NOTE: The primary set of results from this survey—753 responses—was downloaded for analysis on Tuesday, July 7. We're leaving the survey up, since it's never a bad thing to collect more results (we'll check back from time to time and see what's been submitted), but this marks the closure of our main push. Thank you all SO much for your time, and keep an eye out for the analysis—we'll have it up on the blog soon!
In late 2013, we asked you all about your experience with the Moz Blog. It was the first time we'd collected direct feedback from our readers in more than three years—an eternity in the marketing industry. With the pace of change in our line of work (not to mention your schedules and reading habits) we didn't want to wait that long again, so we're taking this opportunity to ask you how well we're keeping up.
Our mission is to help you all become better marketers, and to do that, we need to know more about you. What challenges do you all face? What are your pain points? Your day-to-day frustrations? If you could learn more about one or two (or three) topics, what would those be?
If you'll help us out by taking this five-minute survey, we can make sure we're offering the most useful and valuable content we possibly can. When we're done looking through the responses, we'll follow up with a post about what we learned.
Thanks, everyone; we're excited to see what you have to say!
Can't see the survey? Click here to take it in a new tab.
Another great initiative. I'd love to see the data you will get after this survey and can't wait longer to see the suggestions implemented.
Well done!
Thanks, Umar -- I've been perusing the results as they come in, and things are already looking interesting! I'll write up a thorough summary of our takeaways (including trends from the last survey in 2013), and will post 'em here. =)
Well, a survey that says, "Unable to resolve server's DNS address," is not an auspicious start. New tab worked fine, though. The big thing is just keep doing case studies and data. What you guys bring to the table is really, more than anything else, sample size. Us little guys can't match it, and so you guys fill in the gaps.
Bad timing - our site hit a blip there for a few minutes. Sorry about that, Connor!
Thanks for sending your thoughts - really appreciate the help. =)
Do you have any plans to publish a comparison of 2013's survey results vs. 2015's? Might be an interesting read - seeing if Moz blog readers' perceptions and interests have changed...
Also, no 'self-employed/freelancer' category? Surely I'm not the only one... ;-)
That is absolutely the plan, Steve. I kept a good portion of the questions the same this time around specifically for the purpose of finding those trends.
You're definitely not the only one -- that probably would have been a good add... though I guess I was trying to get at whether your efforts directly benefit your company or your clients' companies. Could have been significantly better worded. Oh well. =)
My experience with moz is great. I learn several good things through moz. I think it's good tool and help the user to understand about SEO problems.
Will be interesting to see what comes off the back of the survey. Pretty cool article, completed the survey now.
Great -- thank you! We'll post the results in probably ~2 weeks. Really looking forward to diving in. =)
would be a lot of interesting things are expected from this survey.
Hello Trevor,
Thanks for giving us a chance to share our suggestions to make Moz better. I shared all the required things step by step as you required.
Before 3 months back, As I already recommended to rand by email about arranging "Moz Certification Exam" such as Google Analytic and Adwords and he replied :- " Hi Shubham - thanks for the very kind words and the suggestion. It's something we've considered but decided not to focus on for now - perhaps something we'll pursue in the future though."
So, it would be really interesting and helpful if you guys arrange a certification exam quickly. We just love to take certificate by MOZ...!!
Thanks, Shubham -- really appreciate your input!
A certification is a really interesting idea, albeit a difficult one to pull off in a way that makes it effective. If it were simply gamifying the education process, that could work really well... but if it were meant to be something shared as proof of credentials, it'd become a different beast entirely.
We'll definitely keep thinking about it, and will be sure to let you know if we end up moving forward with the idea.
For now, thanks for taking the survey! =)
Hello Trevor,
I am looking forward for it and also for the data of this survey.
Thanks.
I've already filled out the survey , I am waiting for the results ..
The future of SEO:. Pain points --- many. What will the next google release say. How will it effect current SEO practices. Even those who thought they were observing best SEO practices two - three years ago, we're stunned early last year when guest blogging became another google "no-no". Also, a tool that wold be great for Moz to employ for its members would be a site evaluation mechanism to check other sites link profiles before webmasters attempt to get backlinks from them. There are a lot of older sites that were PR 7& 8's with high DA's that are in google penalty. Now that SEO folks have to work much harder to get these backlinks, it's a shame to bust your hump to get the links only later to find out that the site you just received a link from is in google "jail".
Pain points --- many. What will the next google release say. How will it effect current SEO practices. Even those who thought they were observing best SEO practices two - three years ago, we're stunned early last year when guest blogging became another google "no-no".
With all due respect, if your SEO strategy changes every time that Google updates its algorithm, you're doing it wrong.
The general idea (but not specific practice) of SEO is simple: Build, promote, and publicize a website that delights its target audience. Build is to make a website with a good UX and UI that loads quickly and takes things into account such as XML sitemaps, meta tags, schema code, mobile responsive design, and country / language targeting. Promote the site by publishing things that the target audience wants to read. Publicize means raising awareness of your company, your website, and your product in a way that naturally gets others to write about (and link to) you.
If you do those three things well, then you'll never (almost never) have to worry about algorithm changes.* Don't think about links directly at all. Just do the "publicize" part well and the best links will come by themselves naturally -- as by-products of simply doing good marketing and PR -- without you ever needing to think about it. You'll never be at risk of a penalty because you're not even thinking directly about getting links.
Guest posts were always going to get pinged one day (especially because 99% of them are crap). If the purpose of an article is first and foremost is to get a link, then that is spam. The purpose of publishing something is to communicate a message (marketing or otherwise). Anything that is scalable is going to get hit by Google one day because it is artificial. The best links come naturally.
* I'm referring only to Panda and Penguin and I'm not including "edge" websites that algorithms penalize by mistake because Google is not 100% perfect.
Hey Sam, right on about guest blog posts. We all saw that ding coming way before google decided to start penalizing those sites. As for the SEO world as a whole, I constantly wonder what's next on the penalty and "nofollow" list. Before long everyone will be so scared that "nofollow" will be the new norm and the algorithm will have to start "following" those links again.
done - hope that helps =)
Thanks so much, Andreas!
Well ! It is great news for moz user. And I also would love to see the data you gather from this survey
Done, i hope that could help.
I am waiting for the results ..
I would love to see the data you gather from this survey. Hope it could help every folks around here.
Great Initiative.
Great idea thanks @Trevor.
Probably little bit stronger YouMoz will satisfy myself.
Hoping to upload my first YouMoz post in the coming weeks!
Yes I think Youmoz worked better before that hapens
There was a really interesting debate in the comments on that post -- definitely read through if you have a chance (we've been told by Google reps before that we shouldn't worry about our blogs being tagged in negative ways).
The Youmoz posts often are pretty great and usefull, maybe a lot of people are overcautiously. Or I just have a wrong memory - i thought there have been a lot more posts bevore and more user interaction.
After performing the test , I hope I have helped to improve Moz . My grain of sand
Link "https://moz.typeform.com/to/IVj650" is not working. Any help how to open the survey ?
Hmm, strange! It seems to have been working for us. Maybe give it one more try? Sorry for the trouble!
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I... uh... hmm.
Well...
No. There are no words. Account banned, but this is going to stay here (albeit in a slightly edited format). Any time you need a laugh, you know where to find it.
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