When any set of SEO practitioners get together to talk shop, the Moz brand name usually enters the conversation very quickly. And for a good reason. As far as SEO expertise – and tools to make the most of the art of search engine optimization – Moz really is the granddaddy of them all.
Moz was founded in 2004 as SEOMoz. As Moz, it has created one of the metrics that SEO practitioners rely on most – the ubiquitous Domain Authority (DA) metric and its MozRank and MozTrust scores. These scores are used by the entire SEO industry – and sometimes perhaps overused – as well as several other of their branded offerings – that we will be taking a look at in this review.
But given all the hype – the price of Moz Pro can sometimes give a smaller company, or individual small business entrepreneur a headache (again, more on that in a moment) – is Moz still among the best SEO tool options or has it been overtaken by some of its younger competitors? Let’s take a look and find out.
Become a Master Keyword Predictor
Growing traffic is still about using the right keywords. Things change all the time, and there are lots of other factors in play, but if you don’t get your keyword targeting right, your SEO campaign is doomed almost from the start.
These days there are, of course, a lot of keyword research tools out there to choose from. When Google made the decision to retire its own Keyword Tool – which was a lovely tool – and replace it with the clunkier, harder to navigate Google Keyword Planner, a slew of ‘replacements’ appeared almost overnight.
However, keyword tools were not new to SEOMoz; they have offered one of their own since the beginning. In 2019 with Moz Pro, you get targeting keyword suggestions that highlight areas in your market that offer the best opportunities to get good results. You can use this feature to predict the outcome of your keyword usage and create accurate volume estimates. You can also easily build lists to manage your keywords to support your entire end-to-end process.
The tool – and you can use it in its free form for a very limited number of results, is not, pleasingly, particularly hard to navigate. It may be a little complex for some, but if you are serious about creating a solid keyword plan, it’s a great tool.
Rank Tracking
Obviously, since they are the company that gave the SEO world Domain Rank, the folks at Moz know a lot about ranking. This tool allows you to accurately track how your keyword’s rank compared to the competition.
The dashboard setup means that you will always be in the know about what searchers are seeing and you can choose to track this on a local, national, or, if it is applicable to you and you opt for Moz Pro, internationally. This functionality gives you a holistic picture of your performance in searches and provides you with a unique Search Visibility score.
Stay On Point with Onsite SEO
Onsite SEO is as important as offsite SEO, but because it delves into the word of code, coding, HTML, etc., many people avoid it, which, to be honest, is a huge mistake. Moz site crawls and audits are extensive – some might say too extensive for a small site – and will find, and point out, pretty much any issue that might prevent your site from being properly crawled by search bots to get the SERPs ranking you deserve.
Crawls can be set to run at appointed times, and if you enable alerts, you will be pinged as they occur, allowing you to fix them fast. No, Moz can’t fix them for you, you’ll still need to get techy and geeky to do that – or hire someone who can – but they do, like Google, offer enough information to make sure that you know exactly what needs to be done.
Uncover Linking Opportunities
Have you ever asked yourself just what your competitor is doing that they are outranking you on certain searches/keywords/keyphrases? Especially when you KNOW that your content is better than theirs and your onsite SEO is on point too? It may be that they have links that you don’t and those links are boosting them up in that way.
That’s where Moz is truly extra helpful. With proprietary metrics like Page Authority, Domain Authority, and Spam Score, you can prevent your competition from edging you out by not only finding yourself some great link opportunities but also by learning where they get their links and if there’s a chance that you can get their good ones you can quickly go after them as well.
Offer Stellar Reporting
Gone (quite rightly) are the days when an SEO agency could tell a client not to worry about what they were doing, leave it to them. The JC Penney scandal (among many others) taught any business considering outsourcing their SEO that reporting was a must.
Moz Pro creates amazing reports. In fact, it is one of its biggest strengths. Rather than forcing you to try to explain, over and over, what you are doing and why you are doing it the Moz reports lay that out for you, and they are easy to read and easy to understand. You can, if you like, have them sent directly to your clients, so you don’t even have to remember to do that (although that may be a little risky if you have yet to see it yourself)
Answering The Pricing Question
As we mentioned earlier, MOZ’s pricing could not be considered cheap. There are three levels available, and they break down as follows:
It should be noted that MOZ always covered the US and Canada and began including the UK in its localized search offerings in 2015. In fact, it now offers relevant stats to sites that operate from almost anywhere in the world. When you sign up however you’ll be charged in dollars, so make sure you do your currency maths so you’ll be ready if you are signing up ‘from abroad’.
Final Verdict
Moz makes a lot of important things easy; accomplishing premium optimization and gaining your maximum potential rank is easy with Moz. It also lets you audit a site for recommended improvements and automate reports to give you what you need when you need it. It saves time and wasted effort by showing you how to create the most relevant content that will boost your SEO efforts and helps you avoid wasting time on strategies that won’t.
Is Moz Pro expensive? Kind of, but less than you think. Do you need it for a single site that has just a few pages? No, probably not (although you should still install the free Mozbar via Chrome, it alone is a big help) Is it something you should seriously consider if you have SEO clients to serve? Yes, and as they still offer their full use Moz Pro 30 day trial you have nothing to lose if you do give it a try. And a lot of SEO goodies to gain.
