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Posts by Rand Fishkin:

Personal SparkToro Startups Team

The Chill Work Manifesto

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Shortly after Amanda Natividad joined SparkToro, she coined the term “Chill Work” to describe the unusually patient, mature, laid-back approach we take to building this business. And for the last three years, it’s become a bigger and bigger part of how I think about not only this company, but everything I do professionally. Today, I want to share a documentary…
5-Minute Whiteboards Agencies Industry

Why Digital Marketing Agencies Have it Tough in 2023 | 5-Minute Whiteboard

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
3 months ago, a dear friend’s agency closed for good. 2 months ago, another close friend had a round of layoffs at their firm. And in just the last two weeks, I talked to four agency owners who reported their first revenue-declining year in the last five. It’s rough out there for a lot of digital marketing agency owners. My…
5-Minute Whiteboards Marketing Predictions SEO

How to Future-Proof Your Marketing for an AI-Centric Search World? | 5-Minute Whiteboard

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Today, Google’s search results still look (mostly) like lists of snippets and links, e.g. But, plenty of search marketers and industry observers suspect we’re in the closing days of this format, and the future holds something closer to how AI-tools like ChatGPT and Bard answer user-inputted prompts, e.g. If that’s the case, what can/should marketers do to give themselves a…
5-Minute Whiteboards Advertising Analytics

Why the Least Measurable Marketing Channels Tend to Perform Best: 5-Minute Whiteboard

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Content marketing, social media, events, PR, and marketing through sources-of-influence have consistently produced remarkable results for the companies I’ve run, and yet, most big businesses invest 1/1,000th the effort and dollars in these tactics that they do in digital advertising. Why? Measurability and scalability. Let’s dig into this challenge (and how you can invest better) with this week’s 5-Minute Whiteboard.…
5-Minute Whiteboards Analytics Marketing Tactics

The 3 Big Problems with Asking “How Did You Hear About Us?” | 5-Minute Whiteboard

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Marketing attribution is dying. Ad blockers. Privacy laws. The death of third-party cookies. Keyword (not provided). Dark social. It’s an attribution-trained marketer’s nightmare. Knowing which channels and tactics truly had an influence on every sale is next to impossible. Unfortunately, many folks think the remedy lies in a simple survey question at the end of a signup or checkout process.…
5-Minute Whiteboards Advertising Marketing

If Your Marketing Mix Doesn’t Match Your Customer’s Journey… You’re Gonna Have a Bad Time | 5-Minute Whiteboard

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Imagine that you have perfect knowledge of how every potential customer starts their journey to learn about the kinds of solutions your business offers. And that in that hypothetical, 25% of those potential customers learn about solutions in your space by typing keywords into Google. That’s a pretty reasonable average across most industries, but… guess what? You’re putting 75, 80,…
Analytics Data Industry

We Analyzed Millions of ChatGPT User Sessions: Visits are Down 29% since May, Programming Assistance is 30% of Use

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Generative AI, and ChatGPT in particular have been catnip to the tech press, the mainstream media, and the conversations of professionals in nearly every field. How is it going to disrupt your work?! Will AI replace you? Are Hollywood writers, real estate agents, dog walkers, and anesthesiologists even useful anymore? In concert with the fine folks at Datos, whose opt-in,…
5-Minute Whiteboards Agencies Marketing Tactics

Why the Worst Search Marketers Start Content Strategy with “SEO Keywords” — 5-Minute Whiteboard

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
I’m worried. Worried that thousands of agencies, in-house practitioners, and even marketing leaders who should know better are STILL prioritizing their content efforts based primarily or entirely on keywords for search. I get it. 10 years ago, that practice worked. It still technically works in a number of fields. Prioritize keywords, create content, publish, get links and ranking signals, earn…
5-Minute Whiteboards Tactics

4 Ways to Distribute Content on Social Media | 5-Minute Whiteboard

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Tactically, there’s an infinite number of ways to promote via social media. But, when it comes to distributing content, there are just four categories of promotion that every technique fits under. What are they? Which one should you use? Should you adopt a mix or stick to a single system? Find out in this week’s 5-Minute Whiteboard: Transcript: Howdy SparkToro…

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