SparkToro Blog

Posts by Rand Fishkin:

Personal Psychology

Just Because I’m Terrible at It Doesn’t Mean I’m Going to Stop

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
I think I might have some masochistic tendencies. Usually, when people are terrible at something, they find alternatives, or they stop entirely. I do that sometimes, but I’m also weirdly persistent when faced with an obvious lack of acumen for a skill or pursuit. In college, I was captain of the only flag football team not associated with a fraternity.…
Personal

Taking a week off of blogging

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
I’m heading to Ireland – Belfast & Dublin – for the next 9 days, so I’m going to take some time off blogging. It’s been a huge challenge writing every night again (haven’t done it in a few years), but it definitely takes a toll. Hopefully the week off will help.…
Hiring Team

Interview Questions and Interview Strategy

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
It’s struck me of late that many smart companies with reputations for giving tough interviews are weirdly anti-strategic in their approach to interview questions. Chatting with folks from across our organization (and a few others) who’ve done their fair share of interviewing with Google, Amazon, Boeing, the US State Department, Twitter, Facebook, etc. I’m struck by what seems like a…
Marketing Psychology

Two Psychological Triggers that Make Viral Content More Viral

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
I was particularly impressed last week with the political quiz website ISideWith. If you haven’t yet taken it for a spin, I recommend doing so, not because it’s likely to change your political affiliation (we might even have a genetic predisposition there that no evidence will be strong enough to overrule), but because it’s an excellent case study in effective…
Startups Team

It’s Not Just Technical Debt; Everything Gets Painful & Slow as You Scale

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
A tremendous amount gets written about technical debt (definition) in the startup ecosystem. As you scale your product and engineering, you inevitably make sacrifices for the sake of speed that lead to pain down the road. What startups (and people who interact with them) don’t often realize is that this same problem happens across nearly every team and every form…
Personal

I Love You Geraldine. Happy Birthday.

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Dear Geraldine, For the last 10 years and 9 months, you’ve been the best thing in my life. We’ve been through a bunch of tough times together and some amazingly good ones, too. And for the past 3 and a half years, you’ve been writing a love letter to me (that’s turned into much more than that). Today, I wanted…
Personal

I Hated My Blog Post From Last Night

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
This morning I woke up with a lot of regret. I really don’t like my blog post from last night. To use a common SEOmoz saying, it was “TA” but not “GFEE.” I shared my thoughts transparently and I authentically don’t like the “growth hacker” terminology, but why am I writing about that? It doesn’t help anyone and it tears…
Marketing Startups

Growth Hackers: The Ninja Rockstar Pirates of the Marketing World

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
I really enjoyed this article from Layered Thoughts: “Growth Hacking is BS. It’s All Just Marketing.” But, it did make me reflect on my adoption of other terminology over the years. In the early 2000s, I liked the term “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO) over “Search Engine Placement” (which some people still use) or “Search Engine Marketing” (which now means SEO+PPC…

Keep up with SparkToro®