Rand Fishkin’s Post

I've heard this quote dozens of times over the 15 years I spent in VC-world: "The best venture investors want their CEOs focused on growing the business, not worrying about making their rent." OK... But why does that only apply to CEOs? Why should anyone in a company with millions of dollars of backing and expectations to become an industry juggernaut worth hundreds of millions be struggling with personal expenses? If the logic of "don't-worry-about-life" pay applies to CEOs, surely it applies to anyone whose labor is important to the startup's success? I'd argue that CEOs optimizing for the best possible outcomes should make sure no one in their organization is underearning their expenses. p.s. On Tuesday at #Microconf in Atlanta, I'm talking to a few hundred startup CEOs about the 7 Deadly Myths of VC, and alternative ways to fund, build, and grow successful startups. This slide is part of that deck, which Rob Walling and co. may make available afterward 😉

"I want to research 30-something professional women in the US." Bad news. Technically, you can't do this directly in SparkToro. But, if you're willing to get creative, you can get back into it (and this type of words-in-bio based searching enables a lot of clever queries) 👇👇👇

Tomorrow morning at 11am Pacific: → Who sends traffic to the open web? Anyone besides Google? → How much? Where does it go? → What's changing? Is TikTok & OpenAI rising or falling? Reddit? Twitter? → How does traffic received compare to referrals sent? → What does all this mean for marketers? → How can we possibly know data like this? (hint: clickstream panels - we'll dive into what those are, how they work, & how you can use 'em, too) It's a can't-miss episode of #SparkToroHours with myself, Amanda Natividad, and Eli Goodman of Datos Inc. Registration details 👇👇👇

Gonna take you behind the scenes into a feature that only me, Casey Henry, and Amanda Natividad have access to.. because I really need your help 🤔 1) What should we call this new, search-chip-aggregation data section/feature? 2) What other data could/should we collect and include from the aggregation of these results that audiences search for? 3) Are URLs also valuable to you? How would you use them and what for?

Sometimes, your audience and customers are smarter than you are. This is one of the best reasons to pay attention to what people say about your brand online; not for reputation management, but for product and customer insight. Case in point: Kerry Campion 💾 of (possibly my favorite name for a copywriting agency yet) God Save the SERP 👇👇👇

"Can't #AI do that for us?" Look. I think LLMs have a ton of great use-cases. But they're also being broadly applied to solve problems and answer questions they have no business in. Came across a perfect example today that highlights how traditional data collection and reporting techniques compare to AI answers. Feel free to use it next time your boss/client/team tries to answer behavioral market questions with the output from LLMs (something I've, tragically, seen some of y'all recommending in my LinkedIn feed 😡).

Two things about #personas and how marketers tend to build them: 1) I think individual, made-up personas of "Marty the Map Enthusiast" or "Rena the Real Estate Agent" are generally worse than useless. What you really want is verifiable, actionable data, at scale, about hundreds or thousands of people who match your ideal customer profiles. 2) We gotta stop using LLMs/AI for this. ChatGPT can certainly describe a stereotype of a buyer, but that's all it is: a stereotype. Reducing people to the words most likely to come after other words is a foolish way to get a competitive advantage in what you create, how your position it, or how you market to them. Real data from real people is the only way. Surveys & interviews can do that, or... 👇

NEW: https://lnkd.in/gizChRR5 V2 of SparkToro is here. It no longer relies on Twitter (go suck on a lemon, Elmo 😎). And it's better than ever. If you want a free report, from a brand new tool, showing you exactly: - Who visits your website (demographically) - What they search for - Which other sites they frequent - Which social networks they use (and don't) - Which accounts, podcasts, YouTube channels, & SubReddits they follow V2 can do all of that. In seconds. For nearly any well-trafficked (English-language) website. It can also do the same thing for almost any Google search keyword. Don't take my word for it; give it a spin. We'd love to hear what you find valuable and what you want to see next. p.s. A huge congrats to my cofounder Casey Henry whose past year building this product has been a Herculean effort with (IMO) outstanding results, and to Amanda Natividad, whose tireless support and camaraderie made every part of the journey better.

April 16th, I'm co-presenting a webinar with Eli Goodman, founder of Datos Inc, because as an industry, we **underappreciate and underinvest** in clickstream data. Seriously. I've used clickstream panels to prove how serious Google's zero-click search problem has grown, to show which social platforms are growing and shrinking, to show who still sends traffic on the web and how much, and plenty more. That data isn't just valuable for big research projects; it can tell you incredible things about your competitors, your market sector, and your audience. So, please, join us on April 16 at 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern for Office Hours: https://lnkd.in/gQEF3GZm I promise it'll be an invaluable use of your time.