I just read Rand’s latest post over at SEOmoz, in which he bravely posted his company’s financial information. First of all, I was surprised at how little Rand and his crew are making. As (in my mind) one of the top-flight SEM companies out there, it seems like they should have been making a lot more.
However, I think that some of the reasons for this surprising lack of cash are why I admire the hell outta Rand. First, he’s hired several new employees this year, some of them with little or no SEO experience. His rationale for doing this? It’s easier to find and train a good employee who is smart and fits well with the rest of the team than it is to find an experienced SEO who fits the same requirements. So far it seems to be working for him.
Second, apparently he has chosen to turn away far more clients than he took (took 25, referred around 300 to his recommended list). He acknowledges that he could have done a better job of monetizing those potential clients. I’m sure that he could have taken the time he uses to post to his blog, write articles, and speak at conferences to work on more clients.
Third, it seems that Rand has chosen to put the money back into the company in order to fuel continued growth rather than writing fat bonus checks.
Now for the interesting part.
He announced that in order to better compensate SEOmozzers, he’s going to start offering paid content on SEOmoz.
We’ll NEVER shut down the free material we provide via the blog, themany articles and the tools (in fact, we intend to expand all ofthese), but we are going to be wrapping some of our best advice intocomprehensive, digestable packages and providing some special featureson the site to paid members.
I, for one, will be exteremely interested to see how much this costs. Provided the price tag isn’t TOO prohibitive, (see SEOBlackhat Forums) I’m pretty sure I’ll subscribe.
technorati tags:seomoz, financials, seo