with technical jargon only thrown in when necessary and explained as critically as possible.

With so many snake oil salesmen out there claiming to be SEOs, selling “top search engine placements,” $399 for such well-written content from a trusted source is well worth it.  You’ll learn more from this set of articles (and have it in your archives) than you ever would in an hour or two-hour presentation from all but the best consultants.  With the going rate for SEO conferences at well over $500/day (with content that may or may not be targeted to your level of expertise), your ROI on a Premium Membership will be at least twice as good.  And you don’t have to waste time searching all over the Internet for exactly what you’re looking for.

2) Weekly SEO Tips.  Rand & crew augment this section about once a week.  These tend to be simple, easy to implement tips that go above and beyond run-of-the-mill topics.  There are some fascinating strategies that just might “click” with you and help net your business a fortune in the online “game.”

3) Q&A With SEOmoz Experts. If you read through the “SEO” section of this post, this is a duplicate.  But it’s equally, if not more, valuable for the general public.

The Q&A is basically a public (or private, but the number of private versions you can send in a month is limited) email to one of the top SEO firms in the country where you can ask them for advice about a particular problem you’re having & they tell you how they’d go about fixing it.  Given that top SEO consultants around the world are now charging $1000/hr for consultations, and the Premium Membership only costs $399, you could justify the cost of membership on this feature alone, assuming you ask more than three questions throughout the year.  Plus, you get access to their ever-growing Knowledge Based of posed questions and responses asked by other SEOs (and SEO beginners), who very likely have had similar problems to the ones you’re facing, or having trouble understanding, at the moment.

FULL DISCLOSURE: This post was not solicited by any member of the SEOmoz staff, nor am I receiving any commission, referrals, or other external benefits from anyone at SEOmoz.  It’s simply me offering my genuine recommendation to purchase a Premium Membership (I was one of the first people ever to join this winter), and a way for me to thank the people and the company that inspired me to start my own business more than any other.