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Posts by Rand Fishkin:

Moz Team

Diving Deep on TAGFEE

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
For the last 5 years, SEOmoz has lived by a set of core values collectively referred to as TAGFEE. The acronym represents the values we hold to be more important than any particular business goal (such as revenue, growth, margins, etc). And, though we believe that these values will help us be more successful in achieving those business-minded goals, we…
Data

Why You Can’t Trust Comscore’s Search Market Share Numbers

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Nearly every media source in the United States uses Comscore’s data to report on Google, Bing, Yahoo!, AOL and other engines. Even the US government, when analyzing Google’s potential monopoly status used these figures. Yet, this data is completely misleading. Here’s what Comscore says Google’s current market share looks like: Yet, many folks who run analytics on their websites see…
Personal

An Impossible-to-Live-up-to Hero: Chuck Feeney

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
When people ask me what I want to do with my life or what I’m trying to do with SEOmoz, I often mentioned Chuck Feeney, founder of Duty Free shops and the study of the book, The Billionaire Who Wasn’t. The New York Times recently wrote about Mr. Feeney’s efforts to rid himself of his last $1.5 Billion through charitable…
Marketing Startups

Exceptional Upgrade Path UX from WPEngine

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
I’m fascinated by the mechanics of startup marketing, customer acquisition, and revenue generation. So when I received this email for my WPEngine WordPress Hosting account (on which Dharmesh and I host inbound.org), I couldn’t help but get curious: It’s hard to list all the ways this email is a work of marketing art, but I’ll start with a few of…
Moz Startups Team

What’s the Right Team Structure?

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
As I often note on this blog, I’m a rookie CEO who’s gotten very lucky. Much of the time, I wish I had more experience in other corporate and startup environments, so I’d better know what works and what doesn’t. I rely on other team members and a lot of outside advice for that, and I’ve been thinking that maybe,…
Hiring Moz

Keeping Amazing People on the Team

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Many of my posts on this blog are intended to be broad in scope and provide an opinion, data or experience about startup/marketing paths. This one might not fit that pattern as well. Rather than describing my thoughts or collected advice from experience on startup talent retention, I’m going to instead channel feedback from our employees themselves on what keeps…
Hiring Startups

Why Cash Bonuses Make No Sense in Startups

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
It’s tough competing for candidates with the likes of Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook. In the past 6 months, we’ve lost bids for half a dozen or so engineers to these companies, and more than a few mentioned the additional cash bonuses as one of the reasons they were motivated to choose these companies over us. Despite this, I’m holding…
Startups

My Favorite Board Meetings

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
When we first raised an investment round in 2007, SEOmoz’s board of directors (consisting of Michelle Goldberg from Ignition, Gillian & myself from Moz, Kelly Smith from Curious Office and Sarah Bird as secretary/counsel) would meet nearly every month. Over time, that became every 2-3 months and now it’s quarterly. Unlike some CEOs, I’ve (almost) never dreaded or stressed for…

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