Everything you never cared about knowing about SEOmoz, and then some!

Pete Wailes recently asked where all the older members went. He picked up on a pattern of members who were long established here and had been reducing their comment frequency and becoming less involved. It's a pattern that's been going on since day 1, as my long hours spent digging through the archives suggest.

The responses in the comment section were very helpful and illustrated a number of patterns. I'm going to address these patterns and suggest some tips for getting the most out of YOUmoz. 

• SEOmoz's main blog tends to stick around the same intermediate search marketing advice sweet-spot. So after you've been reading the blog for a while, you know and understand most of what's being written. The marginal value of reading more posts decreases over time.
• As your understanding of SEO increases, you tend to come up with at least a few original things to say. YOUmoz is often a starting point, but many folks decide to eventually leave to write their own blogs.
• Similarly, as you know more about SEO, you often tend to get into the "doing" part more, and the "learning part less. Hence a lot of folks move from the comments to consulting or in-house gigs.
• Folks read the inside jokes, feel they're on the outside and decide to leave. Note that I emphasized "decide to leave." I found Pat's alcohol jokes after he started them, the Pete/Will rivalry after it'd been going on for some time, etc... and just joined the fun, rather than going off because I wasn't part of the joke. Sure, there's a community, but just because you're new doesn't mean you can't become part of it. It's not an exclusive country club.
• The rewards for participation are limited. As some folks pointed out, once you hit 100 points and have the dofollow link, there's less incentive to write posts or comments.
• On a related vein, the usually anemic comments on YOUmoz and infrequent Sphinn front-paging can make the effort for authors all the more frustrating - especially if you're sharing something really original. You won't get the attention/build a name for yourself as much as you might like.

• Also, there's no particular incentive besides a higher User Ranking for becoming a heavy user.

First of all, if you're reaching the point of decreasing marginal returns, you should consider the community and friendships you can build in the comments as a valuable reward. The search marketing community is incredibly friendly and helpful. Let me  share an anecdote to illustrate.

About this time last year, I went to my first trade show, SMX West. As a newb to the trade show scene, I felt it might be a bit lonely (but still worth going to for the great learning and networking).

Well, let me just start by saying that it was anything but lonely. From the first panel I walked into, literally, I met friends I'd made on the blog and things just got better from there.

I'd seen Rand on the cover of some business magazine (that will remain unnamed and unlinked) in the airport and picked up a copy. The story was goofy and Rand waved it off with a smile and a wave as I sidled up and sat next to him during Sarah's legal panel. A few rows ahead I spotted Jane and Rebecca. And quite eager to learn, Will Critchlow dominated the Q&A with something like 70% of the questions asked lol :). Home sweet moz home. After the panel I got a warm hello and chat with Sarah. I'd built relationships with these folks from commenting here.

Somehow I missed Will right after the panel, but he came over and introduced himself during the cocktail that evening, as well as Duncan Morris. More SEOmoz friends! 

Moving on, I had the pleasure of having Tamar Weinberg introduce herself to me (I was a little surprised to be honest - here's this social media superstar coming up 'n saying hi to me, the new kid on the block!) and then repeating the experience with Jeff Quipp later on. Those connections came through a fun, if time-consuming post I did for YOUmoz on some power users at Sphinn and particularly those writing good content.

As the conference wore on, I met more folks I knew from SEOmoz's comments, like Hamlet Batista, Gillian (Rand's mom, in case you don't know, and a very savvy entrepreneur) and Sean Maguire. And I also had a great time hanging out with Jeff, Scott, Rebecca, Jane and Dave Mihm over dinner. Carlos del Rio and I got acquainted and likewise Fred.

But the thing I most appreciated was the incredible sympathy, warmth and support of SEOmoz and extended SEOmoz family after the conference. When I got to the airport, the moz staff was there in line too, just in time to see my shock and horror at the absence of my laptop from my backpack.

The computer was basically a year old, and I'd been admonished at least 100 times by my family - conscious of my absent-minded ways - not to forget it. It had all my school notes, conference notes and business files.  I was in tears.

The SEOmoz team took me under their wing and comforted me. They called Rebecca, who was still back at the show, and she went looking for my laptop. They called Tamar and Claire Schoen of Third Door Media and the hotel and others still, plus let me use their cell phones to call my family (long distance in NY and Canada) to let them know what an airhead I was and see what they might do.

While I still didn't know it by the time I had to board my flight, some of Third Door's awesome staff found the laptop, let my sister in NY know, and in their extreme classiness, sent it to me by courier at their own expense, even when I said I'd cover it (my sister had told me over the phone while I was in LAX). This is the very, very abridged version, but needless to say, SEOmoz (and Third Door :D) are friends indeed to friends in need. (And you would be wisely investing if you attended SMX West 09 [non-aff link], for which the coupon SMXSpeaker gets you $100 off ;)... besides, they have cupcakes! )

OK, so that was a huge digression, but I felt it was necessary to make the point. Yes, you may learn less from each marginal post. But you will make marginally stronger friendships with each comment. You can read about social media till the cows come home, but this is where it really happens.

If your server burns down tomorrow and ICANN decides that your domain name should permanently be removed from the system (that's what you get, penis-enlargement-cheap-viagra-supply-depot.info!), this community will help you get back on your feet. 

If you need links, the friends you make here are a reliable source to tap. I've done it several times and been rewarded quite nicely. Of course, if you're a tool and don't reciprocate when asked, you might have a hard time looking for other favours in the future, but then you're not going to be a jerk, right?

So this community also helps with performing your job.

It also helps you get a job, as some big-name firms have used SEOmoz's user list as a source for resumes (oops, Rebecca's job just got harder as I've exposed the "top users algo" ranking factors in all their complex calculus logic :D).

Another way it helps is in preparing for interviews. At least one buddy who's now running SEO at a major media outfit bounced ideas and questions off SEOmoz staff, Vanessa Fox (who I think he knew through SEOmoz?) and myself in anticipation of his interviewers' questions. Lucky for the media outfit too, as my man just doubled their traffic year over year :D!  

As to anemic comments, I guess the only solution is to participate more - I must admit I'm myself guilty of this. Though in fairness, YOUmoz as a whole could bump the quality dial up a few notches, which would likely encourage generalized attention, comments and Sphinns. And @SEOmoz's staff: It would likely motivate a bunch of folks if you opened up some access to analytics for folks' own posts - the more data the merrier :). It'd probably help motivation.

On a related point, if you're beginning to blog, you're better off writing here for a year before going off on your own because you'll have a bigger audience here.

Some other fun facts:

• SEOmoz may yet be the first place to crowd-source a link building reporting tool
• Jeremy Dearringer of Indiana's Slingshot SEO - an SEOmoz/YOumoz acquaintance - and I are collaborating on creating a new SEO plugin for Wordpress :). All thanks to an old YOUmoz post he recently came across while checking on backlinks/YOUmoz archives.
• SEOmoz literally puts the shirt on your back:

So what are you waiting for? Get SEOmoz's RSS feed & YOUmoz's RSS feed in your reader and start writing back (and thumbing, sphinning, and sending money ;D).