I got an email yesterday congratulating me on a complimentary membership to SEOmoz’s premium content. It was such a nice surprise and a great end to my Friday afternoon at work. This was really unexpected and I appreciate the gesture so much that I wrote this post as kind of a thank you to them for being so generous. Here’s what the email said …

Once a month we look at the SEOmoz members who earned more than 150
mozpoints in the past 30 days and we reward those that we consider the
most generous and participatory with a free month of premium
membership. It’s our way of giving back to those who help build the
SEOmoz community. Your account has been updated and you now have access
to all our premium content. Your premium membership will last until July 9, 2007.
If this is your second(third?) time receiving a free premium membership,
congrats x2!

First of all I never really set out to get a FREE premium membership from SEOmoz and in no way did I try and “game” the thumb rating system (I am sure they check for those things anyway). There were times as I was posting comments that the thought did cross my mind that it would be cool to win a membership and use ALL the features of SEOmoz, but I never really made that my goal. I just wanted to be a part of their community of users, including the staff, and be able to give my feedback, opinions and views towards their unique industry commentary, insights and contributions.

In the past, I have questioned whether or not to fork out the cash for their premium membership services and so far I had never payed to join. It’s nothing against them, or their design, I just didn’t know what I was missing out on. Honestly, I have been holding out since I thought I could get my company to pay for my subscription fee and I was working on a way to pitch them on the idea. Now that I have had a premium member status I wouldn’t dream of having it any other way. I have decided that even if my boss doesn’t say yes, I will still join their premium service and pay the fee out of my own pocket (once the free one runs out of course). I definitely still plan on contributing to the community as much as time allows and hopefully I can keep winning some free months of membership.

So enough of the background story and SEOmoz premium content plugging you want to know how I got my FREE membership and what it took to get one. First, there are a few pre-qualifications I believe must be met in order to win.

General Pre-qualifications:

Remember, these are pre-qualifications to WIN a free membership, they are only my personal opinion and do not have to be met in order to join their community or contribute your YOUmoz post ideas and article comments.

You must have time enough each week to contribute in some way or another. You can’t get 150 Mozpoints in a month with no time to post or contribute. Try and set aside a little time each day to review their posts and contribute feedback to any topics of interest. If you are really limited on time make use of your feed reader and subscribe to their RSS feeds.

You must be able to give and receive constructive criticism and not let that keep you from sharing your views. Whenever I read something online and carry on a written conversation it’s hard for me to establish a persons tone or the intentions behind someone else’s content whom I’ve just met. It’s easy to take offense to someones feedback if you read too much into what they are saying and at the same time it’s easy for others to take offense to things you might have to say. Try not to be offensive and rude and others will hopefully treat you the same.

You must not be an absolute beginner when it comes to SEO/SEM and the industry of search. I believe that it’s harder to contribute often on a variety of posts and topics if you are just getting into the search marketing business. I am still intimidated by some of the topics they cover on the blog and I have been doing this quite a while. Many of the users who have won a premium membership are intermediate to advanced search marketers or have contributed online in the past. It would be interesting to know if any newbies or beginners have won a membership at this point.

You must be somewhat social and witty so you can attract more thumbs from other members. The amount of thumbs you get and the quality of your comments and contributions is how they determine who gets a free membership. Being social, letting your personality shine and getting others to like you is the key to getting those thumbs quickly and more often. I know when I read the comments and posts that users who make me laugh always get a thumbs up from me and it’s probably no different for most. Be social and witty, you’ll get more points at a quicker rate.

You must be able to write unique post ideas of your own to contribute to YOUmoz. Being able to come up with unique ideas and write them in a manner in which the reader community at SEOmoz likes will help you gain Mozpoints more quickly and should increase the amount of thumbs you get from readers. YOUmoz is there for the users and it’s a great way to contribute to the community. It’s best if you can use as many of the tools they offer for you to get points.

Don’t worry if you don’t meet all of the recommended pre-qualifications, they are not really required and they are not all the same for everyones unique situation. Some may offset others so try different combinations and use what works best for you. For instance, if you cannot come up with unique ideas for YOUmoz it may just mean you’ll have to spend more time posting comments and being witty. Here’s the steps I took (mostly in order).

What I Did To Win My Free Premium Membership:

• Registered as an SEOmoz user so I could login and post comments or contribute to YOUmoz.
• Subscribed to their RSS feeds for both the blog and YOUmoz so I could keep up on new posts.
• Checked my feed reader every so often throughout the day for article topics that are of interest to me.
• Checked the blog for new articles, tools and features to use and kept up with the happenings.
• Posted my thoughts and opinions on articles from the main blog that I thought would help other readers.
• Posted comments and feedback on articles from YOUmoz that I thought were interesting or unique.
• Composed a modest YOUmoz post to see what it was all about and how readers would respond.
• Kept posting comments on the main blog and YOUmoz.
• Thumbed up other user comments and posts that I liked for good thumb karma.
• Rarely thumbed down user comments or posts again for good thumb karma.
• Wrote another YOUmoz post on a topic I knew about and felt confident it would get a good response.
• Kept posting comments on the main blog and YOUmoz.
• Tried to be one of the first readers to comment as comments near the top seem to get more thumbs.
• Went to SMX advanced and met the staff members to put a face behind the name.
• Finally, kept posting comments on the main blog and YOUmoz.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts:

SEOmoz makes it easy for their readers to get a FREE premium membership and access to their unique tools, content and features such as the tips and tricks or QandA sections. All you need to do to EARN your free membership is be yourself, take part in their community and share any opinions or personal views you might have out loud. There really is no need to try and game the system they have right now. It just takes having a vested interest in the industry and their community. If you can manage to do the things I mentioned above you may find yourself getting chosen to be a FREE premium member.

Either way, I am convinced that even if you can’t win a membership it’s still worth every penny they charge!