Category: Psychology

Marketing Psychology

Why “Optimization” is a Terrible Way to Think About SEO

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Sometimes we make assumptions that lead us in the wrong direction. I’ve made plenty, and I’ll continue to make them for as long as I’m alive. And sometimes, we’re inadvertently responsible for wrong assumptions made by others. When that’s the case (and we notice it), there’s an obligation to correct the misunderstanding. I recently encountered an example of this in…
Psychology Team

The Uncomfortable Balance

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Every CEO, founder, manager, and probably most all of us at some point in our professional lives have asked these two questions: Am I pushing the people on my team too hard? Am I not pushing the people on my team hard enough? These two nag at me all the time. There are days when I marvel at what Mozzers…
Personal Psychology

The Mathematics of Core Values

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Over the holiday weekend, Geraldine took me to see Lincoln. I’d watched a clip aired during the Daily Show last week that had me excited to see the film, and Fred Wilson’s post sealed the deal. That clip contained the following quote: Euclid’s first common notion is this:  ‘Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each…
Marketing Psychology

Broadening Our Thinking on the Practice of Conversion Rate Optimization

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Many times when businesses invest in improving online conversion rates, the practice goes something like this: Brainstorm a list of things that can be changed in the conversion process or on the landing page Determine which are easy to build/test Create a set of A/B or multivariate tests to run through them Allow winning changes to remain Unfortunately, this process…
Personal Product Psychology

Where Does Creativity Come From?

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
I love discovering that long-held wisdom or cultural beliefs are mythology. Ideas are so often what hold people back from achieving greater potential – and freedom from the prison of those ideas can create revolutions that make us all better, stronger, and wiser. This weekend I watched some videos on the site Everything Is A Remix that changed my preconceptions…
Personal Psychology

There is No Work/Life Balance

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
I recently started getting some CEO coaching help from Jerry Colonna, at Brad & Amy‘s recommendation. The first session was introductory. The second one was revelatory. We talked about the Ireland trip (which Geraldine wrote about here). It was a really tough one, and it shook our marital relationship more than I thought was possible. When Jerry and I talked…

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