There's no doubt about it - being a startup in any economic condition is rough, and in the current tumult, mind-bending challenges aren't out of the ordinary. However, I, like most other entrepreneurs I've encountered, am a staunch optimist and thus, even in the face of hardship, seek the silver lining. Tonight, I'd like to share a few of the diamonds in the dung pile that are closest to my heart.
I couldn't help but love Chris Yeh's Outline of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions. It's a fascinating look into the surprisingly predictable psychology that powers human actions and reactions, and I think there are some definitive lessons we can take away from the piece and apply to web marketing. Let's run through the list:
By keeping children and teenagers entertained back in the 1980s, Nintendo has claimed a spot in the heart of the present day internet generation. Nintendo's internet success is widely accepted yet largely undocumented. The tactics below reveal only the tip of the iceberg. ...
There's no two ways about it - SEO is hot again. In the last 6 weeks, SEOmoz has received a considerably higher than normal volume of requests for consulting. Alongside that, we've been getting calls from venture capital firms out of the blue - 7 to date - asking either about investments they're considering in the SEO sphere (and requesting insight) or literally asking whether SEOmoz would like...
Complete courses to master SEO basics
Learn Keyword Research like the pros
Win rankings and traffic from your competition
This month marks the end of my first year at SEOmoz. I have spent literally hundreds of hours learning and trying to perfect my SEO and marketing skills. Although, I still have a ways to go to catch up with my expert co-workers, I have made a lot of progress. I credit this to the people I have relied on and the many tools that have helped me along the way. The following is a c...
Earlier this year Rand did a white board friday talking about how to get an seo job. A couple of years ago Rebecca covered the SEOmoz hiring process, with a full re-cap of how Jane became a 'mozzer.
The news this week is pretty dire. On the heels of the US Government's bailout of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and AIG Financial, stock markets in the US, Russia, Japan and elsewhere are suffering tremendous losses. The NYTimes paints a linkbait-worthy, interactive picture of the financial industries collapse. If you're anything like me, this news brings on some anxiety and fear - neither of which a...
As promised last week and earlier today via our Twitter account, we have a new PRO guide to release today. Written by Darren Slatten, The Professional's Guide to PageRank Optimization is a fantastic resource on both the theory and mathematics behind PageRank, and on how SEOs can efficiently practice PageRank sculpting. ...
Tonight, I received an email with a familiar question, asking why the top companies providing SEO consulting and development services rarely ever provide guarantees (and virtually never use it as a marketing tactic). To this, there are three solid reasons that compel SEOmoz internally as well as the many companies we work with/...
Another business-focussed post from me today (with a little SEO at the end). I was answering a Q&A the other day in a kind of tag-team formation with Rand when I realised that some of my thinking would make a good blog post. The question was about how to grow a new agency and asked whether we thought that contacting site owners and pointing out flaws / suggesting improvements was a good way to win new business. Rand and I sung with one voice to say (paraphrased) that we weren't big fans of the cold approach and that networking (both online and offline) was one of the keys to success. I wanted to elaborate on that a little bit.
Not many people know that I actually attended the University of Washington in Seattle and worked, briefly, towards a degree in finance, thinking that I might join the ranks of Wall Street. It was a long time ago (in web years), and I dropped out of the program two classes away from graduation to pursue the company that would become SEOmoz full time (in 2001). Before I did, though, I met a ...
Owning a domain name is much like owning land. On top of that land you can build something valuable (or something you want to use yourself), you can sell the land on to someone else (with or without construction) and it has an address. Of course, this applies more to generic domains.
Frank Costello: [while eating crab] Do you know John Lennon? Billy Costigan: Yeah, sure, he was the president before Lincoln. Frank Costello: Lennon said, "I'm an artist. You give me a fucking tuba, I'll get you something out of it." Billy Costigan: [sarcastically] Well I tell you Mr. Costello, I'd like to squeeze some fucking money out of it. ...
You would think that if someone didn’t know what they were searching for, they would stop looking. Yet everyday, I talk to people who aimlessly spend their time and energy looking for some far away holy grail. As a SEO my quest for success is a little better defined. I want to work on websites that drive immense traffic, be at the top of competitive SERPs and most of all, I wa...