Syzlak’s SEM

Ages ago I had a blogger account.  And this was one of my observations:

6/18/07

So, yesterday i started surfing around, looking for some news to post, and i noticed that SEOmoz seemed to be much more tailored to premium membership packages than just 2 weeks ago. After asking around and then reading an interview with Rand (please don’t hassle me over using your logo) over at SEOish, i was able to learn that they changed their business strategy to focus on memberships more than clients. This took me by surprise at first, as it would seem to be a rather risky move. After thinking about it for awhile, i’ve come to realize that i’m more envious of their decision than i am skeptical. Imagine if you didn’t have to deal with a client. That was pure bliss wasn’t it? So, if SEOmoz decided that they would rather work with pleasant, understanding, big spending clients, then i applaud their decision to move more toward being an authoritative community, rather than an SEO organization.

However, this acceptance raised more internal questions. First of all, if the internets (esp. the world of SEO) are moving to more social/community based organizations (which they seem to be), then what alternatives will exist in the future? For example, many prominent SEOers have well-known blogs, websites, digg profiles, etc. If more and more SEO/SEMers start moving towards an open, subscription based community then will we experience an influx of internal SEOers at various companies? This segues nicely into my next question: If my aforementioned theory becomes reality, will the advertising world (companies, individuals, agencies, etc.) feel the hurt of not being able to tap into experts like SEOmoz? It would obviously be easier to hire someone familiar with SEO/SEM in the least, and sign up for SEOmoz, SEOish (i’m just assuming we’ll all go the membership route in the future), SEL, EnviSEO, Stuntdubl, etc. gather all the info possible, and start hacking away at one’s site. However, this seems as though it’s almost counterproductive to the system that we’ve already set-up. Web 2.0 (still hate this terminology) didn’t happen because of the dissemination of information alone. Rather, it was an eventual change due in a large part to the efforts of the SEO world.

More questions were raised, but after writing for 5 minutes and answering a colleague’s question about my boss’s illegible handwriting, i have forgotten most of them.

Suffice to say, i think that a new frontier is upon this industry. Honestly, i’m in support of the entire concept, although i do have my reservations.

More thoughts on this later…

It is now sufficiently later than that day, and recently the crew over at SEOmoz posted their annual review.  I must say, I’m impressed.  However, the one thing that stood out to me was the gradual increase of premium memberships.  This is the true sign, to me, that their plan was a success.  Had the monthly totals gone in reverse order (as I would’ve thought) then I would say that, although their endeavor was noble, it will take quite a bit of work to gain interest in this site/project.  For SEOmoz to come out of the gates as they have is rather impressive, and shows just how much well written, tailored information and tool sets can be to the daily SEMer.