Podcasts about whiteboard friday

Jack Chambers-Ward is joined by guest Grace Frohlich, SEO Senior Manager at Brainlabs, to explore how to map user journeys and understand customer paths in search. Grace also shares insights into using AI to create detailed user personas and map motivations behind searches and practical steps for tracking user journeys and keyword tagging to enhance search strategies.Follow GraceBrainlabs: https://www.brainlabsdigital.com/ Follow Grace on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-frohlich/ Grace's article on Wix: https://www.wix.com/seo/learn/resource/user-journey-map-for-seo Grace's Whiteboard Friday: https://moz.com/blog/chatgpt-customer-journey-whiteboard-friday Grace's talk at BrightonSEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4_9Yj9yDUg Chapters00:00 Introduction to User Journeys01:56 Sponsored by AlsoAsked03:21 Introducing Grace Frohlich04:31 Understanding User Journeys07:16 The Importance of Search Intent15:03 Creating Bespoke User Personas20:16 Motivations and Non-Linear Journeys25:49 Search Intent and Motivations30:08 The Evolution of Search in 202530:22 Personalised and Conversational Search32:33 Integrating Social Platforms into Customer Journeys36:42 Milestones and Pain Points in User Journeys46:32 Tracking and Organizing Search Data54:34 Final Thoughts and Future Episodes

Kavi Kardos is an altruistic SEO evangelist with nine years' experience leading organic search strategy for top companies in entertainment, cybersecurity, education, and beyond. A former Mozzer, she is the creator of Moz Academy's Technical SEO Certification and a contributor to Whiteboard Friday and the Professional's Guide to SEO. Kavi is currently Director of SEO at Uproer. When she's not obsessing over spreadsheets, Kavi can be found hosting pub quizzes for Geeks Who Drink or watching baseball with a good drink in hand. In this episode, she discusses how to recognize toxicity in the workplace and know when it's time to leave an SEO job. SEOs often find themselves isolated at work, functioning as a team of one and/or reporting to stakeholders who don't fully understand and support their goals. She shares how she learned to recognize the difference between constructive and non-constructive feedback, how to take accountability for failure while keeping mental health a priority, and the lessons she has taken from her experiences into managing a team herself. She would like her WTS episode to serve as encouragement and empowerment for anyone in a bad environment to advocate for themselves and find the work that brings them fulfilment. We also find out what inspires Kavi and what empowers her to be the brilliant woman she is today.You can connect with Kavi through her LinkedIn and Twitter/X.You find this episode transcript and all other transcripts on WTS Website.Introducing #WTSPodcastThe Women in Tech SEO Podcast is THE podcast starring women in the SEO industry. We're on a mission to amplify all the brilliant women in our industry! Our guests share their story with us and what empowers them. Each episode provides you with tips and resources on how to navigate your career in your own way.Where to find Women in Tech SEO?Twitter: @techseowomen and #WTSPodcast Website: womenintechseo.comAny question about WTSPodcast? Ask our host on Twitter: @isaline_margot or via our Slack.

In this episode Cord & Einar review the best of "SEO Twitter" discussing topics like Facebook's profit nightmare (and why you should do SEO instead of Facebook ads), Google Search Console's new messages on max-image-preview, the 4th edition of "The Art of SEO," the new 2022 Web Almanac, how "Early Hints" can improve your Core Web Vitals, measuring E-A-T, 8 confirmed Google ranking factors, content hubs, and measuring topical authority. Sources Cited:@antoniogm  cites The New York Post: Meta's profits plunge more than 50% as ad revenue dwindles@rustybrick  tweets about Google Search Console Notices For max-image-preview@LeeFootSEO  shouts out  The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization 4th Edition@HTTPArchive  hightlights the new  2022 Web Almanac@alonkochba show how Early Hints can boost Core Web Vitals@creativetrnd spreads the word about @lilyraynyc's Measuring E-A-T Whiteboard Friday talk for @Moz@ahrefs on  8 confirmed Google ranking factors@aleyda links to a @sistrix list of Content Hubs Performance Leaders@jsvxc links to an Ahrefs study that uses a topical authority measurement method from @Kevin_Indig

Rand Fishkin, cofounder and CEO of audience research startup SparkToro, may be best known for his popular blogs and regular Whiteboard Friday series on Moz, the company he co-created and grew to 130+ employees, $30M+ in revenue, and traffic to 30M+ visitors/year. This series is watched by tens of thousands of marketers each week. He raised two rounds of funding for Moz, led three acquisitions, and a rebrand. Rand stepped down as CEO in 2014 during a rough bout with depression and left the company 4 years later. Rand was also the co-founder of Inbound.org alongside Dharmesh Shah. The site was sold (for no profit) to Hubspot in 2014.In 2018, Rand founded SparkToro and published, with Penguin/Random House, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World. Rand previously co-contributed to two books: Art of SEO, and Inbound Marketing & SEO. He's been profiled in the Seattle Times, featured in Puget Sound Business Journal's 40 Under 40, named to BusinessWeek's 30 Under 30, written about in Newsweek, The Next Web, the Inc 500 (to which Moz was named 5 years in a row), and hundreds of other publications. He is, however, most proud of his prominent appearances in his wife Geraldine DeRuiter's first book, All Over the Place. Geraldine and Rand are also small investors in TinySeed Accelerator, Techstars Seattle and Backstage Capital.Rand is also a frequent keynote speaker at marketing conferences around the world, averaging (before the pandemic) ~100 days on the road each year and 30-40 speaking appearances. He has, much to his own surprise, amassed a large following on Twitter, LinkedIn, Pocket, Facebook, and Instagram.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=44196766)

Externa signaler och länkar eller off-page SEO som det brukar kallas är viktiga faktorer för att synas väl i det organiska söket. Men vad innebär off-page SEO egentligen, hur viktiga är länkar idag och hur bygger man länkar på ett bra sätt. Det pratar jag om tillsammans med SEO-specialisten Alexander Öqvist i det här avsnittet. För även om det idag finns fler viktiga faktorer inom sökmotoroptimering så används länkar fortfarande som en viktig signal på förtroendet en sajt har. Att ha bra och väloptimerat innehåll samt en bra sajtstruktur är avgörande men för att verkligen lyckas med sökmotoroptimering krävs fortfarande bra och relevanta länkar. Inte minst om konkurrensen är hård. Så i det här avsnittet pratar vi länkar. Om gästen Alexander Öqvist är SEO-specialist och byråchef för byrån Synlighet i Stockholm. En norsk marknadsföringsbyrå som funnits i nästan 20 år. Dessförinnan ansvarade Alexander för Danske Banks svenska webb och ledde arbetet med SEO i Norden. Han har lång erfarenhet av SEO såväl inhouse som på byrå och har inte minst arbetat specifikt med off-page SEO. Alexander har dessutom suttit med i juryn för allt från Svenska SEO-priset till Nordic SEMrush Awards och European Search Awards. Om avsnittet Vi börjar avsnittet med att Alexander förklarar vad off-page SEO är och vad som innefattas i begreppet mer än länkar. Han förklarar bland annat vad som kännetecknar en bra länk och vilka faktorer det är som bestämmer det. Och hur viktiga länkar är idag. Alexander går även igenom vilka huvudsakliga strategier och taktiker det finns för att bygga länkar. Vi pratar också om hur hans arbetsprocess ser ut kring länkar med allt från analys och strategi till genomförande och utvärdering. Du får dessutom höra: Vilken som är Alexanders favorittaktik Vad som menas med relevanta länkar Och vilka länkar många sajtägare missar Alexander förklarar även hur man bör tänka kring att bygga länkar för en ny respektive befintlig sajt. Och delar sina bästa tips för att bygga fler länkar. Det finns som vanligt länkar till de resurser som nämns i avsnittet här nedan. Och efter länkarna hittar du tidsstämplar till olika sektioner i avsnittet. Länkar Alexander Öqvist på LinkedIn Synlighet webbsida Synlighet på LinkedIn Synlighet på Facebook Moz (verktyg) Ahrefs (verktyg) Google Search Console (verktyg) The Authority Hacker Podcast (podd) Whiteboard Friday (video) Search Engine Roundtable (webbsida) Artiklar om länkar på Moz.com (artiklar) Artiklar om länkar på Ahrefs.com (artiklar) Tidsstämplar [3,01] Vi pratar om vad off-page seo är och vad som ingår i det mer än att bygga länkar. Allt från mentions till sociala signaler och EAT. [5:15] Alexander beskriver hur länkbygge och de taktiker som används har förändrats under de år han har arbetat med SEO. Framförallt de senaste 10 åren där det har hänt väldigt mycket, inte minst med Google-uppdateringar som Penguin. [6:52] Vi pratar om hur viktiga länkar är idag och varför det pratas ganska lite om att arbeta med länkar numera. Alexander berättar även hur hans ser på hur länkars roll i SEO-arbetet har förändrats samt hur Google ser på att arbeta med att länkar. [9:07] Alexander förklarar vad som kännetecknar en bra länk och de faktorer som bestämmer det. Vi pratar sedan vidare om domänstyrka, vad som avgör den och vad som är en normal sådan i Sverige. [12:35] Vi går vidare och pratar om ankartexter som är en viktig faktor för styrkan i länkar och hur man ska tänka med dessa. Samt hur viktig ankartexten kan vara för att ranka på specifika sökord. [14:10] Alexander förklarar hur viktig placering på sidan och typen av länk är. Vi pratar sedan om huruvida nofollow-länkar fyller något värde idag. Och att inte glömma att tänka på att länkar även kan driva trafik och inte bara ett SEO-värde. [16:35] Vi pratar om vad det innebär när man pratar om att länkar ska vara relevanta samt om det är sajten eller innehållet som...

My guest on this episode of Suds & Search is Joy Hawkins. Joy is the Owner and Founder of Sterling Sky. She is one of, if not the, most recognizable Local SEO personalities in the world. It's hard for me to think of anything in Local SEO that Joy isn't at least somewhat involved in. She has spoken at every major Local SEO conference… most of them multiple times. A shortlist of places you might've heard Joy present includes Mozcon Local, SMX, Pubcon, and Whitespark's Local Search Summit. She is the owner of LocalU, the most important conference series for Local SEOs in the world. LocalU is more than just a conference series though. The Local U website a go-to destination for Local SEOs looking to level up their Local SEO knowledge by reading blogs, listening to podcasts, and following their newsletter. Joy is also one of the most important bloggers in Local SEO. You can read her column at Search Engine Land. She frequently publishes content over at Local U and on the Sterling Sky company blog. I'm going to ask her a few questions about a Whiteboard Friday she did for Moz back in October about what Local SEO tactics improve rankings and which do not. In addition to her responsibilities at Sterling Sky, Joy is involved with two important forums. She is a Platinum Google Product Expert at the Google My Business forum and she is the owner of the Local Search Forum. I'll start our conversation by asking her about her involvement in both of those important forums. Joy has assembled an all-star team of digital marketers over at Sterling Sky. In 2020, BrightLocal nicknamed her staff the “Sterling Sky dream team.” Carrie Hill, Mary Bowling, Colan Nielsen, and Brian Barwig are just a few of Joy's impressive teammates. I'm going to ask her what it's like leading this talented team of professionals. Grab something cold to drink and join me for a conversation with Joy Hawkins. We'll talk about why it's harder than you might think for Google to clean up GMB spam, what factors on GMB actually improve rankings, and we'll spend a little time talking about the board game Dominion. Listen to Suds & Search Podcasts: Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9teXNvdW5kd2lzZS5jb20vcnNzLzE1OTUzNTQ3MjgwNTZz Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/suds-search-interviews-todays-search-marketing-experts/id1526688363 Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5ALxRpeDgIvg63bK6eoUTe SearchLab 1801 W Belle Plaine Suite 107 Chicago, IL 60613 (312) 256-1574 Catch SearchLab on these platforms: https://www.linkedin.com/company/searchlabdigital/ https://www.facebook.com/SearchLabDigital https://twitter.com/SearchLabAgency https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3kf-yP3bwhI6YvFFeKfegA Suds and Search Video Series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqSrUsIw8Jit8A6IwPpFw7IPKuuyGF0Ii Local Search Tuesdays Video Series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqSrUsIw8JiuxY0eDWZr7Us_WgNNP-GDnSubscribe to Suds & Search | Interviews With Today's Search Marketing Experts on Soundwise

This week we talk to Kameron Jenkins, SEO & Content Lead at Shopify.We talk about her beginnings in the agency world as an SEO and digital marketer at Scorpion Design, her rise within the company to VP of SEO & Content Strategy, how she began working with Moz (and her first Whiteboard Friday episode), her transition to Botify, and finally how she landed at Shopify. We also cover managing large teams as well as how Kameron has created a great personal brand.For our topic of the day, we cover the most important aspects and biggest pitfalls of creating content with SEO in mind. We talk about areas where SEO does and does not overlap with content marketing, working with content teams, using analytics to inform and guide content strategy, and passage-based indexing.Finally, we answer Twitter questions of the week --- and award another Page 2 Podcast t-shirt!

Since startups are fundamentally different from regular businesses, the way they should be structured is also very different. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday talks about what factors you should look at while incorporating your startup so that you do not end up making changes frequently and saving much needed efforts and time during critical events like fund raising etc. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

ESOP has been one of the most critical tool in startups to attract and retain talent. This makes it imperative to implement ESOP effectively and efficiently to gain maximum advantage from the same. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday talks what an ESOP is, what are the various important aspects that you should know if you are planning of implementing ESOP in your startup. It also looks at important regulatory aspects and process to be followed so that its a great experience for both the startup and employees. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

The Government of India has been making changes to existing laws and compliance systems to make it faster, easier and more responsive for startups, thereby making India a preferred Startup destination and boost the overall ecosystem. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday talks about such changes that has been implemented and how it impacts your startup. This will help founders to tap the true potential of Government's policies and make best use of them while fostering their startup. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

The Startup India program is designed to boost the ecosystem in India and help them grow faster through multiple incentives and support extended by multiple Government agencies. Over the years it has been refined and made more attractive and really useful for startups. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday talks in details about the Startup India program and help you understand it completely. Right from the incentives it offers, the eligibility criteria and real benefits that you get when registered with them. It also talks about whether and how you can go about registering and getting enrolled to the program. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

When you are raising investment, the investors will conduct a detailed due diligence on various functions of the startup. A due diligence is very different than a regular audit that your CA undertakes for sake of regulatory filings. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at due diligence on various Internal policies of your startup. This is wide area covering almost all policies and practices that have been implemented across the startup, e.g. financial control & tracking, HR policies & employee benefits, terms of service, Privacy policies & systems etc. This gives you an insight on what the scope of due diligence shall be, what documents are needed and how you can accelerate the process by ensuring readiness of the key documents. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

When you are raising investment, the investors will conduct a detailed due diligence on various functions of the startup. A due diligence is very different than a regular audit that your CA or Lawyer undertakes. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at due diligence on Legal Agreements & Contracts. This is a critical aspect and covers all types of agreements the startup has executed till date e.g. employment contracts, services agreements, shareholders agreement, terms of use, privacy policy, mentor/ advisor agreements etc. This gives you an insight on what the scope of due diligence shall be, what documents are needed and how you can accelerate the process by ensuring readiness of the key documents. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

When you are raising investment, the investors will conduct a detailed due diligence on various functions of the startup. A due diligence is very different than a regular audit that your CA undertakes for sake of regulatory filings. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at due diligence on Payroll functions of your startup. This is an important aspect as it covers all transactions related to your team, freelancers, contractors etc. This gives you an insight on what the scope of due diligence shall be, what documents are needed and how you can accelerate the process by ensuring readiness of the key documents. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

When you are raising investment, the investors will conduct a detailed due diligence on various functions of the startup. A due diligence is very different than a regular audit that your CA undertakes for sake of regulatory filings. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at due diligence on secretarial records of your startup. Secretarial due diligence has been a single most important aspect that could delay the process severely if they have not been maintained properly. This gives you an insight on what the scope of due diligence shall be, what documents are needed and how you can accelerate the process by ensuring readiness of the key documents. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

When you are raising investment, the investors will conduct a detailed due diligence on various functions of the startup. A due diligence is very different than a regular audit that your CA undertakes for sake of regulatory filings. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at due diligence on taxation & compliances status of your startup. This gives you an insight on what the scope of due diligence shall be, what documents are needed and how you can accelerate the process by ensuring readiness of the key documents. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup ##funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

When you are raising investment, the investors will conduct a detailed due diligence on various functions of the startup. A due diligence is very different than a regular audit that your CA undertakes for sake of regulatory filings. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at due diligence on accounting functions. This gives you an insight on what the scope of due diligence, what documents are needed and how you can accelerate the process by ensuring readiness of the key documents. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup ##funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

“Your job is to make good decisions. Hopefully great decisions!” Rand Fishkin is one of the best SEO resources currently working: from his early days at Moz to the market research and audience intelligence firm SparkToro, to his popular Whiteboard Friday series, Fishkin knows how to max out marketing. These days, he's putting his considerable energy into helping small businesses thrive, and helping founders avoid the endless IPO chase.Fishkin started as a college dropout who went into business with his mom. From these unconventional roots, he's grown into an SEO expert who has kept on top of the shifting trends and best practices. He shares with us how thoughtful market research helps boost small businesses, how un-creepy audience tracking really is, and how a bowl of bolognese helped him bounce back from losing a $13M deal.Join the conversation on Facebook in our #imakealiving group, where you can chat about challenges, find resources for success, and stay connected with other entrepreneurs!  GUEST-Rand Fishkin- Website--

When you are raising investment, the investors will conduct a detailed due diligence on various functions of the startup. A due diligence is very different than a regular audit that your CA undertakes for sake of regulatory filings. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at what a due diligence means, how it is different than an audit and various timelines that you should be aware of while undertaking a DD. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup ##funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

If you have an Indian subsidiary, either as a cost centre or a profit centre, any international transactions done with the parent entity or any other of your own company, qualifies for transfer pricing. Transfer pricing is essentially a markup that is arrived after detailed study of multiple factors and business conditions. This markup leads to the Indian subsidiary being profitable. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday explain in detail the concept of Transfer pricing, what are the ways you can arrive at calculating this and how do you go about the same in your setup (cost vs a profit centre). For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #doingbusinessinIndia #eLagaan #nextbigwhat #makeinindia

If you have an Indian subsidiary, either as a cost centre or a profit centre, you need to keep it compliant under various applicable laws. These law vary from Company to FEMA to Taxation to Labour to Regulatory etc. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at applicable laws for both cost centre or a profit centre and what you should be aware of to keep your startup compliant. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #doingbusinessinIndia #eLagaan #nextbigwhat #makeinindia

If you are looking to do business in India, you can set up a company in multiple ways like Private Limited company or an LLP depending on what your objectives are - Cost centre Vs Profit Centre. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at option available to get started in India along with various tax implications that you should be aware of. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #doingbusinessinIndia #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

Conditions subsequent (popularly known as CS) is a list of activities that investor requires a startup to complete immediately after they put in the money. This includes things like allotting shares to investors, appointing them as director and many more activities derived from the findings during investor due diligence. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at this list and what's their impact is, and how to plan for it so that committed tasks are done on time which is critical from SHA's implementation. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

Conditions precedent (popularly known as CP) is a list of activities that investor requires a startup to finish before they actually put in the money. Many tasks in this list is derived from the findings during investor due diligence. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at this list, what's their impact is on your fund raise process and how you can try to optimize this list in order to get the investment amount earlier to your bank. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

Rand Fishkin has founded many platforms like moz.com, Whiteboard, inbound.org, and Whiteboard Friday before his latest platform, SparkToro. Listen as he shares his journey with Geordie Wardman. He also gives extensive details about SparkToro, an audience intelligence platform that allows marketers to understand websites that an audience reads. Marketers can use this platform to know who their target audience follows on various social media platforms.  What You Will Learn How Rand dropped out of college and the events that followed  How Moz was established How Moz evolved and achieved success in revenue generation Hy did Rand leave Moz? How is Moz different from SparkToro? How Rand and his co-founder started SparkToro Alternative content marketing strategies that companies can use How the audience intelligence product works How did the SparkToro launch go? What are Rand’s marketing plans? In This Episode: Education is critical, but sometimes it takes dropping out of college to become one of the most successful SaaS or SEO gurus available. Rand, for example, dropped from college in 2001 to join his mom at a marketing consulting company. This company would later become Moz. Then, the company was a struggling web design venture, forcing Rand to launch an SEO blog. This blog attracted lots of consulting customers who were interested in SEO services. Rand and his team would later launch some software, nascent tools that interested parties could subscribe to. To their amazement, demand for the subscription product skyrocketed, and that is how they raised part of their venture capital. The success of Moz did not stop here, and you can get all the details from the podcast. Listen to figure out how Rand became CEO, and how the company experienced exponential growth before Rand finally left to establish SparkToro. Rand discusses the venture model in detail. If you are an entrepreneur looking to launch a company, you need to listen to Rand’s wise words. Rand says he and his co-founder own SparkToro entirely. Listen as he shares more details on SparkToro with Geordie. For years, Rand has been a passionate marketer, and many people sought him for assistance on SEO matters. However, Rand made a critical discovery about SEO and search. Listen as he shares the discovery with Geordie. Rand discusses the frustrations entrepreneurs have to deal with when it comes to identifying potential customers from different parts of the world. He tells Geordie that together with his co-founder, they decided that no one should go through these troubles. Listen to find out what they did to achieve that milestone. Rand mentions that while he works with his co-founder, they have hired some experts to help them during their journey. Listen to Rand explain how the audience intelligence works, how it helps collect data, and how they use the data to develop a validation system. Rand explains that he believes in a marketing flywheel model. Currently, Rand says he is excited because they have a diverse market and extensive applications. One of the strategies online marketers use to attract traffic is through guest posts and links. However, Rand says that this method hardly works unless your platform is SEO based. According to him, many of the links you use for SEO hardly send back traffic. The SparkToro system is different because it sends you high-quality traffic. In this case, you would not need a link because your objective is to get coverage and awareness. Rand says that email list building has been one of their most successful marketing strategies. Still, he is quick to mention that, together with his co-founder, they are hesitant about sending people too many emails. They only strive to send emails that will be beneficial to you. According to Rand, SEO, or SEM (search engine marketing) are not a terrible strategy, but they are risky. He explains this concept in detail and concludes by saying that some businesses have come tumbling down for relying on search exclusively. Rand opines that investing in social media and content marketing that does not depend on SEO, but the quality of content is a great idea. Marketers should invest in content that leaves an impact on people so much so that they would miss it if it were unavailable. Rand has some sentiments about podcasting as well. Listen as he shares what he thinks and how you can use them to your benefit.    Resources Rand Fishkin Moz.com Rand Fishkin LinkedIn SparkToro SparkToro Product Rand Fishkin Twitter

Founders may need to sell their shares to 3rd parties (partly or fully) depending on their requirements. Sale of shares is a regulated process agreed with investors and other shareholders of the company. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at what steps and proceeses needs to be followed in case founder or any other shareholder is interested in selling their shares to existing shareholders or an independent person or entity. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

Today’s guest on the Majic for Life Podcast is Rand Fishkin Rand is the author of Lost and Founder:  A painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World.  After building and growing  SEOmoz, In 2018 he founded Spark Toro A software that helps you Instantly discover what your audience reads, watches, listens to, and follows. Rand is known for his popular blogs and regular Whiteboard Friday series, watched by tens of thousands of marketers each week. We are super excited to have him on the show today.   Check out sparktoro and find out more from Rand using the links below: https://sparktoro.com/ https://sparktoro.com/blog/

Though Founders hold a substantial stake in the company during incorporation, they need to go through a vesting schedule to protect their interest in the company. This schedule can start from incorporation or subsequent funding rounds depending on investor negotiations. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday talks what founders vesting is, how the logistics of it generally works out and various scenarios in which a founder exits or get terminated. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

When you raise money, the investors want the founders to stay back and run the show. Although you may have agreed for a reverse vesting schedule, but while onboarding investors they may ask for few years of lock-in for founders. This is critical from a strategic and company's perspective. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday talks what implications founders lock-in brings and helps you understand the implication around this clause so that you are aware and be prepared for acceptable terms. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

When you raise money, many times the investment may come in tranches instead of single shot. The tranches could be linked to time, milestones or both. The tranches are committed now and released when the underlying factor is complete (time/ milestone). The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday talks about what impact the tranches could bring to your overall fund availability, the risks that you should be aware of and how you can go about it while negotiating your investment round. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

While raising investment, you will liquidation preferences clause in your SHA. This clause impacts how investors are paid in events of M&A (mergers & acquisition) or during liquidity of the company. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday talks about what factors or variables can be brought in liquidation preferences and how negotiations can be done around it with investors. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

For founders who are not related to each other (like husband-wife, father-son etc.) it is important to enter into Founders Agreement covering important working relationship between founders and vesting schedules for founder's share holding. This document is a must for due diligence when you are raising money from professional or institutional investors. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday talks about what importance of founder's agreement and what are the aspects that should be covered to make it safe for each founder & the startup. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

When investors come onboard, they ask for anti dilution rights to protect themselves from any down trend in valuation of the startup in future. Startup should issue additional shares for free to existing investors whenever this gets triggered. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday talks about what anti dilution rights are and how you can bring few dimensions to make it a close ended option for investors & startup and still be fair. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

As investors come on board post investment, they need regular updates on various aspects of startup followed by review meetings. Sharing accurate MIS on agreed timelines is very important. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday talks about the various metrics that investors look for and other data that they need for their review and evaluation purposes. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

Life of startup founders change a lot after raising money. The new investors comes on board and is also involved in many decision making and operations of the company. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday tries to offer a glimpse of how things change and what steps founders should take to ensure smooth running of company, setting up your unique culture and maintaining great investor relations. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

In between term sheet and signing the SHA, every investor conducts a detailed due diligence on various aspects of a startup to ensure that they are investing in a right startup and that there will not be any surprises in future from a regulatory or legal point of view. The extent and duration of due diligence depends on the age, stage and amount of investment, but if you have prepared for it well, you can reduce the time frames drastically. Shorter due diligence time means faster time to bank the investment amount. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday gives you a complete insight on investor due diligence and the steps you can take to make sure its done smoothly in quickest time possible. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

Investment is not just about valuation and stake. There are multiple avenues and opportunities where founders can strike a great deal for the startup with tactful negotiations. These options can become a bigger pain or gain during the whole lifecycle depending on how well you have handled it. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at some of these aspects and explain the impact it could bring on a startup. How you can strike a great deal if you have taken care of these points during your fund raise. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

Before a startup receives the actual investment amount in their bank account, the investors, founders and startup execute a share subscription & share holders agreement (SSSHA or SHA). This is an important and elaborate legal document which is binding on all sides. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at critical components of a SHA and how it could impact not just the controls or investor relationship but also the day to day working of startups. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

Term sheet is the most important strategic document that a startup gets while raising money. It is more critical than the share holding agreement or share subscription agreement (SHA or SSSHA) as all the crucial terms of the deal are agreed at term sheet stage. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at how you can go about evaluating your term sheet and what aspects can make or break or significantly impact the startup & founders in short to mid to long term. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

For every startup valuation is of paramount importance. When you are raising money, it is important to understand and know what valuation is being discussed - Pre-money or Post-money? The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at both the aspects of valuation, What they are and how it impacts the stake offered to investors significantly. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

The current capital structure of the startup is called a cap table. It contains details of various stakeholders and their holdings alongwith the type of instrument they hold. It gives a clear and crisp picture of all investments made in the startup from date of incorporation till date. An authoritative piece of information that is referenced during a fund raising exercise. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday helps to explain the concept of cap table and how you can go about preparing one for your startup with ease. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

For startups who are raising investment, it helps to understand the ecosystem, the various stakeholders and what roles they play. It is also important to have an understanding of what factors interests an investor so that the chances of you striking a chord with them improves. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at some of these aspects and gives an insight about types of investors, sizes of investments and what kind of research may help strike the chord. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

When you are trying to raise your first funding round, this episode shall help you to understand what preparations are needed before you reach out to investors. Tips and recommendations may help improve the funding potential and optimize the efforts. The current episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday looks at how you can receive money in shortest time possible after getting a term sheet. The suggestions are recommendations to reduce the time it takes to finish investor due diligence and bank the investment amount as early as possible. For queries: hello@eLagaan.com #startup #funding #eLagaan #nextbigwhat

Rand Fishkin is the CEO and Co-Founder of SparkToro, a new software company that makes it easier for you to connect with your audience in a less expensive and more effective way. He’s dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through the Whiteboard Friday video series, his blog, and his book, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World.

Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz and co-founder of SparkToro, has an unrivaled wisdom and candor perfect for podcasting. Over his years at Moz, Rand led marketers to a deeper understanding of SEO,  armed with a well-placed whiteboard and an impressive mustache. Now Rand is bringing us SparkToro, a software product that opens up information on your audience you can’t see anywhere else. Listen in as Rand candidly discusses what it’s really like to go through dark times as a founder, how content marketing has changed in the past ten years, and the type of tech companies he imagines will be founded in the coming years. LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Rand’s marriage proposal commercial and appearance on Oprah with wife Geraldine  The Whiteboard Friday series on Moz James Damore, Google engineer fired for writing manifesto on women's 'neuroticism,' sues company Rand’s book: Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World https://youtu.be/PxZsE5CmmaA WebCertain TV April 11, 2019: Rand Fishkin talks digital marketing trends in 2019 “When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people”.- Abraham Joshua Heschel Interview with Barry Schwartz on rustybrick: Rand Fishkin Of SparkToro On Early Days At Moz, SEO Community, VC Funds & More (Part One) and Part Two RAND’S BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS: April Dunford's "Obviously Awesome" Liz Fosslien & Molly West Duffy's "No Hard Feelings" MUSICAL INSPIRATION FOR THIS EPISODE ON SPOTIFY: "Humble and Kind" by Tim McGraw ABOUT THIS PODCAST Stayin' Alive in Tech is an oral history of Silicon Valley and technology. Melinda Byerley, the host, is a 20-year veteran of Silicon Valley and the founder of Timeshare CMO, a digital marketing intelligence firm, based in San Francisco. We really appreciate your reviews, shares on social media, and your recommendations for future guests. And check out our Spotify playlist for all the songs we refer to on our show. 

Rand Fishkin is the cofounder and CEO of https://sparktoro.com/ (SparkToro). He's the chairman and ex CEO of https://moz.com/ (moz.com) He's best known for his popular blogs and Whiteboard Friday series, as well as his book, https://amzn.to/2zQGrCt (Lost & Founder). He proposed to his longtime girlfriend, Geraldine in a TV commercial! An all round great human… On this episode, we discuss vulnerability, creating content & whisky!

Sponsors Sentry– use the code “devchat” for two months free on Sentry’s small plan Adventures in DevOps Views on Vue CacheFly Panel Erik Dietrich Summary Erik Dietrich does a solo episode sharing his content marketing expertise. Erik runs a content marketing agency, Hit Subscribe, he starts by sharing his background and how he got to this point. He defines marketing as a strategy to show your goods to your customer, content marketing is doing this with content. He explains that by offering free content you build trust with your audience. Listing the various types of content, blogs, video, podcasting, email and more, Erik ranks them on their effectiveness and gives his recommendations.   Start with one source of content and make it sustainable, this is Erik’s first recommendation, once you have that down, expand but maintain that sustainability. Unless your situation is desperate, Erik encourages everyone to start content marketing. He explains the benefits, filtering out clients that are a bad fit, finding leads, and the value of an audience. He also explains that content marketing is the long game and to manage your expectations while staying motivated. Erik leaves the listeners with valuable tips for how to get started and to maintain and how to grow your content marketing.  Links https://www.hitsubscribe.com/ https://devchat.tv/freelancers/choosing-content-marketing-topics/ https://devchat.tv/freelancers/228-fs-non-writing-content-marketing-methods/ https://www.facebook.com/freelancersshow/ Picks Erik Dietrich: Hit Subscribe’s Youtube Channel Whiteboard Friday Ahref’s Youtube Channel

Sponsors Sentry– use the code “devchat” for two months free on Sentry’s small plan Adventures in DevOps Views on Vue CacheFly Panel Erik Dietrich Summary Erik Dietrich does a solo episode sharing his content marketing expertise. Erik runs a content marketing agency, Hit Subscribe, he starts by sharing his background and how he got to this point. He defines marketing as a strategy to show your goods to your customer, content marketing is doing this with content. He explains that by offering free content you build trust with your audience. Listing the various types of content, blogs, video, podcasting, email and more, Erik ranks them on their effectiveness and gives his recommendations.   Start with one source of content and make it sustainable, this is Erik’s first recommendation, once you have that down, expand but maintain that sustainability. Unless your situation is desperate, Erik encourages everyone to start content marketing. He explains the benefits, filtering out clients that are a bad fit, finding leads, and the value of an audience. He also explains that content marketing is the long game and to manage your expectations while staying motivated. Erik leaves the listeners with valuable tips for how to get started and to maintain and how to grow your content marketing.  Links https://www.hitsubscribe.com/ https://devchat.tv/freelancers/choosing-content-marketing-topics/ https://devchat.tv/freelancers/228-fs-non-writing-content-marketing-methods/ https://www.facebook.com/freelancersshow/ Picks Erik Dietrich: Hit Subscribe’s Youtube Channel Whiteboard Friday Ahref’s Youtube Channel

Another speaker from the Mozon conference, Paul Shapiro is the person behind one of the most important SO subreddits, /r/bigSEO, he has a very unique blog on Search Wilderness and runs a Technical SEO conference. Here are his slides from the presentation, and you should go and check out his blog post, where you can find all the code that he talks about in the presentation. Redefining Technical SEO, #MozCon 2019 by Paul Shapiro from Paul Shapiro Here is the transcript of the podcast: Paul Shapiro: There are four types of technical SEO. [music] Peter Mesarec: This is Time for Marketing, the marketing podcast that will tell you everything you've missed when you didn't attend the marketing conference. [music] Peter: Hello and welcome to the Time for Marketing, the podcast that brings you all of the information from the marketing conferences that you have missed or were not able to attend. This is episode number 23. We are big into our second year of podcasting. My name is still, from the beginning to the end, Peter and I'm your host for the podcast. If you love the podcast, of course, go and subscribe. If you would like to be on our newsletter or mailing list, you can find it on our website timeformarketing.com. All of that just to start off because we have to go directly into our content. We have a great guest here with us today. Paul Shapiro, hello and welcome to the podcast. Paul: Hi, Peter. Thanks for having me. Peter: Paul, you live in or around New York. How is living in one of the best, biggest, and other great things, cities in the world? Paul: It is the best. It's the best to be living in the best city. [chuckles] Actually, I just moved from Boston although I'm from the area originally. It's nice to be home. Peter: Do you people from New York regularly take a stroll down the-- I just forgot the name of the giant park that you have down there. Paul: Central Park. Peter: Do you just daily go there or is that another thing and we just only feel that Hollywood movies show that to us? Paul: It's not that close to where I am currently. Growing up as a child, I used to always go to Central Park. It was definitely a place where I spent a lot of time. New Yorkers certainly go to Central Park and it's been fine there. Peter: One of the best things that I've thought about New York is that you are in probably the greatest metropolitan area, but you can take the subway, Paul, where you call the local train directly to the beach and you can go swimming. It's very close and this is a really great thing. Not a lot of big cities have things like that. Paul: That's true. I think I probably take enough for granted, but it is nice. Peter: Paul, right now, people probably know you. You've done a lot of great things on the internet, especially people that like to work on and about SEO. There is a nice quote they found about you on the internet. It says, "In a world filled with shitty blog posts that rehash the same info in different ways, Paul's articles are always a treat to read." You are the partner and head of SEO of the catalyst agency and you are the founder of the big SEO subreddit. Tell us a bit more about how you got into SEO and why do you think that SEO is if you do think that SEO is the best channel in the world. Paul: I got into SEO by no spectacular means. I think a lot of people in the industry have much more impressive stories than I do. It was the job that I got into right after university. I'd graduated, had a mild interest in marketing, and actually was looking to get into social media marketing and couldn't find any jobs. At least no companies were willing to hire me for such a role. It just so happened that in my formative years in high school and earlier, instead of working a typical retail job or McDonald's, I did freelance web design and development. I didn't even know what SEO was when I graduated, but I applied to one SEO job and I got that one. I was educated afterwards why it was such a great fit for me. I've been working in the industry ever since. Peter: All right. You are known for a separated big SEO. It has become one of the important parts of where people go to find SEO-related questions. Do you think that reddit as a community has an added value compared to other maybe Slack communities or Telegram communities or even just websites? Paul: Yes. It fills an interesting need. I'm on a lot of Slack communities and private chat rooms. They're great because you're only talking to certain people. It's completely private. That information is not going to be shared around. It serves its purpose and then there's much more public channels and there is reddit, which is in between. It is both a public platform. People can see what you're saying. A lot of people tend to anonymize themselves. They don't use their real names. They use pseudonyms. They create new accounts just to ask a certain question. There's a level of privacy. People could be a little bit more real in a way while still making a public statement or asking a question in public. I think we've done a good job and we still try to make big SEO a place where we can have someone to facilitate that communication in the industry. Peter: Yes, that is all true. Let's go to the topic at hand. You spoke at MozCon 2019. You're actually the second speaker for MozCon in row. I just spoke actually a couple of hours ago with Luke Carthy. He is the episode before you, the episode number 22. How was your experience of MozCon? Was this your first time at-- Paul: Yes. MozCon is a fantastic conference. It's one of the few in the industry that I would recommend. The other being in the conference that I founded TechSEO Boost. It's a conference dedicated to technical SEO. It was my second MozCon. I've been to MozCon once before back in 2015. I always had this yearning to come back. It was a pleasure for me to be actually asked to speak and present on technical SEO at a conference that I truly respect in the industry. Peter: Okay. Your presentation was really finding technical SEO. Here are your five minutes so that you sum up your presentation and then we'll talk about it. Paul: The presentation was redefining technical SEO. Started out painting the picture of the SEO, but we've been taught of having three different pillars, being we're catering to relevance, which is content strategy catering to authority, which is link building, link development, digital PR. There's this third one, which is "technical SEO." That traditional definition of that technical SEO is things that pertain to basically crawling and indexing, which in some ways is a limited definition and a definition that sometimes creates a schism in the industry. You have people that gravitate toward a creative content side of things and your people that gravitate towards the technical side of things. This results in some fighting. You have articles. One of the bigger ones that came out was this technical SEO is makeup by Clayburn Griffin on Search Engine Land, which was quite inflammatory. It was making the point that it's not too hard to get technical SEO to a point that is good enough, but content is in some ways more difficult to achieve. I don't disregard that. I don't think it's wrong. I think the reason why people come to that conclusion is because they are defining technical SEO wrong. In my conference, we had speaker the first year, Russ Jones from Moz. He had a definition for what technical SEO is. I don't have the quote right in front of me, but I'll summarize it as, "The application of a technical skill set to other facets of SEO." Clearly, this definition encapsulates a whole lot more. I posit even further that there are four types of technical SEO within that. The first one is what I called checklist technical SEO. This is things that pertain to crawling and indexing but are automatable. There are tools that can help get you there. In some ways, you can completely automate the task. There's general technical SEO which, again, are things that pertain to crawling and indexing, but they're little higher skill, less automatable. For instance, finding a bug in the CNS that is hindering crawling. That would be an example of a general technical SEO versus checklist technical SEO, which would be checking the box. Does this web page have a canonical peg that's properly formatted? The third bucket is what I call blurry lines, technical SEO. There are series of jobs that often fall to us as SEO practitioners. They're somewhat technical, but they're not necessarily meant to be the job of the SEO. I could easily fall to someone who works in content web development. I'm talking about things like page speed optimization, web performance optimization, advanced analytics implementation. Again, things that fall with a SEO practitioner but aren't necessarily a SEO and they're quite technical in nature sometimes. The last bucket, which I focused most of my presentation on, which was what I call advanced applied technical SEO. This is really the application of those technical skill sets to all areas of SEO. I went through a series of examples of how you could write a computer program to do a natural language processing analysis to enhance on-page copy. Doing on-page SEO is not inherently a technical SEO task. When you start applying concepts like data science and other areas of engineering and these technical skill sets, it could be a technical SEO task. I went through the gamut. I went through link building, how you can automate things with Wayback Machine and the Moz API and pull insights for content variation and apply machine learning, and when you start to look at technical SEO this way as being a source of talent and skills applied to all areas of technical SEO that it becomes much more important and certainly as a makeup. Peter: All right. That was excellent, especially the last point of the three I think is very important for people. Every SEO should obviously, from what we had in your presentations. be a bit of a programmer. The main question usually is how much of a programmer should I be? Where should I go and how much should I learn to be a great SEO? Paul: I would say this. There are some clear advantages to knowing some programming. By all means, I don't think it's necessary to be an expert programmer. Working an SEO, I do think it will help you if you are. What I do advocate for is understanding computer programming a little bit, understanding the underlying logic, being able to write very, very simple programs. There's clear advantages to having that as a skill. One is that you'll understand how all the puzzle pieces fit together. When you're working with an engineering team or a developer on a website, you understand where they're coming from. You could communicate to them better. They'll have more respect for you. They're more likely to take you seriously. You'll make better suggestions and you'll be able to do some more of these more sophisticated things. Furthermore, getting these very, very basic skill sets is not that challenging. There's a million in one places to learn this online and, honestly, get the basics done in probably a 30-minute YouTube video. That's my position. Peter: Of course. A lot of the things, you can just program with Google Docs and Google Sheets with a bit more of a technical knowledge that you need to go and check all the boxes in [unintelligible 00:14:46] to do your technical audit. Technical SEO is usually seen as something that is really important with big websites, especially e-commerce websites that have millions of URLs where crawl budget is important, et cetera. How important do you see a technical SEO for companies that have smaller websites, especially for B2B companies? Paul: Well, I think it's quite logical when you look at it from a larger website perspective. You have all sorts of crawling and indexing issues that can emerge due to scale. When you look at that broader definition that I presented in my MozCon presentation of being the application of technical things in other ways, I think it's quite applicable to small pages. If you're writing a better web page, whether you have five pages on your site or a hundred or 10,000 or a million, being able to enhance what you're doing there, for instance, it doesn't matter how many pages you have. You're doing better work. Peter: All right. Can you give us a couple of places where people can go and learn technical SEO? Of course, one of them is your website Search Wilderness. The subreddit, big SEO. What are the other places? Paul: You can check out my MozCon presentation on SlideShare. My blog searchwilderness.com is littered with examples. There is an upcoming Whiteboard Friday on Moz where I talk a little bit about this topic. Lastly, I've mentioned my conference. My conference is free. We only have a limited space in person, but we make everything available online to these streams and all past recordings are also available. Check out that. Peter: All right. This is our 17-minute mark and we should be wrapping it up. Paul, tell us where can people find you and what are your future conference plans so that people can come and listen to your presentations. Paul: Yes. My personal blog is searchwilderness.com. The agency I work for is Catalyst. It's catalystdigital.com. My twitter account is by fighto, F-I-G-H-T-O. I'm posting there all the time. In terms of conferences, I am speaking at UnGagged in Los Angeles in November. In Europe, I am speaking at SMX Advanced Europe in Berlin and We Love SEO in Paris. They're both end of September and beginning of October. Peter: All right. A couple of times, you're coming to Europe. Well, my next task is to go and check out all of the presentations or recordings that you have from your conference. I must say I haven't really heard about your conference in the past. I'm from Europe, you're from up there, so it's a big place. That's it. Thank you very much for being on the podcast and I hope to see you around. Paul: Yes, it's my pleasure.

Rand Fishkin is the founder of SparkToro and was previously co-founder of Moz and Inbound.org. He’s dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through the Whiteboard Friday video series, his blog, and his book, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World. When Rand’s not working, he’s most likely to be in the company of his partner in marriage and (mostly petty) crime, author Geraldine DeRuiter. If you feed him great pasta or great whisky, he’ll give you the cheat code to rank #1 on Google. Show highlights 1:51 Rand introduces himself, his background and what he's up to at SparkToro. 3:59 Moving from an SEO specific role at Moz to a broader influence-related one with SparkToro. 5:43 Going beyond Instagram and YouTube and taking a holistic view of how people are influenced. 15:05 Rand's Twitter algorithm experiment where he found it prioritizes comments over retweets and likes. 17:37 If Instagram hides likes will it impact third-party companies that depend on using them for data? 22:42 Ste asks Rand if he thinks we're moving into an era where 'traditional' disciplines are merging. 26:03 Keeping up to date with SEO changes and trends is a daily practice. 27:09 Influence... not Influencers. Rand's presentation on why the current field of influencer marketing is too narrow. 31:58 Rand's advice on building a brand in an era of where we're up against the search and social algorithms. 34:44 Influencer marketing in the B2B space. 39:15 The algorithmic censorship of reach. 42:50 The one book Rand recommends everyone should read. Resources/people/articles mentioned in the podcast SparkToro Rand on Twitter Rand's book, Lost and Founder Rand's wife, Geraldine, wins James Beard Award Engagement analysis of Facebook Live and YouTube watch times vs podcast listen times Jack Dorsey wouldn't introduce the like button if we was starting again Instagram creator accounts Instagram is testing hiding likes Rand's Slideshare deck - Influence... Not Influencers No-click searches SparkToro's trending section Rand's To Retweet or Not To Retweet flowchart Student mocked on Tinder now modelling Asos dress Rand's book recommendation No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work Hardcover BookFosslien, Liz (Author)English (Publication Language) View on Amazon

Conversation with Rand Fishkin, the CEO and Co-Founder of SparkToro, the previous co-founder of Moz and Inbound.org, who has dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through the Whiteboard Friday video series, his blog, and his book, “Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World”

Aaron and Darren jump into things as we officially launch The SaaS Venture. Our topic for the episode is "The Hard Things" and we each share one of the difficult things we accomplished in 2018.The full show notes are below the helpful links.Helpful links from the episode: GatherUp Whitespark Local Search Ranking Factors 2018 LocalU Advanced conference FULL SHOW NOTES00:08 Aaron Weiche: Alright. Well I guess there's no going back. We are officially launching episode one, The Hard Things.00:15 Speaker 2: Welcome to the SaaS Venture Podcast, sharing the adventure of leading and growing a bootstrap SaaS company. Hear the experiences, challenges, wins and losses shared in each episode. From Aaron Weiche of GatherUp and Darren Shaw of Whitespark. Let's go.[music]00:44 AW: Welcome to the SaaS Venture. I'm Aaron.00:47 Darren Shaw: And I'm Darren.00:49 AW: And we have finally decided to abandon or move away from all other ways of communication and get into this podcast thing and super excited to be bringing you guys through our world of trying to lead and manage and grow our SaaS companies, which both GatherUp and Whitespark are bootstrapped, and share just some of our day-to-day and month-to-month activities and what keeps us up at night, or everything else that goes in with it. And Darren I was trying to go through my head and figure out when was it... I know we were at a conference, but we were talking about doing a podcast together. It was some time ago, but I can't remember where it started.01:34 DS: Yeah, you proposed the idea at MNSearch Summit. It was in the after-event at some pub that was right across the street from where the conference center was. And I was actually FaceTiming with my Violet, so having a little FaceTime with my daughter, and you actually came in and had some FaceTime with her, and then after that little call you're like, "We should do a podcast." And I was like, "Yeah, that sounds fun." And so we talked a little bit about it.01:57 AW: That makes sense, where it was like some learning, some mental stimulation, being around smart people at a conference and then mix in a few beers. And that's when the big ideas happen.02:09 DS: I think that's how every podcast starts really. [chuckle] A few beers are required.02:14 AW: I don't know if I've heard anyone else document that so we might be the first to admit to it.02:18 DS: Maybe, yeah. Yeah, I'm excited. This is gonna be good. There's so much to talk about and it's a new, I often talk about local search things, but this is talking about running the business, it's a new topic for me to share with the world, so I'm excited about it.02:33 AW: Yeah, me too. Same thing, both of us speak at a ton of digital marketing and other types of conferences where we're asked to come in and give... For me, it's how to get more reviews and customer feedback and customer experience and it's so tactically driven a lot of the times. And I think both of us were really intrigued by this to share more of running a business, things unique to a bootstrap SaaS company, and all of those other aspects that we really don't get to talk and share a lot about, and it's also content that we're constantly seeking out ourselves through podcasts and articles and things like that.03:07 DS: Yeah, and I think it's gonna be highly educational for me as well. Just getting a chance to chat with you on a regular basis, and then even thinking about these things like, "Okay, I wanna talk about this process that we're dealing with with our pricing page," or whatever and spending the time... Knowing that I'm gonna talk about it in the podcast, I'll put a little bit more effort into it. So [chuckle] I think it's gonna be great for helping drive my own personal development as well.03:30 AW: Yep, I totally agree. So even if we only get two downloads out of the gate, we will chalk this up as a success, because you and I are talking on a pretty regular basis in order to make this happen.03:42 DS: Yeah, definitely. [chuckle]03:43 AW: There you go. There's a byproduct always of wins in everything you do.03:46 DS: Absolutely.03:47 AW: So just as we touched upon this first episode of The SaaS Venture, we wanted to look at the hard things, and this got me thinking. Just this last week, I put out a tweet because I was frustrated to myself. There's a couple internal projects that are just on my plate here at GatherUp and I started looking at all of the external things I do between speaking and selling and traveling and recruiting and hiring, as we're growing our team and all these other aspects. And probably one of the hardest things for me to do are internal projects, for me personally. Where it's working on a better intranet type system is one of the things on my plate. And I was feeling really frustrated because I was having a hard time carving out the time and being able to focus on it and that led me to thinking for our first episode topic and we're starting the year here recording this in January. We'll see when we get it edited and aired. But just reflecting back of like, "Well, what was my hardest thing in 2018?" And when I looked back at that, it was another internal project, it wasn't mine, just personally, but it was an internal project for our company and that was re-branding. We used to be called GetFiveStars for the first four and a half years of our company's life, and we re-branded to GatherUp on September 17th; it sticks out in my head very, very well.05:13 DS: Why did you re-brand? What was the motivation to get a new brand name? 05:17 AW: Yeah, it's one of those multi-facets, like many fingers on the hand pointing in that direction. One, I can tell you from day one, I've been with the company for over three and a half years, is one of those things that just as like a gut check never aligned with me. I'd like to say that I'm kind of a brand marketing guy at heart, is just kinda in my core. And so, in my gut, it didn't sit right. Then we had just kind of other pieces where we had... Sometimes we would get someone who would tell us your name feels kind of spammy because it feels like I'm gonna buy five star reviews. If I purchase services from GetFiveStars, I will get five star reviews.06:00 DS: Yep.06:00 AW: As we went up channel in our customers and started having bigger customers, we had a couple that were using the company Five Stars, which is a loyalty. And they were like, "Man it's really hard to talk about you guys and talk about Five Stars in the same meeting. And he's just like, [chuckle] "Why don't you change your name?" That was kind of comical but I was kinda like, "Yeah, I kind of agree with you." And then just looking at longevity of things like we have GatherUp now, we just finally got word that we're officially registered, trade marked. That was never gonna happen with the word GetFiveStars and it was just kind of like GetFiveStars felt tactical where GatherUp feels like a brand. So it was kind of a collection of all of those things that really signaled to us that we need to start looking for a new name.06:47 DS: That makes sense.06:48 AW: Now the process of that, that's a pretty interesting process, right? There is kind of like all these little steps and hurdles. The first part is trying to figure out a name, that might be the hardest part, because so many other things after that, are steps and processes and things you document and checklist and whatever else, where the initially figuring it out is extremely difficult. At first we tried to do it by committee with the four or five of us that we kind of call our executive team, within our company. And it really kind of fizzled out after that. And then to be honest, there's just a lot of... And I know not many people want to admit this, but a lot of late night texting with Mike Blumenthal, where he and I just, sending text, "What about this? What do you think about this?" And you'd kinda judge if it had any legs, based on how long it took the other person to reply. [chuckle]07:42 DS: Right? Yeah, it's like, "if there's a long silence then it's maybe not a hit."07:47 AW: Yes, yeah, you kinda knew it wasn't there. And I don't remember what it was or how or whatever else, but I was doing a lot of working and researching thesaurus.com, and looking into all kinds of other things that were related to what we were doing, but yet unrelated, and things like that and GatherUp just kinda came into place and was one of those like, where sent it across to Mike and got kind of a... Nothing gives you a yes. Most of the things that you sent across, a couple will get you like a maybe, right? 08:16 DS: Right. Did you start at the domain registry searching. You've gotta be able to get the domain, so how did you... You've gotta start there, right? 08:25 AW: Yeah, totally. When you're an online SaaS company, anything but the dot com to us was just non-negotiable, so...08:34 DS: Yeah, same here. Whitespark.ca. [chuckle]08:37 AW: Yeah, so going through that, and that was its own deal, it was like, "Yeah, okay, gatherup.com was not being used by anything, which is a great sign and we were able to figure out it was for sale but then luckily we had a contact who had recently secured a domain name for a friend of ours and his SaaS business, so we went through him. Definitely one thing I learned from my wife, being a very successful realtor over the years is negotiating with emotions is a really bad idea. So to have someone represent you in that domain name was definitely helpful because I definitely got emotions, where we're looking like, "Oh this could be the future of our company," and the other side's looking at like, "Well, how do I maximize and make the most out of something that somebody wants in this moment right now?" That can really cause some of that back and forth to be skewed a little bit.09:28 DS: Yeah, are you happy with the price you paid in the end? 09:31 AW: Yes totally, we were willing to go probably at least two to three times as high as what we paid for it, we paid in the thousands of dollars and we had kinda capped and said like, "Alright, if it comes in and it needs to be this much here's what we're willing to go." Because we looked at it like, "This is an investment in our future, we feel good about it, and we're willing to go that high." So the amount wasn't so much, it was one of those... It was an interesting process. Let's just say the domain owner was somebody who lives off the grid, wants to stay off the grid, so his kind of payment request and process were not a normal process for purchasing a domain. [chuckle] But anyway, basically between briefcases of cash, we ended up securing...10:15 DS: Is it drop them in by drone or something? Briefcase... [chuckle]10:18 AW: It was darn [10:19] ____. If I laid it all out...10:20 DS: It's [10:21] ____ up a mountain.10:22 AW: Yeah, if I laid it all out you'd get a good laugh. And it was kinda one of those things too where it's talking about the emotions. A couple of people in our company where just probably ready to quit at that point 'cause this person didn't make it any easier. Mike and I were at the point where we're like, "Hey, well, if this is something super sketchy or fraudulent, we'll put up the funds for it, the company won't be out." We're betting that this is a little strange, but the world of domain-ing is strange. So it just was what it was.10:47 DS: It was worth it. I struggle with it myself, because I once had the opportunity to get whitespark.com. When I registered my company, which is a local Edmonton web developer and so I didn't really care. I was happy to get the dot CA and whitespark.com was owned by a company in Portugal who was an engineering firm and I was like, "Okay, whatever. They're far away, it's not gonna really impact me." But then they went out of business, the name went up for auction, and I joined the auction, but I screwed up something. I never got the domain. So now it's floating out there and every once in a while they hit me up and they're like, "Hey do you wanna buy this domain?" And I'm like, "Sure I'll offer you this much." And they're like, "My client thinks the domain is worth six figures." And then I just laugh it off and I never bother doing it. So it's really annoying. I would like to have the dot com, but don't six figures want the dot com.11:35 AW: No. Well, keep after it. I feel like sooner or later, I believe in you, I think you can win that battle.11:41 DS: Thanks man, I appreciate that.11:43 AW: And then it got easier. Our Twitter handle, we ended up... There's another great one. It was registered 10 years ago by a gentleman in Australia and Mike Blumenthal went all the way down to... 'Cause the guy wasn't active on social media at all, but Mike ended up finding out that he coached his kid's rugby team, and he went through the President of the rugby club to reach this guy.12:08 DS: Wow, that's a story right there. That's a whole podcast.12:10 AW: Yeah, totally.12:11 DS: We've gotta get Mike on.12:12 AW: And I think we had a part with either $500 or $750 for the Twitter handle, but completely worth it and the experience of tracking him down was a story within itself.12:23 DS: Nice.12:24 AW: Yeah. And then once you kinda get past those pieces and you have the right thing and everything else, a lot of it on our side was just looking at a lot of processes and documents.12:34 DS: So many things to update, yeah.12:35 AW: Oh my gosh. And our biggest goal was don't mess this up. We have thousands of customers with a daily experience and the master plan was rolling everybody into this new brand. We had given our customers a heads up as we got towards the tail end, but we didn't wanna disrupt service and transfer everybody from one domain to another, and there was some architectural things that were different. We went from... Our app was running just at getfivestars.com and we moved everything to a sub-domain for GatherUp on app.gatherup.com for a number of different reasons. So just not messing up was the biggest thing. But, yeah, we created a spreadsheet basically by department in the company and here's everything that engineering needs to do, here's everything sales and marketing needs to do. From changing Zoom accounts, email addresses to what's on an invoice, here's what billing has to do. There's this giant spreadsheet that for months we just looked at and kept picking things off and just made sure like, "Okay... "13:38 DS: Adding things too. 'Cause like, "Oh, I forgot about this." There must be so many little things that you kept remembering. "Oh we have to change this, we have to have to update that."13:44 AW: We still had a few stragglers here and there afterwards, but you just stay focused and work hard on the details and you have everybody on the same page, and it went really well. I couldn't have been more proud of our team and the effort and the work that they put in. Engineering especially, they replicated environments, we had no issues related to the transfer at all. Replicate environments, then transferred all the data. Everything went perfectly smooth. I was counting on being on some 48-hour bender, never sleeping, fixing things, talking to customers, apologizing. You plan for the worst, right? [chuckle]14:23 DS: I would expect that too. And as a reseller, we resell GatherUp at Whitespark. I was really impressed that your communication as well was fantastic. So all of your client communication in your email newsletter and your blog and your social feed did a really good job of making sure that the communication was clear and the transfer was really seamless for everybody. So I think it was really impressive.14:49 AW: Thanks. I appreciate that. We definitely learned a lot of things out of it. I think what you hit upon, communication is so key. You see it so many different ways. I think it was just last week on Twitter, there was a big flare up because Drip raised prices and the way they communicated it and the stipulations they gave, people were all up in arms and it was just one of those reminders to me as a leader in our company, how important it is to communicate early and often. And honestly, those are really big things in ways to engage your customer base that keep them as a strong community and believing in you and trusting you and spending their money with you.15:28 DS: Yeah, definitely. And it's one of the things that I think we need to work on and improve and I think it comes from me as the leader of the company, sometimes I'm not the best communicator and I need to make sure that when we launch something we have a bit of a communication plan around that. So planning communication is part of the piece that we often don't put enough time into. And after this podcast though, I'm gonna much better.15:53 AW: There you go. Sometimes it's just being self-aware of what it is. There's a whole another podcast for us, self-awareness. I'm big into that. We can go and do a lot of things there. I have my own things to work on.16:06 DS: So what are the biggest wins? How did it benefit the company? 16:10 AW: So to me, there's two things that really stand out is one, being able to take this from scratch approach and truly create a brand and have so much cohesiveness and touch all the small things and really create it the way you want, was really, really important. Because our site and our messaging and so many other things over four and a half years kind of got Frankensteined together, and that's understandable with a startup. You're just happy sometimes to live for the next day, and you're not really thinking far out into the future. And I really took that approach with this and was like, "Alright, how do we best tell our story and how do we get to those pieces?" I really have seen that take hold with how we wanted that to work out for us in our brand positioning and messaging and things like that.17:03 AW: And then the second thing I looked at is it was such an internal win for us because it allowed us to tighten up the things we talk about internally, and define our why so much better. We built out core values for the first time in our company, which might sound crazy to some but we always... We're just doing the work and we kinda sorta knew why and what we made decisions off of. But we're really able to nail these down. In some regards I felt like I was cheating because I had... It wasn't just putting them out there into the air, we had years of doing this. So it was just like how do we tighten that up. And it really turned into something that when it all came together, I really saw our team all come together.17:45 DS: Nice. And then how about the reception? How the clients, customers, everyone received the new name change. Any complaints? Everyone's generally happy with it.17:55 AW: Yeah. I would say 90-95% was all... Customers are great. When you do the right things, they support you, they cheer you on, they share it for you. Some people... Change is always hard for some. Some will be like, "Great. I have to retrain myself this, and where to log in and what to call you guys." There was definitely some small pieces of that but the good far outweighed it and people were really like... I felt like they saw what our vision is. That we're not just about reviews, we're about creating a connection between the customer and the business, and they already saw it in our features and now we're putting this wrapper on it that best represents it.18:33 DS: Yep, nice.18:34 AW: Yeah, and really the only big scary thing was just... We are 99% inbound marketing, and so switching domains and ending up in that Google sandbox, and for us it was a five to six-week sandbox, that was scary stuff.18:50 DS: So, yeah, that 301 redirect, so you're gonna redirect all your relevant pages to the equivalent page on gatherup.com, but that doesn't flow immediately, it takes, what, five to six weeks for you? 19:00 AW: Yeah, yeah, it took us five to six weeks, so it was just daily of doing searches, and monitoring things in Ahrefs, and consulting others that are out there, "Have you seen it happen this long?" There was just so many things, and finally when we started seeing a branded result and site links and things like that, and you start to see things tick up in Search Console, you're like, "Yes, yes, we're coming out of it." [chuckle]19:25 DS: Well, that's interesting. I thought Google would be a little quicker with that. Five or six week seems like a really long time for them to get the pictures, considering that you've gone into Google My Business and changed the entity name, you 301 redirected the whole site, it's shocking it takes Google five to six weeks to get it all resorted out.19:44 AW: It was shocking. I wanted it to sandbox for five or six minutes. [chuckle] Not five or six weeks.19:50 DS: Yeah. That's what you'd expect, you think Google's so smart these days, right? 19:53 AW: Yep, totally. So I would say if anyone else, if you're facing this, if you're gonna do it, that's one thing you have to consider, especially if you're heavily dependent on inbound, it's gonna be more than a blip on the map, and you've gotta be willing to wait it out. And in our case, too, we also had great... I went back to people who had written articles in the past 30 days that were still fresh and asked them to change and update link... We tried to do everything we could to send the strongest signals possible, anything to wriggle us out of that sooner than later, but yeah, it ended up a month and change until we were out.20:26 DS: Yeah, a brand might actually consider planning for that and allocating additional budget for PPC and other marketing, paid marketing, in order to cover the loss you're gonna get from organic marketing in that period.20:40 AW: Yep ... Nope. Smart. I should have done that. That was definitely one thing we didn't consider, we were...20:44 DS: You didn't know. You didn't expect five to six weeks, did you? 20:46 AW: No, no. We were so consumed. I definitely expected a couple of weeks; I expected two to three weeks, but it really doubled. So that was definitely a hard thing about the hard thing.20:57 DS: Great. There's our first big teaching moment in the podcast. [chuckle] Anybody listening, if you ever do a re-brand, prepare for a five to six-week downtime in your organic traffic.21:08 AW: Totally. Well, enough of putting me on the spot, I wanted to get to... As we were talking before this and before hitting record, I find your hard thing really interesting because what yours is is a hard thing is putting together a giant study, and you definitely do that. You have taken over the Local Search ranking Factors report on a yearly basis. And I would just love to hear more about and ask you a couple of questions around what is it like putting together something that has so many opinions, is that massive, and then ends up on such a visible stage to people? 21:49 DS: Yeah, it's a pretty hard thing. But it's funny, because I have this very positive outlook on things. Before I do something, it seems so easy. It's like, "Oh yeah, no problem. I'll be able to get that done in two weeks." [chuckle] And then after I do something and it's in the past, I'm like, "That was no problem." But when I'm actually working on it, when I really think about it, it was a ton of work, and there were a lot of challenges that I had to face through it. So I think it's very applicable for our hard things topic.22:16 DS: So let me just describe what it is, because not everyone that listens might be familiar. So it's called the Local Search Ranking Factors, and it was originally conceived and executed by David Mihm; he prepared this study for, I think, eight years before he handed the reins over to me. And what he started with was he would send out a spreadsheet and ask the 30, 40, 50 top notable local search experts to rank the factors that are driving local search. And so each year he would add new factors and remove factors that aren't applicable anymore, and it was a spreadsheet thing, and you would just drag the factors that you think have the most importance versus the least importance. And so when I took over, I would basically execute it the exact same way.23:03 DS: And so some of the really hard things are chasing people down. So first it's like, "Are you gonna participate? Hey, can you get this back to me. I'm still... " So you're trying to chase people. And then another thing that I did this year, which was maybe a bit too ambitious, was I wanted to take it out of the spreadsheet format. Instead of dragging factors in a spreadsheet and copying and pasting, which was kind of clunky and difficult and challenging, I wanted to use a drag and drop survey tool. I looked at maybe, I don't know, five or six of the top survey tools, and none of them really offered the features that I needed, so we decided to build our own. So we put it together and we now have a little tool that we created that allows participants to just drag the factors in and really do it easier and simpler.23:53 DS: And another benefit to that is that now everything gets saved to the database, and so I now can run queries to run the analysis. And so it was really nice, actually, one of the first times... I haven't touched code in a long time, but I wrote all of these SQL procedures in order to extract the data, and I felt really proud of myself for actually writing some code, 'cause I don't do that anymore, my developers do not let me touch code anymore. [chuckle] Yeah.24:20 AW: This sounds like you might have built a whole new product. We might need to start talking about how you're gonna go to market with this. [chuckle]24:26 DS: That is a challenge. We're always building things, and I think, "I could sell this." I was like... [chuckle] We already have way too many little things at Whitespark, that's part of the problem.24:35 AW: Yeah. So between all these things, Darren, you're getting it all put together, you're building software to make it easier for people to do it, you're chasing down participants. What's your time investment into this report each year? 24:49 DS: It's really hard to estimate, but if I had to give a number, I would say maybe 300 hours roughly; 300 hours went into it. It's a lot of time, a lot, a lot of hours, and that's over months and months and months. So it's first reworking the form. What are the things that need to be changed this year, what are factors that need to be taken out, building the software, it's refining the software, it's chasing people, getting answers, going back and forth 'cause some people actually had problems with the software where it wouldn't save their answers, and so dealing with those kinds of things. And then after that, okay, let's say everyone took the survey, great, I have all the data. Then I spent a ton of time extracting all the analysis, so I'm analyzing the results and trying to get the numbers. I'm reading through all the commentary, trying to pull out information in there.25:35 DS: And then I'm preparing slide decks 'cause I took it to SearchLove London, and that was the first place I presented the results. And then I had another conference a week after that, so I had to prepare two slide decks. And then it's getting it ready to publish, so it's extracting all of the content and putting it into a resource format. It's writing up my take on it, preparing a blog post that pulls out what are the high-level take-aways. Oh, and then I also flew to Moz to film a Whiteboard Friday on it. And it even still comes up. So let's just be clear, I am not complaining. [chuckle] The beauty of it is that it's this non-stop marketing engine for me because... And I just got invited to go and speak at the Local Search Association, so he wants me to present on the Local Search Ranking Factors. Great, I already got that stuff and I know [26:25] ____ so it's really nice to be able to continue to reuse this as marketing over and over. And I got to present on a bunch of different webinars. And so it's a lot of work, but with a lot of reward. And so I love it quite a bit; it's a really fun thing to do.26:41 AW: Yeah, no, I mean, it absolutely gives such an authoritative stance by being the one to pull it together. And I think... I look at... I did it for four or five years when I was more hands-on and still running a digital agency before David even made it drag-and-drop, David Mihm who originally started it. And I remember feeling like this is a lot of work to fill out this spreadsheet when I got it, much less have to wrangle it all together and everything else, but...27:13 DS: Yeah. Yeah, I remember actually spending a good five, six hours just doing the survey as a participant.27:18 AW: Yeah. Well, and it was kinda nerve-racking, too, because I always looked at it like, "Oh, when David reads this, is he gonna think I'm dumb compared to someone else's opinion? Is he comparing these really hard against each... Is he doing his own ranking on who's actually intelligent or not?" It was nerve-wracking.27:34 DS: Right. It's an intelligence score, he scores everybody based on how close your answers are to his.[laughter]27:43 AW: I can see that happening.27:44 DS: Yeah, I totally felt that way taking it, and it's something you don't take lightly when you do that survey, you wanna make sure that what you're putting out there is your best effort, because it is evaluated by David himself, and then a lot of commentary gets read by everybody that does local search, so yeah.28:02 AW: So you touched on a number of the things from obviously the positioning as an authority, and an industry influencer, and all the different conferences and talks and things like that. What are some of the SEO benefits? Can you turn that into anything tangible for us to understand what it gives off in that, and backlinks and mentions and all that kind of stuff? 28:25 DS: Yeah, it's hard to measure. I bet you I could do a little bit of research and figure out how many times Local Search Ranking Factors and Whitespark are mentioned together, and then find all the ones that are actually linking, but it's a ton. Every time you publish this, there are so many links that go out. And I publish it on Moz, I don't publish it on the Whitespark website, so a lot of those links are going to Moz, which is fine. But another big benefit is Moz has a huge audience, so it puts me in front of Moz's audience, which a lot of enterprises follow, and so it has this really great marketing reach, and it really establishes me as one of the top influencers in local search as the person who executes this study. And so, yeah, it gives us a lot of clout, we get a lot of leads and calls because of that position, and so its dollar value is impossible to measure, and marketing value is impossible to measure, but it is... You can feel it.29:23 DS: After we publish this thing, you can feel the number of contacts really increase at Whitespark. The number of emails that I personally get that then end up turning into various forms of work, people either signing up for our software or contacting us for enterprise work. You really notice it after doing something like this. And then, of course, more invitations to go and speak at conferences, which then leads to more of that. So there is a huge benefit, and I really have to thank David for passing those reins to me, it's been a massive gift. And he's done such a great job of preparing this; he really just handed it to me on a silver platter, and I couldn't be more grateful. That guy's amazing.30:04 AW: Well, I would agree with that. I like David as well. I think you're doing an outstanding job with it. I like the fact that even when you look at it, you consider the process and how you could improve it, and your software and product side of you led to figuring out efficiencies with that and how you can make it easier to extract data and run queries against it and everything else. I think those are kinda cool things happening within your process that you probably, at some point in time, will look back and be like, all right, that was kind of wild that we just continued to evolve it even further from what it was.30:38 DS: Yeah, definitely. And it's also exciting to think about the evolution of it, because one of the things we're gonna talk about at the Local U event that's happening in Santa Monica in early February is we're gonna talk about the Local Search Ranking factors: Does it still make sense to sort factors this way? And so it's a real thought exercise as well, this whole thing where we get to think about what is driving local search. And so from a personal development perspective, it really helps drive me forward as well in terms of is this... Is what we've been doing to rank businesses in local search still applicable? And the way that we decide what drives local search, does that still make sense? And so it's exciting from that development perspective to be able to push the industry that way.31:23 AW: Yeah, for sure. Well, you kind of touched on here, as we get ready to wrap up episode one, I was gonna ask what are you up to in the next couple of weeks before we talk again, and try to get another show recorded, and put that out there. I think first week of February is Local U Advanced in Santa Monica. I was bummed, I won't be there, I'll actually be just north of there, I'll be in San Jose at SaaStr Annual, which is the big...31:50 DS: Oh, yeah.31:50 AW: SaaS conference. It's almost too big, it's 10,000 people.31:56 DS: You told me about this one, yeah.31:57 AW: Yeah, it's really... The thing I love about it is, you go into a session, you sit down, you introduce yourself to the person next to you, and it's most likely the CEO or a VP of sales, or someone else at another SaaS company that you can just make really great connections with, and ask a few questions, and learn more about things that they do, and everything else. So for me, the networking, and connections, and war stories, and finding insight, all of that, to me, is usually on par or even greater value than some of the presentations that are there. I will say...32:31 DS: I often find that at conferences, where just the relationship building and the conversations you have outside of the talks, that's where a ton of the value of going to conferences.32:39 AW: Yep. No, and that's why I'll be missing it at Local U, all of the... It's such a great conference, and it's family style, where you get 50-75 attendees, and all the speakers, and it's just a ton of great knowledge share for 2-3 days on so many different levels, so I'll definitely be missing out on that, but... So is it where you also... That would be my fun place where I'd wanna spend my time at a conference, but I definitely get a lot out of the SaaStr Annual, and need to be there as well. And I haven't found a way to duplicate myself yet, so I can't be at two...33:12 DS: Yeah, well, maybe next year I'll come to that SaaStr with you, that sounds awesome.33:16 AW: There you go, you should totally do it. I'll show you... This'll be my third year now, so would love to have you there so I had someone else that I know to hang out with and everything when networking falls apart.33:28 DS: Yeah, that'd be fun. So yeah, next couple weeks, we've got a number of developments happening within the company. We've been rebuilding our Local Citation Finder in modern technology; it was built on some pretty old stuff and had some really terrible code in it. And so we basically started from scratch with it, rebuilding the whole thing in Laravel and Vue, the most modern versions of those, and so that's been wonderful. Oh my god, I'm so happy [chuckle] to see the new Local Citation Finder coming together. So our staging environment, I was playing around with it, I have a weekly call with the team on that, and was playing with it today, and it's just such a delight to use compared to the old piece of crap. And the Local Citation Finder is probably our most popular product, it is our most popular product. We have so many new sign-ups coming in all the time, and that user experience they're having is just... To me, it feels like it's been letting them down. So I can't wait to launch this new version, and we might be able to get it out in the next two weeks before our next call.34:26 DS: I'm also launching... You're gonna find this interesting, Aaron, we're launching a software system called... It's just this free little thing, we call it Review Checker. So what it does is it Googles your brand name plus reviews and a whole bunch of different search terms, and then it aggregates anything in the search results that has stars. So if you've got schema markup and there's stars, it's gonna pull all that stuff in and give you a little report of all the places you're getting reviews. And so pretty much every review site is returning schema, and as long as they have enough authority they're gonna get pulled into our tool. So it's this great quick check, and we have a review score algorithm where we calculate what your review score is, and we show you all the sites you're getting reviews on. And so that little free tool, which will funnel into our GatherUp resell software called Reputation Builder, we should get that out the door in the next couple weeks as well, so I'm really pumped about that.35:19 AW: Awesome, yeah, you got some great, great things going on there that, yeah, we'll have to catch up in a couple of weeks and determine what topics to talk about on episode two. But as you and I have discussed, there is always so much going on on both sides for us that we really don't think content of sharing what we're up to, what we're planning, decision-making, all that kind of stuff is gonna be too difficult for us.35:42 DS: No, we're gonna have lots of content, so much to talk about.35:44 AW: All right, well, we got one recorded here; we'll see what the future holds for us. Thanks everyone for listening to episode one of the SaaS Venture, where myself and Darren Shaw take you through what it's like to lead and grow bootstrap SaaS companies through our own struggles, wins, losses, experiences, and challenges, and we hope we will see you again by subscribing to our podcast. Thanks, and have a great day everybody.36:11 DS: Thanks for joining us. See you next time.

Greetings, SuperFriends! Today we are joined by Rand Fishkin. Rand is the founder of SparkToro, but you might know him from his previous company - he was the co-founder of Moz and Inbound.org. Rand has dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through the Whiteboard Friday video series, his blog, and his book, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World. I was introduced to Rand by a mutual friend, Stephan Spencer, who told me that we "just had to speak" because we would have so many things in common - well, we did. In this conversation, we ranged from entrepreneurship to depression and anxiety, to quality of life. We also covered how you can implement some of the strategies that Rand has used to achieve what I would call is a SuperHuman level of not only success. but quality of life as well. It's a very interesting and far-ranging conversation, so it is my pleasure to present you with this great episode! -Jonathan Levi

There are few people who know the worlds of B2B SaaS and B2B marketing as well as Rand Fishkin. Rand has worked in the field for over 15 years and throughout the course of his career he's founded two SaaS companies, Moz & SparkToro, co-founded inbound.org with HubSpot's Dharmesh Shah, published his book "Lost & Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World", is a renowned keynote speaker, and you might also know him as the star of Moz's ever so popular Whiteboard Friday video series. In this episode we draw on all those years of experience as Rand shares his field guide to B2B SaaS Marketing where we discuss: - The actual purpose of marketing and what it should achieve - The evolution of the SaaS space from 2003 to 2018 and what it means for marketers today - How to balance between long-term growth strategies and short-term growth tactics - How to develop your content marketing strategy and factors you need to consider - The importance for marketers and SaaS companies to be behaviour-driven and not goal-driven - Why Rand started SparkToro and some of the important lessons he learned from building Moz that he's applied to SparkToro - How Rand's developing the marketing strategy for SparkToro - The marketing strategies that worked for Rand back in 2003 and that still hold true today Links: SparkToro >> https://sparktoro.com/ Moz >> https://moz.com/ SparkToro Trending >> https://sparktoro.com/trending The Law of Shitty Clickthroughs >> https://andrewchen.co/the-law-of-shitty-clickthroughs/ Lost & Founder >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35957156-lost-and-founder The Billionaire Who Wasn't >> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2842145-the-billionaire-who-wasn-t Indie Hackers >> https://www.indiehackers.com/ Typeform >> https://www.typeform.com/ Follow Rand on Twitter >> https://twitter.com/randfish --- Advance B2B >> www.advanceb2b.com Follow The Growth Hub on Twitter >> @SaaSGrowthHub Follow Edward on Twitter >> @NordicEdward

Rand attributes a majority of the success that MOZ, an SEO company, achieved to his WhiteBoard Friday's weekly vlog. Rand continues to share examples of how and why your content needs to be done with purpose in order for you to benefit from the power of this type of contact with your audience. To Reach This Guest Visit: https://moz.com/rand/ Follow on Twitter: @Randfish https://twitter.com/randfish --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/phillip-lanos/support

You may know former Moz CEO Rand Fishkin from his characteristic curly mustache, Whiteboard Friday videos, or his SEO mastery. But this interview isn’t about linking, Google rankings, or gray-hat practices. Or mustaches. In our chat with Fishkin, he opens up about his battle with depression and how it has shaped his past decisions and guided his current ventures. He sympathizes with the many entrepreneurs who have also succumbed to loneliness and wondered why their business success wasn’t enough to make them happy. Fishkin also talks about his new book, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World. In it, he shares the conversations entrepreneurs have about their challenges and hardships, whether personal or in their businesses. Fishkin also shares details on his new software project and why he decided to venture into another startup. If you want to be inspired, encouraged, and take away some great advice from a long-time founder, don’t miss this interview. We hope you find it as moving as we did! Key Takeaways Why striving to emulate Silicon Valley startup culture can negatively affect your business growth How and why Moz’s customer acquisition costs went down after laying off half of his marketing team How to know when to sacrifice profit for growth The dark side of entrepreneurial leadership

My guest in this episode, Rand Fishkin, is the founder of SparkToro and was previously cofounder of Moz and Inbound.org. He's dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through the Whiteboard Friday video series (which is why I asked Rand to join us), his blog, and his book, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World. When Rand's not working, he's most likely to be in the company of his partner in marriage and (mostly petty) crime, author Geraldine DeRuiter. If you feed him great pasta or great whisky, he'll give you the cheat code to rank #1 on Google.Rand is full of insights for storytellers and start-up founders. One great tip: Be purposeful where you put your story."We always strove to put the content first on our own website where we could own and control the user experience. then we would stagger the distribution to social media. Own your home. Don't build your house on rented land, which is really what you're doing on YouTube or Facebook." - Rand Fishkin on content placement

Don’t miss this leadership interview with Rand Fishkin, @randfish. Rand is the founder of SparkToro and was previously cofounder of Moz and Inbound.org. He’s dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through the Whiteboard Friday video series, his blog, and his book, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World. When Rand’s not working, he’s most likely to be in the company of his partner in marriage and (mostly petty) crime, author Geraldine DeRuiter. He did also say that if you feed him pasta or a decent whisky, he’ll give you the cheat code to being ranked #1 on Google. His interview with TheSchoolHouse302 was insightful, check it out. Listen to what Rand says about failure not being the end of an idea. He challenges many commonly held beliefs about American business culture and stresses the importance of diversity. He told us to follow @DHH for inspiration as an entrepreneur, Dharmesh Shah, co-founder of HubStop, and Courtland Allen. Listen to why he recommends these leaders. Rand talked about self-awareness and grounding ourselves in our WHY, asking daily questions about how we feel and if we’re happy. He plans to be more philanthropic with social efforts. Stay tuned for more from Rand Fishkin...for sure. He told us that we have to diversify who we’re learning from and surround ourselves with people from different backgrounds and experiences. “You learn more when you’re uncomfortable than when you’re comfortable.” And, you have to hear what he says about forgiveness and forgiving yourself. Rand ’s interview is filled with practical advice for leaders, and really connects with our purpose of developing leaders by getting to simple. Be sure to get your copy of Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World, and let us know what you think. Please follow, like, and comment. Use #onethingseries and #SH302 so that we can find you. Joe & T.J.

  Rand Fishkin is the founder of SparkToro and was previously cofounder of Moz and Inbound.org. He’s dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through the Whiteboard Friday video series and his blog. If you feed him great pasta or great whisky, he’ll give you the cheat code to rank #1 on Google. Long time listeners of Future Squared might remember Rand from episode #22, when we discussed content marketing for large organisations as well as more importantly perhaps, Australia's Sullivan’s Cove whisky. One thing we also touched on in that conversation was Rand’s tussle with depression and how he ultimately had to step down as the CEO of the company he founded. While Rand has gone on to start another company, he hasn’t done so without coming to a number of confronting realisations about building a company that he has captured in his brand new book, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World. This book will form the basis of today’s conversation and with so much “Rah rah overnight success stories” out there, arguably polluting the public’s perception of startup life, it’s refreshing to read the take of a respected founder like Rand on the truth about building a company and how it’s not all unicorns and ping pong tables. Having read the book and found it very informative, I couldn’t wait to get linked up with Rand again, after more than 2 years, to dive in, so with that, I bring you the one and only Rand Fishkin!   In this episode we discussed: Why startups don’t need venture capital to get going Why founding a top 5% startup won’t necessarily make you rich The benefits of starting with a service based business before building a product The importance of values alignment in hiring and firing How to keep your energy and enthusiasm levels high Radical transparency Hiring for diversity of what you can’t see, not just what you can SparkToro   Show Notes: Twitter: @randfish Get his books on Amazon: Lost and Founder: https://amzn.to/2BSOSRA The Art of SEO: https://amzn.to/2PAGt8m Rand’s new company: Sparktoro.com   Open source funding document: sparktoro.com/blog/raised-a-very-unusual-round-of-funding-were-open-sourcing-our-docs/ Show Notes: www.linkedin.com/in/steveglaveski  Join Steve's mailing list at futuresquared.xyz/subscribe  Listen on iTunes @ goo.gl/sMnEa0  Listen on Spotify @ spoti.fi/2G2QsxV  Listen on Stitcher @ www.stitcher.com/podcast/future  Listen on Google Play @ bit.ly/FSGoog ‍ If you've got any questions on this podcast feel free to send an email to steve@collectivecamp.us or tweet me on Twitter @steveglaveski or @future_squared  Follow me on Instagram: @thesteveglaveski Like us? ‍It'd make our day if you took 1 minute to show some love on iTunes, Stitcher or Soundcloud by subscribing, sharing and giving us a 5 star rating. ‍ For more information on Collective Campus, our innovation hub, school and consultancy based in Australia and Singapore check out www.collectivecampus.io

I’ve been in digital marketing since the beginning, and I can spot a revolutionary idea when I see one.   So when I first saw the Whiteboard Friday videos that Rand Fishkin’s and his team were creating, I knew it was something special.   It was 2007 and this was the first time that I saw digital marketing being taught visually. Not only did it force Rand to become a better teacher by having to draw out his thoughts, but the visual format helped his audience better understand the complexities of search engine optimization. But it wasn’t an overnight success. It took years of publishing content consistently before Whiteboard Friday caught fire.   In this episode of Video Marketing Mastery, I sit down with Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz and author of Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World.   Rand and I discuss his past and current digital marketing endeavors and some lessons he learned along the way as he climbed from unknown entrepreneur to digital marketing guru.   We’ll even talk about SparkToro, Rand’s new software company that will make it easier for digital marketers to reach their audiences.   So if you’re ready to learn from one of the best in the digital marketing space, you don’t want to miss this episode of Video Marketing Mastery.

Brad and Scully discuss research from Brightcove on using video for social media engagement. In addition, they examine the pros and cons of directing users away from social media to your website; and the growing use of imagery in newsletters. Brad and Scully interview imageseven Senior Account Manager, Tess Palmyre, on her tips for content marketing in 2018. This week’s school marketing example: the Whiteboard Friday’s blog by Rand Fishkin. The rants and raves segment looks at brands as a legal asset.

Super excited to add to the list of podcast guests who make me look uncool – Rand Fishkin joins me on the show this week. Rand goes by the weird and wonderful title, Wizard of Moz. He’s founder and former CEO of SEO software startup Moz, host of Whiteboard Friday, co-author of a pair of […] The post Rand Fishkin, founder, Moz appeared first on Reevoo.

Rand Fishkin talks about “the SEO as content strategist” and much more, including empathy and teamwork, “10X Content,” voice search, and his thoughts on this week's FCC decision to roll back net neutrality. Rand goes by the ludicrous title, Wizard of Moz. He's founder and former CEO of SEO software startup Moz, the host of Whiteboard Friday. Content Strategy Interviews are hosted by Larry Swanson of Elless Media.

Carl-Gustav Öberg är en av grundarna till onlinemarknadsföringsbyrån Be Better Online och är riktigt duktig på sökmotoroptimering som är ämnet för det här avsnittet. Han är en onlineveteran som trots att han bara är 31 år gammal hunnit arbetat med onlinemarknadsföring i hela 17 år. Under den tiden har han skapat och drivit över 200 egna sajter och genomfört mängder med konsultuppdrag. Vi pratar i det här avsnittet sökmotoroptimering; vad det är, hur det har förändrats genom åren, hur Be Better Onlines arbetsprocess ser ut och hur man lär sig det bäst. Vad är sökmotoroptimering? Carl-Gustav berättar hur han ser på sökmotoroptimering, vilka delar som ingår i området och vilka som är de främsta sakerna Google tittar på enligt honom. Vi passar också på att slå hål på en vanlig SEO-myt. Han berättar även om några av de stora händelserna i Googles utveckling de senaste åren, vilka effekter det har fått och hur det har påverkat hur man arbetar med sökmotoroptimering idag. Process för sökmotoroptimering Vi pratar också om hur man arbetar med sökmotoroptimering på ett bra och strukturerat sätt. Carl-Gustav förklarar hur arbetsprocessen ser ut när de arbetar med sökmotoroptimering på Be Better Online. Här tips på några av de bästa verktygen enligt Carl-Gustav: ahrefs. Ett komplett SEO-verktyg för att bland annat analysera innehåll och länkar, spåra ranking och genomföra sökordsanalys. (Mitt eget favoritverktyg också) Siteliner. Kontrollera duplicerat innehåll, brutna länkar och mycket mer. Copyscape. Se om någon kopierat ett visst innehåll Google Pagespeed Insights. Testa en webbsidas laddtid och användarupplevelse. Tips på resurser Carl-Gustav tipsar om sajterna Search Engine Land och Search Engine Watch som rapporterar om händelser i branschen men är tydlig med att man måste ta in sin information från olika håll. Han lyfter även fram Whiteboard Friday från Rand Fishkin på Moz och Sökpodden från branschkollegorna på Pineberry. Här är dessutom några riktigt bra inlägg från Be Better Onlines blogg om sökmotoroptimering: Lär dig SEO på 7 dagar, RankBrain – En artificiell intelligent Hummingbird! och Hur lång tid tar det att ranka på Google?. Kolla även in Carl-Gustavs föreläsning från Internetdagarna 2015. Kom ihåg att prenumerera i din podcast-app och skriv även upp dig på min e-postlista så får du kommande avsnitt och artiklar direkt i inboxen. Tack till Mikael på New Breeze Music och Peter på Hive Workspace.

Today we're joined by SEO doyon, Rand Fishkin from Moz, who'll walk you step-by-step through how to create and optimise podcast show notes, blog posts and web pages so that they rank well in Google. “Unique value is something Google is really seeking out. So if you go and look at the results for the top 10 for a keyword that you really care about, and you can identify a hole, a gap, something that no-one else is filling where you can provide the value that no-one else has, that is a great opportunity to get ranking in Google.” - Rand Fishkin, Moz There's loads more tips and insights just like this that can 10X your SEO results. Hit the PLAY button above to hear the full interview. If you have any of the following questions about how to how to optimise your podcast show notes (or simply want to improve your Google rankings) you'll get the answers in this interview: How do I rank on page 1 of Google in 2017 and beyond? How do I create the ultimate show notes for a podcast? How do I get my blog post to rank well? How do I identify the best keyword to use? Do I need to keyword stuff my posts? What can I do off-page to improve my SEO? What is metadata and how critical is it to optimising my podcast show notes? Is it still possible for a small business to rank on page 1 of Google? What are the key components of SEO in 2017? BTW, Rand Fishkin (in my humble opinion) is the world's leading expert on SEO. Going by the ludicrous title, Wizard of Moz, he's the founder of the SEO software startup Moz, host of Whiteboard Friday (a must watch) and co-author of a pair of books on SEO. Here's what caught my attention from chatting with Moz's Rand Fishkin: Getting on page 1 of Google is not magic and any business can do it - As Rand says, it's an art and a science. Yes, there is some work to be done, yes it does get detailed, and yes it gets a little geeky. But why go to the trouble of creating a website full of helpful content, whether that be podcast show notes, blog posts or whatever, if you don't optimise it for Google. My advice is to understand then outsource this component. The embedded Tweet - What a great idea. You have to do this retrospectively, once the podcast show notes go live, but that's cool. Here's one I prepared earlier … go on, go ahead and Tweet it … you know you want to :) Links to external resources - When you recommend a great third party service, it builds trust in you as the place to go. Such links are not ‘doors out' of your website. Just be sure to have the links open in a new tab.   But the marketing gold doesn't stop there, you'll also: Discover how to write great mini-stories to help you sell more products Revisit a grab from a past episode in which Gelato Messina's Declan Lee (Australia's best Gelato maker) explained how he's disrupting a very old industry   Other resources mentioned: Speechpad transcription service (from USD$60 per audio hour) Trint transcription service (from USD$12 per audio hour) Yoast SEO Wordpress plugin Stories for work    Please support these businesses who make this show possible: Open Universities Australia - Check out Open Universities' online courses for business owners over at Open.edu.au. Someone's gotta be the smartest in your industry - it may as well be you! Dale Beaumont's 52 Ways – An amazing free 1-day live event for business owners where you'll discover 52 ways to boost your business profits. 2018 dates announced. Seats are limited. Book now. If some thing in this episode of Australia's favourite marketing podcast peaked your interest, then let me know. Leave your thoughts below. May your marketing be the best marketing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rand Fishkin is the founder and former CEO of Moz, board member at presentation software startup Haiku Deck, co-author of a pair of books on SEO, and co-founder of Inbound.org. Rand's an unsaveable addict of all things content, search, & social on the web.   In this episode you'll learn: [00:54] What are Whiteboard Friday videos about and how they made Rand an online influencer? [00:52] Why should marketers focus on building relationships rather than being tactical? [02:00] Challenges marketers face [02:25] How not to be tempted to give tactical advice instead of a strategic one? [03:33] What does a wizard do at Moz? [04:15] Separate tracks for individual contributors and people managers - structure at Moz [05:23] Why managing people should not be a prerequisite for having a great career in marketing [06:17] How are marketers at Moz measured? [07:30] Top of funnel metrics [08:00] Bottom and middle of the funnel metrics [08:36] How to break down marketing channels to focus on? [14:00] Best days of the week for social engagement? [15:20] Rand's marketing failures [18:11] How does Rand use speaking gigs as a marketing tool? [21:00] How to create a great speech and be the one everyone is talking about? [22:16] How to prioritize which events are worth attending? Links mentioned: Rand on Twitter Rand's personal blog Whiteboard Friday videos How to create a great presentation   Brought to you by Experiment 27. Find us on Youtube here. If you've enjoyed the episode, please subscribe to the Digital Agency Marketing Podcast on iTunes and leave us a review for the show. Take part in the CONTEST we put together to celebrate the launch of this podcast. It's a contest where you can't lose. You will get something, it's just a matter of how much stuff you'll actually win. Click here to enter.  Just for entering you will get a surprise everyone else has to pay for. You can't lose!

Rand Fishkin has to be the most engaging person on the planet who is talking about SEO. On this show, you get to take part in my own personal Whiteboard Friday, or interview, with Rand, the Wizard of Moz. We get into some great topics like content amplification, how the Northwest has molded culture at Moz, why it is important to embrace new voices in your organization to gain the benefits of diversity, and what content marketers should do if they are starting work today without a strategy.https://moz.com/about/team/randfishhttps://twitter.com/randfishhttps://moz.com/rand/

In this episode with Rand Fishkin, we chat about getting outsized results from influencers, Moz’s “worst landing page the web has ever seen”, the inputs to success of Whiteboard Friday, time travel, emotions .. and LOTS more. Beards and whiskey too

Rand Fishkin is one of the most revered, most followed, and most celebrated figures in the digital marketing world today. He’s made his astoundingly valuable and popular Whiteboard Friday video series a digital household name. He has a knack for turning industry conference audiences into drooling, raving fans (including myself), and routinely dominates every conference speaker leaderboard he graces. And in this episode, Rand brings absolutely mind-blowing techniques for creating presentations that wow audiences and deliver insane value. Whether you’re running small internal meetings or delivering a keynote at a huge conference, these tips are priceless.In this episode, you’ll learn:How Rand evolved from mediocre to a top-rated in-demand pro speakerPlanning and brainstorming secrets from Whiteboard FridayWhy his #1 presentation tip is to deliver exclusive, actionable adviceHow to conduct presentation audience research to create resonanceHow he refined his speaking skills through recording himselfWhy consistently scoring in the top 25% should be every speaker’s goalTips for keeping an audience engaged through longer sessionsHow to handle awkward moments like humor that falls flatTo view the show notes & resources for this episode, visit LeaPica.com/018. How to Follow Rand:Rand on TwitterRand on LinkedInMoz Whiteboard FridayRand on SlideShare

#026 - Publishing a video every single week is tough. Especially when different people are in the videos and what they're teaching is extremely technical and complex. Enter Whiteboard Fridays from Moz. A weekly video show about SEO, content marketing, and getting traffic to your website. They've been showing up every week for years, with the ability to quickly share real-time information as it changes in their industry, like what's new with Google's latest algorithm. In this episode with Elijah Tiegs from Moz we talk about two main things. First, the power of having a permanent video studio set-up and how that speeds up and simplifies the process for making a video each week. Second, we discuss the set-up they use at Moz to create Whiteboard Fridays. Specifically, we breakdown the lighting, focusing on both the subject and the whiteboard, and using wireless lavalier microphones instead of boom shotgun mics.Items mentioned in this episode:Elijah on TwitterAn Example of Whiteboard Friday from MozHow Whiteboard Friday is Set-upMoz on YouTubeAmazon.com: ART USB Dual PreAmazon.com: Juiced Link XLR PreamplifierAmazon.com: Sennheiser G2 Wireless Lavalier Mic SystemFebruary 12, 2015

Moz responds toa ControversialWhiteboardFriday article , plus Jim Hedger and guest host Kristine Schachinger discuss theCharlie Hebdo magazine terrorist attack, why everyone is talking about why 2015 is the year of podcasting, SEO misinformation and the appearance of a SEO expert on the Celebrity Apprentice UK.

Moz responds toa ControversialWhiteboardFriday article , plus Jim Hedger and guest host Kristine Schachinger discuss theCharlie Hebdo magazine terrorist attack, why everyone is talking about why 2015 is the year of podcasting, SEO misinformation and the appearance of a SEO expert on the Celebrity Apprentice UK.