In late November/early December of 2015, I ran a survey of consultants and agencies asking deep questions about their structure, fees, employees, projects, and more. Thanks to responses from over 400 folks around the world, I’m able to share what I hope will be some of the most useful data from that project. Survey takers
It’s Official: I’m Writing a Book that Will Be Published by Penguin/Random House’s Portfolio
By Last week, I went to New York to pitch a book about transparency, startup struggles, and the last 15 years of Moz’s story to publishers. It wasn’t dissimilar from the VC-pitching process; lots of nervousness, waiting, hoping, and tension. But, midday Wednesday, after meetings on Monday and Tuesday, I received a phone call from my
My Complicated Relationship with No Longer Being CEO
By It’s been 22 months since I stepped down as the CEO of Moz and turned over the role to my longtime Chief Operating Officer and close friend, Sarah Bird. Since then I’ve recovered from depression, traveled to and keynoted dozens of events, started (and now nearly completed) a new product with a small team at Moz, and kept
What Do Attendees Want from Marketing Conferences?
By Over the course of a few days in mid-December, I ran a survey asking folks about their experiences at conferences and events in the marketing world. 248 people replied, primarily via Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn. Despite the small number of questions, I found the responses immensely valuable and quite interesting. A few even caught me
A Look at the Keyword Research Tool Universe in 2015
By In 2015, I’ve been pretty obsessed with keyword research and the tools web marketers are using to do it. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m working with Russ Jones (after our SERPscape acquisition) and a small team at Moz to build something in this space (and it’s now live! Moz’s new keyword research
Does Making a Website Mobile-Friendly Have a Universally Positive Impact on Mobile Traffic?
By From October of 2004 to April of 2015, Moz’s website remained entirely mobile-unfriendly. The experience on mobile, tablet, and desktop devices was the same, and if your screen was small, you had to pinch and zoom. Many of our readers complained and many more wondered why a technology company in the web marketing field would
How to Cheat at Creating Great Presentations for Tech & Marketing Audiences
By I speak a lot. I make a lot of decks. Heck, I’m even on the board of presentation software startup, HaikuDeck. In the last 3 years, I’ve given nearly 80 unique presentations at 100+ events in the technology and marketing fields. A good percent of the time, I get scores back from the organizers telling me how the
Why I Believe in Intentional Efforts to Increase Diversity
By Wil Reynolds is one of my closest friends. When I reflect on people I love, respect, and want to spend time with (even when I’m in my introvert state), Wil is on the top of that list (along with his wife, Nora). But, that doesn’t mean we see eye to eye on everything. In an on-stage
The “Pester Your Potential Lead Until They Hate You” Approach to SaaS Sales Sucks
By I caught this tweet from Peep Laja (someone I admire greatly and whose advice I generally think is gold) today: This was one of the rare times I disagreed with Peep (or at least with my initial interpretation of this tip), and so I replied, wanting to provide some nuance but limited by Twitter’s short-format.
The Traffic Prediction Accuracy of 12 Metrics from Compete, Alexa, SimilarWeb, & More
By Services that claim to predict the traffic websites receive have been around for 15+ years, but I’ve long been skeptical of their accuracy (having seen how poorly some have predicted traffic on sites whose analytics I accessed). In 2012, I ran a project to test the veracity of the numbers reported by some of these