The Moz Beginner’s Guide to SEO is legit, but after looking it over and seeing it’s information, I personally though there were better tutorials for newbies.
And yes, I will show them to you.
Quick report on the Moz Guide to SEO:
Price: Completely free tutorial.
Overall Rating: 5 out of 10 stars. It is extremely detailed, comprehensive and totally free to check out, and honestly great content to read, but as a former beginner on this topic, I see some issues with this resource that I need to let people know about if they intend to use it’s advice.
Recommended? Somewhat. But I have a better, beginners resource for you which is actually a free to try program. I will explain why it’s better very shortly, but here is the link to it if you want to read about it now:
So what is the Moz Beginners Guide to SEO?
It is a 10 “chapter” resource that explains the way SEO works. In short, here is the summary of all 10 chapters:
It begins with an explanation of how search engines operate, how they find, index and rank sites, then it gets into things such as content, keywords, how people reach your site, why targeted visitors are important, examples of how you want to get specific audiences to your site if you intend to make money, the concept of link building through quality content creation, knowing about if your site is penalized by search engines or not, and basically that sort of thing.
Here is a screenshot of each chapter in the Moz Guide to SEO:
While my summary is in all honesty mediocre compared to the large volume of content you’d get from reading each chapter individually, that is the basic summary and I have to admit, it does provide for the most part a VERY good explanation on this subject.
And so far, I’ve been saying nothing but good things about this resource…
So why did I say that Moz’s SEO Guide may not be good for beginners?
Well I have a few reasons for this and I am about to explain it in a pros and cons section. Let me begin with the pros:
Pros:
1) This is an entirely free resource to read. No sign ups, nothing to pay, just access the site here and read each chapter.
2) Lots of content to digest. And I do mean a lot.
3) For the most part, the explanation is easy to read and understand, if you’re a beginner.
4) Lots of additional links and resources are provided for you. That’s more free content to read.
5) Overall, the quality of what is in this resource is very high. They take a lot of their explanations on this subject straight out of Google and honestly, that just means they are citing the main source for their points, which makes their points true.
6) Moz itself is a highly reputable organization that provides many free resources, paid programs and tips to help marketers succeed online.
Cons:
1) No particular action plan is provided.
Despite there being 10 chapters of rich content, there isn’t really a step-by-step plan for actual newbies to follow to put the advice and explanations in each chapter to use. You are basically left to try and figure it out. I’ve got that sorted out for you here in this guide to doing SEO on a website.
2) Too many outside resources to click on in each chapter. This is a con stemming from a lack of an action plan. Imagine being a newbie who seeks a starting point and needs guidance on what to do.
3) With the explanation in each chapter, a lack of an action plan and more links and resources to read, the person seeking to take action may end up being confused. There’s no narrow road to follow in this resource, but more so a general resource with many options to choose from. It’s not bad honestly, but it can be confusing.
4) In my experience, beginners need a specific plan to follow. Too many options for people who are not experienced generally means too many questions and doubts will follow. And if you are a beginner, this is where you need to start.
5) And finally, this resource itself was written all the way back in 2015. This whole topic evolves often. Some of the advice I read in this resource wasn’t exactly what I’d recommend people practice in 2019.
It’s not like it’s bad, it’s just that there’s better ways to do it and I don’t feel the guide reflects that. It needs to be updated in my opinion:
Overall, the main point is that this is a great resource, but not exactly a good guide.
1) Is it beginner friendly? Well that depends…
2) Is this resource easy to read and understand? Yes.
3) Will people who are true beginners to SEO read this guide and become more knowledgeable on it? Yes but I’d say if you read this, it’ll be shorter and make sense a lot more quickly on the same subject.
4) Is it easy to start taking action from this resource if it’s your first time involved in this stuff? Not really, there’s no real steps to take and too many links/resources to choose from.
Final Rating: Moz Beginners Guide to SEO.
Green Flag
7 out of 10 stars. If you’re trying to get basic, good info on SEO, you’ll get it from this resource for sure. But if you’re seeking to take action from it, that’s another story. I would honestly suggest a better option in this case…
My final thoughts:
I originally discovered the this whole resource on a Reddit post that was reviewing a different and expensive SEO program a high end marketer was selling. There were numerous comments from people saying that the info found on that person’s program was similar to Moz’s and this is what initially attracted me to learn more about it.
After all, if this guide could offer me the same advice an expensive program offered me, but for free, why not try it? And so I did.
But after reading it, I felt as though I wasn’t really reading a plan of action type of resource, but rather numerous chapters out of a college textbook which back in the day, when I was in school, I was very bored from doing so. It didn’t really make me want to take action personally and even if I did, I wouldn’t really know where to start and I believe this is a problem a lot of newbies may experience.
Now this may not apply to every single person who is a beginner, but as a former one, I was always looking for great training, great lessons and a plan of action to move forward with and there was really only 1 program which did this for me:
Why this program/guide is better (For beginners):
Like the Moz Beginners Guide to SEO…
1) It has the same kinds of pros I stated above.
2) There’s actually 10 main lessons in that resource I provided, but they are lessons, not chapters and I would say easier to understand, especially for beginners. But there happen to be WAY more lessons than that, it’s just that these 10 are the core. Here is a preview:
3) Most importantly, this resource provides that missing piece I said the Moz Guide didn’t have:
An action plan. Each lesson comes with it’s own tasks to complete and rather than giving an open ended tutorial, the training is geared to keep you moving forward and not wondering where to go next.
4) And to add to the last big benefit, you also get websites and tools to help you make the action plan a reality.
5) So in short, this resource in my personal opinion is a far better starting point for beginners who really want to start taking action in starting up an SEO based website that gets traffic and makes money. It is easily the best starting point for them in my experience.
Hi Vitaliy,
As a newbie in SEO, I agree with you on most of the things you’ve pointed out in your article. The main thing that kept me going in Wealthy Affiliate’s training are the action plans in each lesson. It really gives me hands on practice within the community and not mostly on external resources to figure out how to do it. This yields better results than having all the information but doesn’t know how to go by it.
Based on what I’ve gathered in your Moz review, I would say a newbie starting off with it might be more confused than making a headway. Action plans are not only necessary to our understanding but it builds our confidence to what I can do from one level to the other. Thanks for the information.
Well the training in WA is also incremental in each lesson, so it’s easier to learn the SEO process overall. That’s certainly another one of it’s many benefits 🙂
Wow Vitaliy – thank you so much for providing this detailed review/info. As a beginner myself to SEO, I totally concur with you that we need action items.
We need to take what we learn and then take action. But not only that, we need a step by step plan. This is something all beginners are looking for and desire when first starting out and in my opinion very beneficial to the future success of the beginner.
Based off what you said, Moz does sound like a great resource. I love the analogy you mentioned about reading text books in college. I surely remember those days and some of those text books were not fun to read. Although a great resource, it sounds like it is JUST that – a resource.
It was also mentioned in your post that it has lots of related links for additional free resources. Although there can be some merit in that, it does create information overload – which can be very detrimental to the beginner.
I found Wealthy Affiliate University a couple months ago and what attracted me to them was their step by step guide. This is something I was looking for as a beginner and truly grateful.
Thank you Vitaliy for the confirmation that WA is definitely the place to be to learn and grow our SEO strategies.
Keep up the great work in helping others out there, especially us newbies. 🙂
You got it LT!
Hi Vitaliy, I am glad to see this frank and detailed report about Moz. Until recently, I was new to online work and the concept of SEO was a bit hard to swallow especially for the fact that every thing I read linked me to a whole new page or reading.
I agree with you that what I needed was a step by step guide with action plans along the way so I could feel accomplished for each topic. The WA information is definitely good to keep beginners informed and motivated.
Hi JJ, no problem! I am glad the SEO training you are getting from Wealthy Affiliate is helping you progress 🙂
Love Wealthy Affiliate because of how it walks you through everything step by step. Like you mentioned with Moz having no particular action plan, I have found that to be an issue with other programs as well. I would often times enthusiastically start something and then peeter out, not really knowing where to go.
Yeah that thing you mentioned about losing interest/focus/ambition in programs actually happens a lot and it’s not always the fault of the person, sometimes the program is so incomplete that by the time people finish it, there are no “next steps” to take and this is what leads people to peter out as you said. In WA however, you’re always going to have a plan of action.
Hi Vitaliy,
I felt the same thing! I was in awe on the amount of detail that MOZ wrote but I did feel overwhelmed and had no idea what I should do next. I ended up taking a step back and reading other fellow blogs and implementing them slowly until I eventually reached a point where I can check back the guide and understand what Rand was talking about. Definitely not for beginners!
Yeah I mean if this content is what they consider beginner friendly, I cannot imagine what they would classify as intermediate or expert stuff Riaz!
Hey Vitaliy! Glad that you decided to write about the Moz Guide. As a beginner, this was the first free course that I opted for. Truly, things there are a bit difficult to process for a newbie and that is when I switched to Wealthy Affiliate and have been using it since then. I think that things are explained here in an easier way.
No problem! I also felt this way when I read the Moz guide. I really believe a beginner needs something like Wealthy Affiliate to help them understand this whole process better and honestly, they do this best.
I’m glad that you have created a blog post about this guide. I am a user of the Moz site, although a free member of it, I use it often for checking my site’s ranking and for other things. Although I visit the site often, I was not aware of this guide until you brought it up here. So, thank you so much for that.
I have a short question: In guides like this, most of the time, the only way you can implement what has been said is, by joining the premium membership of the site that created the guide. Isn’t it the situation with this?
Yes and no Gomer. There is no mandate to try the Moz services, but they do structure the guide to help you see that they provide the solution to helping implement their strategies.
Hi Vitaliy. This was one of the first few free courses that I jumped into when I was a newbie. Indeed, even way back then, I didn’t find it to be beginner friendly. It was like reading an encyclopedia and the only topic that I could relate to was Chapter 5 – Keyword Research.
The rest was just too much for me to digest, but I learned a few things nevertheless. That aside, Moz does seem like a pioneer in the online marketing world. Have you tried any of their products before like their Keyword Explorer tool?
Thanks.
To be honest, I’ve been using Wealthy Affiliate and Jaaxy for so long that I forgot if I used any of Moz’s tools or any other program’s tools Cathy. I just had everything I needed from those 2 programs. Wealthy Affiliate provides the training and Jaaxy, the keyword research info.