First things first – go watch this video of Amanda Camp explaining her job at Google’s Webmaster Central. There’s a critical lesson in her 90 seconds on tape that’s incredibly revealing. If you listen carefully, what Amanda’s saying is, “Yes, we read your comments, we read your questions, we look at all your spam reports, but we don’t try to help you – at least not you, the individual. We try to take all that data and create a product, a tool, an algorithm, a system that can help everyone who has that problem.” I’d urge you to think about this paradigm inside Google next time you’re wondering why no one there is banning your competitor for the spammy links you reported.
OK – on to the questions! Last week, I was overwhelmed to see how many questions folks had for me. I think realistically, I’ll do 2-3 posts to try to tackle them all. I put together the first set on my just completed flight from Seattle to Stockholm:
Are you earning your money only by SEO for customers? Or you have other sites with advertising to make money online? If yes, what sites?
Where do you see SEOmoz being in 2 years?
2 years is a long, long time in this industry, but the plan currently is to do a lot of the same things we do now, only better. Premium content will be the big driver of the business – so more tools, more guides, video training content, SEO analytics, rank tracking, and dozens of other projects are already in the works. We’re at about 1500 Premium members today and my goal would be to reach 5-6000 in 2 years.
What is your ultimate goal, even if it may seem impossible to reach with the moz?
I don’t think it’s impossible at all – ultimately, I’d love to see SEOmoz become a must-have service for everyone in Internet marketing. I hope that in the next few years, we can build something that’s impossible to do without and makes everyone who signs up better and more efficient at what they do with search marketing. I’m also hopeful that SEOmoz can help to bring greater legitimacy to the industry of SEO and help to change many of the negative stereotypes about SEO as (only) spam or manipulation. Obviously, there are financial goals as well – I’d like to see SEOmoz valued at around $100 million in 4-5 years, and while that’s going to be very tough, I think it’s achievable.
Since you are getting busier and busier everyday, do you, Rand, promise to stick around with your members and not desert us? The reason I ask is because more and more I see people grow and then forget who got them there, so will you always stay involved?
I don’t think I can make that promise, but I’m not sure it’s even the right thing to do. As CEO, my job is going to be much less about providing tips and advice and doing the work, and much more about finding people who are much smarter than I am to help make the content on the site even better and more valuable. I can’t imagine I’ll ever “abandon” the site or the company, but in order for the business to scale, it has to be much more than just me. I think we’re already headed in that direction.
Do you see SEO becoming more complicated in the future, becoming easier in the future, or simply becoming non existent?
I think some parts will become more complex, while others get a bit easier. It’s tough to say and really depends on your perspective of what’s “complicated” and what’s “easy.” For example, with the sitemaps protocol, many large sites have found that indexing is “easier,” but managing the process of creating sitemaps, submitting them, checking on progress, etc. was never a part of SEO in the past, so that’s “more complicated.” The same holds true for all kinds of vertical content – inclusion in local search, image search, Google Base, video search, etc. are all great opportunities and they make getting some of that specific traffic “easier,” but they also require expertise that never existed in the past.
Oh – hehe, hmmm……what’s your favorite meal for each part of the day (i.e. breakfest , lunch, dinner)?
Since you are a workaholic , do you shower less like I do because your work passion is stronger than your urge to shower, or is that only me?
That’s just you :-). I shower religiously. I’m actually a bit of a clean freak – I love the outdoors and camping, but if I don’t shower daily, I go a bit insane. As for my favorite part of the day, I think it’s probably right around 8pm, when I finish making dinner and Mystery Guest and I sit down on the couch to eat some fresh pasta or toasted pita with herb-rubbed chicken breast and watch some recorded episodes of the Daily Show & the Colbert Report. I feel like that’s the reward for working hard the rest of the day. I know a lot of entrepreneurs claim they take the most pleasure in their work, but while I love my job, I’m really more of a “work to live” guy than a “live to work” one. I hear that’s sacreligious in Silicon Valley, though, so it’s a good thing I live in rainy Seattle.
Who can you recommend me to email all the time instead of you>……lol j/k 🙂
Scott’s going to start handling all of our incoming sales and business development communication, and Rebecca’s already been taking over much of the SEO community involvement and blog content material. But yeah – I still try my best to answer every email that gets sent to me. I just hate emailing someone “important” in any industry and never getting a response, so I’ve tried to make it a priority not to do that to anyone else as SEOmoz’s stature has grown.
I’m wondering about your shift from SEO/SEM service provider to a central educational and social hub for search marketings and the drive behind it. Did it have anything to do with the fact that providing SEO/SEM services is such a difficult business model to tackle effectively (and a shaky one when somewhat reliant on corporations like Google and Yahoo!)? I’m sure you were doing okay with providing SEO services, but you’ve obviously moved towards a model more in line with Brian Clark’s new Teaching Sells theory – kudos for being ahead of the curve on that one! In other words, did you see running an educational/social media hub as a better opportunity and business model than providing SEO services? And in broader terms: do you think SEO/SEM services as a business model is inherently flawed or at least very difficult in terms of achieving true scalability and growth?
Our shift actually came about because it’s what we’re passionate about and what we’re good at. SEOmoz has always done really well with the tools and the blog and the many articles we’ve put out, and since we enjoyed that practice so much, we wanted to find a way to monetize it. I’ve never been big into the advertising model – I don’t like the inherent weakness that comes from up or down markets, and when we put our toe in the water with ads on SEOmoz, I felt it detracted from the site and didn’t provide great value to our advertisers (especially given how incredibly ad-blind and ad-immune SEOs are in general).
The consulting model worked great, and we’re still taking on a few contracts so we don’t lose touch with the real job of SEO. I don’t think there’s any issue scaling it, either – certainly companies like Bruce Clay and Range Media and iProspect and dozens of others prove that it can scale remarkably well. However, it wasn’t our passion – it didn’t allow us to reach as many people or make the industry a better place – Premium content does that. It lets us build great stuff, both paid and free, because the free content attracts members who will sign up for the paid content if they like what they see. It lets us use our imaginations and engage in the kinds of research and testing and survey projects we love – that’s what we love to do and I think any time you can merge what you love to do with how you make money, you’ve got a great formula for success.
I have noticed the site has been slow to load lately. Are there upgrades going on that are causing this? Being a Premium member I was curious as to what new tools and reports are being developed. Will they be out soon?
Slowness – Let me ask Jeff & Mel about that. We’ve been trying to make the site as fast as possible, and moved to some beefy new servers, but we can always do more.
Upgrades – yes there are! Our biggest upgrade recently has been a huge undertaking to increase the accuracy of the many tools on the site. We implemented that about 2.5 weeks ago and from what we’ve seen, our data accuracy from the engines and from other sources (Alexa, Technorati, Wikipedia, Del.icio.us, etc.) has skyrocketed. In August we were at about 60% accuracy for the Page Strength tool, which was miserable. The last couple weeks have seen 95% or higher – I think that alone provides incredible value to Premium and free members alike.
New tools – we just launched the new term target tool (and took the old one and changed its name to the term extraction tool). Rebecca’s working on a search industry survey, Jane is putting together a guide to Linkbait, our intern, Danny, is conducting some on-page SEO testing of various factors that will go into a Premium guide, and our newest programmer, Mike, is hard at work building something ultra secret and super cool. We’re also launching the SEO Services Marketplace next week, which will let SEOs and companies interface for contracts, employees, resumes, and more. There’s another 2 dozen or so projects that are in concept phase, so yes – tons and tons of stuff coming soon 🙂
I’d love to know how you started marketing SEOmoz and your services when you first started:
- Tactics and strategies you used?
- Did you rely on your previous industry contacts?
- How long did it take before you got your first sale/client?
- How long did it take before you became profitable and could actually pay yourself an income?
Gillian started the company that became SEOmoz as a sole practitioner of marketing and print design services in 1981. When I came on board in 1997 to help out with the emerging demand for webdev, she had already cultivated a number of clients, almost exclusively through networking and word-of-mouth. We were paying ourselves miniscule salaries for many years – in fact, there were a couple years where I believe Gillian took home next to nothing.
Did you and Gillian finance the company with your own money when you first started?
Yeah – we financed primarily using credit cards and debt accounts. Those years between 2001-2004 were especially rough.
How many people do you plan to take on over the next few years? Is there some kind of timeline you’ve got planned?
Our current growth plan will put us around 14 people by the middle of 2008.. And yes, the VC investors require that we put together a formal business plan, but it remains dynamic and very flexible.
Do you outsource any of your work, or is it all kept in-house?
We used to outsource quite a bit, and still do to some degree. We’d use Bill Slawski‘s consulting services to help with excess demand for site audits, Kim Krause Berg‘s exceptional skills in usability analysis, and Dan Thies’ SEO Research Labs for keyword research reports. We’ve also called in the help of many of the SEO companies you see on the recommended list over the years.
Will SEOmoz go international (in terms of having offices in other countries)?
While I doubt we’ll expand to have offices in other countries (at least, anytime soon), we are looking into translating our Premium content offerings into German, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, and others.
Why do you think the US is so far ahead of the rest of the world in terms of the level of development in the online marketing sphere?
That’s a really tough question and I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer. One great opinion on the subject came from Paul Graham – Why Startups Condense in America.
What do you think will be the biggest changes over the next 12 months?
I’m not sure about the biggest, but one of the biggest will be the move to do more active marketing. SEOmoz has always been a very word-of-mouth company, but we’re going to try dipping our toe into advertising and actively promoting the site and the service and watch the results. The great part is, not only can we use the investment to attract new customers, we’ll also be carefully tracking the data and reporting on that here on the blog and in articles & guides, so the experience can help everyone in the community.
Looking back on the growth of SEOmoz thus far, is there anything you’d have done differently, and why?
So many things! I think every week we learn something new that makes us smarter than we were before. If we could go back and start anew with everything we’ve learned along the way, I think you’d see all sorts of changes in approach, content, strategy, etc. Of course, that’s not to say I’m not happy with where we are and I really don’t have many regrets, but I’m not nearly conceited enough to use the old cliché – “If I had to do it all again, I wouldn’t change a thing.” I’d probably agree with that statement in something like my personal life and my 6 years with Mystery Guest, but not the business.
Something I’ve always wondered, given my own work in usability and interest in crossover issues in usability and SEO: What made you decide to transition from usability to SEM, and how did you go about landing your first few SEM clients?
They were actually the same clients (at least when we made the shifts) – the companies we had been working for doing design and development became clients who needed usability, so we did that. Then, the clients we were taking evolved and needed SEO, so we did that, too. It was less about finding clients and more about serving the clients we’d already attracted. SEOmoz really never did any marketing other than the blog and the industry events, and these brought in a deluge of enquiries, so we were never actively seeking.
I’ve typically read that Google is about 50% of the search traffic. Recently I’ve seen it higher than that, including something you wrote. Even so, it seems that it’s not much above 70%. On my site I’m seeing about 99% from Google. What factors would cause that and what things can be done to get traffic from the other search engines?
You’re not alone. This data from several thousand sites that Enquisite monitors would suggest that Google universally drives between 65-75% of all search traffic. The figures from Comscore and Hitwise & Nielsen are, in my mind, somehow skewed. I’ve worked with some exceptionally large organizations, and plenty of small companies, too, and in the last 18 months, I haven’t encountered any site that was reporting less than 60% of search traffic from Google.
As for the sites where you see 85-95% Google, I’d look at a few key indicators. First off, are you in a Google-centric industry? Technology, computing, science, & other “geeky” topics are going to have over-representation in traffic numbers from Google. Likewise, there are those industries and sectors where Yahoo! & Microsoft send a greater-than-normal amount of searchers – the only one that comes to mind is a site I know of that was getting a huge amount of Yahoo! traffic for NASCAR and racing-related terms (compared to their Google traffic with similar rankings). The demographics seem to match up there fairly well. Google = urban, younger, more college, male, higher income, more traveled, more likely to own a passport, more likely to lean politically left. Yahoo!/MSN = suburban and rural, older, less education, female, lower average income, more likely to lean politically right (though it’s good to remember that active Internet users as a whole lean a bit more left) and to attend NASCAR events. (please note that I am saying absolutely nothing about these groups, merely noting the demographics – and this is US only). Some of this data is here, here, and here (though there’s plenty more out there, too).
Other than your wedding, what are you most excited about in the next year?
I’m hard pressed to give a better answer here than Mystery Guest did in the comments, but I’m tempted to say travel. I’m really looking forward to my first trips to Australia and Spain next year, both for SMX conferences.
On the business side: How many developers do you anticipate being able to hire as a result of your VC funding, and what do you think the pace of new tool development will be?
We’ve got 3 on board right now with the addition of Mel & Mike. We’re hoping to add one more developer early next year, and have a full-time designer in-house as well. As far as the pace of tools – it’s highly variable. Right now, we’re working on something big that’s data-collection related but isn’t a tool, specifically. We’re targeting a launch before the end of the year, so I wouldn’t expect any new tools (other than the recently launched term target) until January or February of ’08.
How do you find such amazing people to work for you? Is Craigslist really THAT good? How many candidates do you interview before making a hiring decision?
Craigslist has been great for us, but the Seattle area in general is a fantastic place to do recruiting – lots of smart, talented young people with access to education and a large volume of high-tech companies. We’ve also recently recruited from our personal networks. Next Monday, we’ve got a new in-house attorney and blogger on search & legal issues starting with us.
On the personal side: Is there a single moment or event you can point to when your profile in the industry tipped into one of the highest echelons of SEOs? Or was it just a combination of factors?
I think some people in the industry have referred to the pre-Newsweek and post-Newsweek time periods for SEOmoz, so that could be one. For me, personally, there was a conference I was asked to speak at in California a couple years back and when I arrived, found that I was on the list with Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine, Meg Whitman of eBay, and several other luminaries. I remember calling up Gillian back in Seattle, showing her the list, and asking “How the hell did I get here?” It was a very humbling and transformative experience and I think that since then, I’ve taken SEOmoz’s industry position a little more seriously (though never too seriously, I hope).
Mystery Guest (who’s sitting next to me as I type this on the plane) thinks the response should be – “Like Britney’s descent into madness, it was gradual and inevitable.”
What, if anything, do you hear from the ex-Mozzers regarding their post-moz lives?
I ran into Matt & Brandon the other day at a party – they both seemed very well. Rebecca does a very good job of keeping in touch with ex-Mozzers, but we’ve only had 3 ever, so it’s not a huge group.
This is just going to sound like the dorkiest, fan-girl, People-magazine-reader type question, but: How did you and Mystery Guest meet?
We ran into each other on a public bus on the way back to the University District from a Weezer concert downtown. We had met previously in college through friends, but hadn’t seen each other in several years. We went on our first date a month later and having been together ever since.
Mystery Guest’s version – “The details escape me now. I vaguely remember blinding white light, the sweet smell of lavender, and angels singing. Or maybe it was Rivers Cuomo.”
How do you feel that SEOmoz relies so much on you?
The blog, the speaking gigs, and the press are centered around me right now, but that has to change and I really want it to. I know there are folks who can write better than I, give better presentations than I, and make for a compelling story in the media, too. My job now is to help transition to the kind of company where people think of SEOmoz, not “Rand Fishkin.” That’s going to be tough, but it’s already coming true – the team at SEOmoz is responsible for far more success than they get credit for (at least publicly).
MG jumps in again with the answer: “He’s sort of like Captain James T. Kirk – very vocal and possessing a painfully charming smile. But at the end of the day, most of the real work is done by Chekov, Spock, Bones, Sulu, and Scotty (may he rest in peace).”
If you didn’t have SEOmoz but had the SEO/SEM knowledge and had to start fresh with $1000 – What would you do? Where would the money go?
I’d almost certainly create a blog and use the money to get hosting, analytics, and maybe some links 🙂 Depending on the type of site I was starting, I’d probably use the rest to buy a few hours of a talented designer’s time to create a great looking, cutom blog template. I really think the unique visuals have a big difference in how you’re perceived by first-time visitors.
MG: “On gambling and girls.” Rand: “But, honey, I love only you.” MG: “Oh, hush up.”
Hi Rand… I have to put a paid links question your way, as it’s a bit of a bug bear of mine (and I know I’m not alone). Lots of SEOs seem to have succumbed to what Jim Boykin calls the “blue koolaid,” and there are other SEOs who know full well that paid links work but are happy to perpetuate the myth that they’ll destroy your rankings, as it’s not a technique that they’re willing to employ. I’m not going to ask you outright if you use them (hello Mr Cutts!), but my question is: Do you think it is possible to rank for *competitive* search terms using only freely acquired links? If so, where would be your top spots for getting the best free links?
I’m happy to answer your questions, even the unwritten ones. Yes! We’ve paid for links for our clients and Yes! We’ll almost certainly do it again in the future, so long as it provides value. As for my opinion on whether you can rank without paid links – I wrote this post on exactly that topic just a few months back. In terms of best spots for free links – a tough question, and maybe one that’s best addressed in a future blog post.
QUESTION: If someone came to you and didn’t give you any details on the site (the type, industry, so on) and you had to point 6 links to it, what would those 6 links be and why?
Sadly, I don’t think I could answer that well specifically. In general I would say to get links from the 6 places that will send you the most qualified, valuable traffic, but since that is entirely based on the industry and niche of the site, no individual sites would stand out. I guess if I had to be entirely general (and lost in a fantasy world) I might say:
- Yahoo!’s Homepage
- Homepage of eBay
- MSN Homepage
- Front Page of NYTimes.com
- Top of TechCrunch
- Most Popular Links All Time at Digg
Can you reflect on the “My Super Proposal” experience?
It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and my only regret is that Mystery Guest never got to see the video that was supposed to air during the Super Bowl. I’m actually really glad that it didn’t work out – I’d hate to be nationally famous or get recognized in public, especially for something in my personal life rather than for something work-related. I think Mystery Guest is much happier this way, too. Just FYI – I’m thinking that around Super Bowl time next year, I might write a lengthy post describing the experience, showing some of the photos from the filming of the ad and maybe even outing the company that pulled it (despite their threats of legal action). We’ll see 🙂
I am very new to SEO, and have a very basic question. Is there a limit or any negative implications for having too many meta keywords in a page?
The meta keywords tag is basically useless. Read this post from Danny Sullivan for more on that topic. As far as loading it so far that you get a penalty, we’ve never tested that, but it might be possible, although with most of the engines ignoring it entirely, it might just go unnoticed.
If Vanessa joins SEOmoz as an outside board member, do you have to convert the video studio into a throne room where she can hold audiences?
Since she’d only show up once every 6 weeks for a meeting, I’d say probably no (thank goodness). We are, however, obligated to provide her with baked goods when she visits, courtesy of my very talented fiancee.
What is your team’s favorite item in the SkyMall catalog?
I can’t speak for the others, but as for me, I like the floating planet paper-weight thingy with the enigmatic tagline, “Do you believe in gravity?” (I actually got to spend 5 minutes digging through Skymall while answering this question – man there is some strange stuff in here).
Outside of Seattle, what is your favorite time zone and how would you use social media optimization to make it rule the world?
Favorite time zone is probably “Mountain” – I love it how even some of the states that are technically in that zone don’t obey it and how differences in the use of daylight savings time means all sorts of craziness depending on the time of year. As for using SMM to help the “Mountain” time zone take over the world, that sounds pretty tough. Maybe we could do some politically motivated SMM and get the world to become one nation, with headquarters in Denver – tall order, though.
Lactose free, 2%, or whole?
1%. Nothing but organic, hormone-free 1%. I’m very picky about my dairy. If only it didn’t cost $4 a half-gallon.
I spend most of my time in the
[ ] Vertical Position
[X] Sitting Position, sadly, although I do walk to work, so that’s good.
[ ] Horizontal Position
The last three business books I read are:
Good to Great, Tipping Point & America: The Book 🙂
The last three tech books I read are:
Geeze, I can’t really think of any in the recent past. I do almost all my tech reading online (doesn’t everyone?).
The last three non-work books I read are:
Currently reading The Yiddish Policeman’s Union and just finished up A Cook’s Tour and The Soul of a Chef. I mostly love to read about food and cooking when I’m on the road – it gets me excited to get back in the kitchen when I get home.
Do you still have the empty tub of Stephen Colbert’s ice cream on top of your bookshelf?
Strangely enough, I wasn’t sure if you were referring to my work or home office bookshelf (if the latter, I am genuinely freaked out). In either case, the answer is yes.
Are you the werewolf?
Hey! No spilling secrets. You’ll have to wait until Pubcon to find out.
What are 5 of the most successful ways SEOmoz has attracted new SEO business, besides the SEOmoz blog?
Top 5? OK, Here goes:
- Speaking at conferences
- Word of Mouth
- Publicity through Press/Media
- Networking
- SEO! (I know, the irony is thick)
My site gets 25-50 unique users, I have tried guest posting but that is hard to get, and entering into blog search engines. Could my blog just suck?
It’s possible, but it’s also possible that you just haven’t found your niche yet. Have you written something truly incredible for your blog? Something that everyone who’s seen it loves? If not, you should try that. You also might want to check out this blog post on choosing what to blog about.
Do you use a plugin for the e-mail this feature? If so which one?
SEOmoz is entirely custom-built on CakePHP, so we don’t have any plug-ins 🙂
This December should I attend Pubcon or SES?
The SEOmoz crew and I, including Gillian, Rebecca, Scott, Jeff, Mel, Jane, & Sarah, will all be at Pubcon, so I’d be hard-pressed not to recommend you meet us there. The parties are amazing, the conference usually features aggressive tactics, very open discussion and more advanced content than anything else (with the possible exception of SMX Advanced). That, and flying into Chicago in December is a recipe for cancellations and delays. I loved SES Chicago last year, but I know we got lucky. The previous two years featured nasty delays for many speakers and attendees.
Whew… OK, that’s all I can get to today. More tomorrow, or maybe Wednesday. In the meantime, Mel, Rebecca, & Jane all have great posts they’re cooking up for this week (and Lucas does, too, I think).
