Greetings denizens of the Moz-verse,
I interrupt your regularly scheduled Monday to announce the launch of the new SEOmoz Store. It's your one stop shop for all things SEOmoz: PRO Memberships, Guides, and our newest product, The SEO Video Training Series. We'll continue adding products to the store in the future; more Guides, Videos, even Search Spam cards, apparel and who knows what else. But in the mean time, let's talk about this new video series.
After months in the making, we're proud to launch this brand new Video Training collection! Those of you who are regular readers may recall that we held a sold-out, full-day SEO Training Seminar back in October. Well, we had a professional production crew come in to film that seminar and transform it into this awesome video series.
This seven-hour, eight module, series is ideal for those who are serious about improving their SEO knowledge and search engine rankings. Designed primarily to take relative beginners to an intermediate-advanced level of SEO knowhow, the eight downloadable training modules in this series go into much more depth than what you'd normally find at conferences and in many other training products, and at a much more affordable price.
The modules are based on corporate training presentations given by Rand to major companies, and include:
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An Introduction to Search Engine Marketing
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Search Engine Algorithms
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Keyword Research & Keyword Targeting
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Content Development Strategies
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Social Media Marketing
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Blogging & the Blogosphere
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Search Engine Friendly Design
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Analytics
We really feel that this is an incredibly fast, effective and low-cost way for anyone to kick-start their SEO education, learn the basics, and gain a thorough understanding of the various strategies and tactics that will allow them to perform effective SEO, all while giving them the background to understand and move on to more advanced areas.
You can read more about the SEO Video Training Series, and read feedback from seminar attendees, on the product page in the Store. But ignore the price. To celebrate the launch of this new product, we're discounting the crap out of it for the first week:
Regular price for the complete, 8-module, ~7 hour series will be $399 ($199 for PRO Members), but for the next seven days you can get the full SEO Video Training Series for only $250 (or $149 for PRO Members). If you want to check this series out, there's no better time to buy as this launch pricing won't be offered again.
To get the special introductory pricing (almost 40% off) just use the coupon code vidintro during checkout (PRO Members use vidintroPRO). After you check out, you'll have instant access to download the videos in high-quality Quicktime format, no waiting for shipping.
We're very excited to add this awesome series to our collection of SEO training and educational materials. It's a great series and a terrific value. Enjoy!
i'm suprised this post got thumbs down and so much complaining.
so seomoz has a pro membership where you get to use all of their mozy tools, read all of their premium guides and get your questions answered directly by seomoz staff memebers. now they are not supposed to sell you anything in addition because a pro membership should be all inclusive?
there are many paid membership models where a seminar of this type would not be included. would you expect that they should have given all pro members a free pass to the actual seminar and included flight and accomodations? nope. then why expect free videos of what others paid good money to attend in addition to paying for tools, etc?
i don't get it.
I agree with you Kimber.
When you give people things for free they tend to not value them. I've seen it over and over in my own life with my video work and web work.
If SEOmoz wants to release a new product and not offer a discount at all than thats their perogotive, I think its great that they have decided to offer a discount to those who are Pro members, but I cringe when I hear the overtones of entitlement.
Pro is already a great value and its only going to get better. :-)
To answer your questions:
"now they are not supposed to sell you anything in addition because a pro membership should be all inclusive?"
Absolutely not. (It would be nice tho ;) ). When we signed up there was talk of video content coming up soon and then several months down the line - the first piece of video content was a paid for product. Not intended to be free for PRO members right from the start (as Scott clarified) - but in our minds an expectation had been set and there was some confusion there and hence disappointment. I hope this helps clarify some of where my stand on it came from.
just wanted to add that i, myself am super glad that semoz has made these videos available since i was unable to attend the actual event.
at the time i was pro and was still willing to pay the price of the seminar. my company could not pay for travel and accommodations at the time and neither could i. now my company has a pro account and the seminar is available on video where i have the ability to play it as much as i want instead of having to quickly take notes on everything and to share with coworkers. all this for less than the price of the one time seminar. sounds like a win win.
Is there any difference between the seomoz pro content guides and the videos? Is this a more advance course or is it the same as the pro guides ? It would have been great to have for free for semoz pro members, that's what I thought we paid the membership for.
We actually thought a lot about this, and for a long time, I was on the side of giving away the video free to PRO members. However, good points were made on the other side - namely that this content was originally paid - the attendees who came to the seminar paid $299 (or more if they weren't PRO members), so I think it's still relatively fair.
That said, some of this video content will be available free to PRO members, and I've been filming a lot of simple 3-5 minute tips ala WB Friday for the PRO section as well.
Definitely appreciate the feedback and understand your position - if you're worried about the value of PRO or what's in there, the only thing I can say is that even though right now, I think it's a lot of stuff and a very good deal, come June, there's going to be a lot more amazing material - the value of the tools and content inside PRO is our biggest concern and it's what all that VC money and new employee time is going towards. I promise it won't be a letdown (and the Halloween launch is going to be even bigger than the June one, so stay tuned). :)
Rand thanks for your reply. I'm a big fan of seomoz, I've had a great learning and sharing experience with you guys and the Pro-membership has been really worth it.
Just think we pro-members need to get the value of what we paid for: (Review your membership propossal) and wanted to make you aware of it.
I've paid for a full year of Pro-membership back then when you guys started, so I didn't expect that you would change the "membership model" and make a transition to a new one. It would have been nice if you at least would have share this transition with the community before hand (remember you guys are a community model Business, we are big fans of seomoz, we participate in building the Site and we feel passion for seomoz).
Just wanted to give you some honest feedback Rand. Thanks.
I completely understand your line of thinking on this so I wanted to clarify that this product is not now, nor was it ever intended to be, part of PRO. It is a seperate product available for stand-alone purchase. Of course we give our PRO members a very, very steep discount on it as a thank-you and a value-added benefit to their membership, but it is not an integrated part of the PRO product.
We are building PRO-only video content, the first salvo of which I'm hoping to launch this week. We work very hard to consistently improve the value of PRO Membership, a product which we are already proud of and believe has a ton of value. I know it may disappoint some people to see us release additional products as we grow as a company, but it will never mean we stop building and investing in the value of PRO, or do everything we can to take care of our PRO Members and allow them the most affordable access we can to anything new.
Thanks,
Scott
Thanks for your clarification great Scot, appreciate it. Can you please tell me if it's worth for us pro-members to buy the videos, considering the information that's alredy available at seomoz Pro? Or is it a repetition of the guides? Just want to make sure, will appreciate some honest information from you guys.
It is true that the attendees paid, but they also got a 6-month lead time on implementing the strategies presented before anyone else.
I will still probably buy it, it is just a little disappointing that it wasn't included.
I agree with SEO Practices, I really thought we were paying for this type of content with our PRO membership.
Where's all the cool moz gear? Whats a store without t-shirts?
Hmm... I thought we were going to launch with the t-shirts and sweatshirts. It should be coming very soon - don't worry.
hey, so do all pro members get free tshirts and sweatshirts too? ;-)
HA! very funny Kimber. Dunno if other's caught the tounge-in-cheek, but I sure did.
Two thumbs up and a bomb pop!
What!? no SEOmoz playing cards?!?
edit: I really need these so I can prove to my poker buddies what a search geek I am :)
As someone who was lucky enough to attend the seminar back in October, I can tell you, this is definitely worth picking up. I consider myself more in the intermediate-advanced level and still learned quite a bit of useful information during the day.
There were also quite a few great questions asked during the Q&A after each section. Out of curiosity, will you Mozzers be running another one of these this year? Maybe a next level seminar pointed more toward the advanced topics?
Will attendees receive a copy of the video? (I thought I remembered something about that)
I would have to agree with SEO Practices and King. I thought it would be free for Pro members. Infact, I went back to check the email update you had last sent about the video training for Pro members. Ofcourse, I had missed the part about discounted for Pro members in the email. :) I scanned it and the sub headline was 'PRO Video coming soon' and assumed the video series was free for Pro members.
The email talked about free access for PRO members to download the first chapter. Is this available as yet?
And, I noticed in the first week - the discount for non-pro members is 40% and for PRO members its 25%. I have to say that was disappointing. Sorry, when it comes to numbers....I just have to check the percentage gain/loss. :)
Having said that - do I see value in the PRO membership despite this? Absolutely. :)
I completely understand your thought about the percentages, but I have to point out that PRO members already get 50% off of the normal price, so with the additional Intro Discount, our PRO members are actually getting over 60% Off if we're comparing apples to apples. Not trying to nitpick, you make a fair point and I wanted to explain the math that went into the discount pricing.
Yes, I absolutely agree that PRO members are getting over 60% off. In my view point, I was comparing apples to apples when I was looking at the introductory discount over the regular price. I appreciate the insight into the math that went into the discount pricing from your end. We are just on different sides of the 'exchange' and see it differently.
I do appreciate the hard work that goes into the PRO-products. In this instance, I believe an expectation was set when I signed up for the membership several months ago. There was talk of videos and then several months down the line - the first video product is a paid for product. I was taken by surprise. Yes, I do realize now that this video series is not the same as the video content we were told about and although SEOmoz didn't intend to set the expectation this way - it happened that way because of the common word 'video'.
All said and done - I am still a happy member and I will even buy the videos. Darn! :)
"we're discounting the crap out of it for the first week" - That's gotta be my favorite sentence in this post, Scott :)
I think now is the time for "Pro-plus" membership :-)
Have a fun time determining the right price point ...
Figured out the bug with the coupon code, and just tested it very thoroughly. PM me if you're still having issues.
Will there be an "advanced" series type of videos sometime in the future?
The videos, guides, different levels of membership all look great and fantastic and very informative and beneficial blah blah blah
But I got my hopes up when I saw the RSS headline announcing launch of the store thinking "YES, that means I can buy SEO Spam Playing Cards finally!"
Oh the dissapointment... ;)
Ok, really, the video series looks pretty sweet. My company has a separate Pro account. We'll probably purchase a set for the office.
EDIT / Backtrack / Put Foot In Mouth: I skimmed Scott's post and went directly to the store. So I missed the "coming soon" part about the search spam cards. Needless to say: I can't wait!
er, yeah - but where can i get an seomoz t-shirt?!
Awesome guys - that DVD video series looks pretty hot!!
More to the point though - I'll soon be able to buy moz t shirts and hoodies online :-D I hope you have international shipping lined up for those!
I think this will be very cool for starters + this can be used effectively to train / inform in house employees from different departments.
Thanks for providing this material.
As long as these videos offer me a positive ROI, I have no problem paying for them. The only thing that will bother me is if the content is basic and I get duped into paying for SEO 101. I doubt that will be the case.
Keep up the good work.
Yeah, it sounds good. I don't mind paying for it. However, I'm concerned that it might be another one of those "SEO 101" deals.
If I want the basics, I can read blogs or buy a book. Right now, I'm still wavering....
Has anyone actually seen the videos? Comments?
Good to see the SEOMoz Store. Adding some cool SEOmoz Mousepads, Laser Mouse, Mugs would be a good idea IMO.
The SEOMoz Video Training looks pretty cool...I'm going to blog about it... Is there any sample clip available?
I'm still having problems. I would like to buy the videos and it doesn't show me the discount when I enter the CUPON. Can anyone help me? I'm a Mac user using firefox 2.0.0.14. Look forward to a message from the SEOMoz Staff
Congrats on your store opening up! This is great stuff.
I'm in. I'm sure many of us just finished doing our taxes. I couldn't believe how much I spent on tools! Other than keyword research, I'm not investing in any other SEO tools and staying with SEOmoz.
I, too, was looking for the Chapter 1 download and the...
Help! The cart wouldn't accept the vidintroPRO discount. Suggestions on how to proceed?
I prefer video learning, which enables me to work and learn or workout and learn! I'll setup my bike trainer in front of the computer and sweat SEO!
I just tried the coupon codes and they worked. Can you see if they're still not working for you? If not I'll take a look at it.
Still having issues with the code. The $199 price shows when logged in, but it doesn't adjust for the vidintroPRO discount.
Using Firefox 2.0.0.14 (maybe an upgrade is due to 3.0). I cleared my cookies and restarted the browser. FYI. Let me know, thanks!
It was a small bug which we've since fixed. The discount code should work properly now. If any PRO Members had trouble using the code but purchased the series anyway, let us know and we'll refund you the difference.
I'm having the same issue with the coupon code.EDIT: All fixed. Thanks, Jeff.
Cool.......
Just tried the copon code for the "Pro Members" and it did not work.