SaaStr

APRIL 25, 2024

Dear SaaStr: When Do VCs Try To Replace Founders as CEOs? Second, if you don’t end up being a great CEO in the long-run, shouldn’t you be replaced when someone can do the next stage materially better than you can? You don’t think anyone could have done any better, or will do any better. So … how do you protect yourself?

Finance 94

Finance Legal Up-sell Trust 94

Search Engine Land

MAY 14, 2024

The types of queries AI Overviews will show for have “less to do with ads” and more to do with adding value to the search results, Budaraju said. The types of queries AI Overviews will show for have “less to do with ads” and more to do with adding value to the search results, Budaraju said.

Click Through Rate 143

Click Through Rate CTR Launch User Experience 143

Search Engine Land

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

Step 2: SEO strategy – How to do something different or unique to stand out. Know what kind of content ranks for the terms you wish to target (so you can do something better). Standing out in search is not easy. The search environment is hyper-competitive. It is possible to publish excellent content and still see it fail to rank.

Strategize 116

Strategize Niche Angle UX 116

SaaStr

MAY 17, 2024

But how do you tactically achieve all of that? Building Trust as a New CPO As a CPO, the most important thing you have to do is build trust with your CEO or founder. Building Trust as a New CPO As a CPO, the most important thing you have to do is build trust with your CEO or founder. It’s obvious, but how do you do this?

Product 68

Product GTM Trust Growth 68

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 18, 2024

Task forces would be in frenzied action trying to figure out why this was happening and what need be done to change that win rate, getting it up to more acceptable levels in the shortest time possible. Why would marketing or sales do anything other than this? The data, by itself, is stunning.

SQL 117

SQL Quota Presentation Prospecting 117

Search Engine Land

MAY 3, 2024

I love what I do and I prefer to do certain types of tasks when it’s quiet,” she said. I don’t keep odd hours because I have to; I do it because that’s when I feel most productive and fulfilled.” There seems to be this new “thing” emerging online. Don’t get me wrong – burnout is real.

Contract 99

Contract Start-ups Drivers/motivators Meeting 99

Martech

MAY 8, 2024

The increasing use of biometric data, such as facial recognition and fingerprints, for authentication raises new privacy risks, especially in a world where virtual try-on is an increasingly widely used marketing tool. Since there wasn’t anyone around to give me a second opinion, I decided to use the their virtual try-on tool.

Government 94

Government Legal Trust Represent 94

Search Engine Land

JANUARY 12, 2024

He got in touch with Search Engine Land after trying to trying to purchase YouTube reservation ads – only to be told by his Google rep that they had never heard of them. He explained: “I have been trying to purchase these ads for three months – surely it cannot be this hard?” The whole process has been brutal.”

Engineering 138

Engineering Clients Networking Represent 138

Search Engine Land

MAY 3, 2024

Google’s March 2024 core update will hands down be one of the most talked-about SEO topics of the year, if not the last few years. There’s so much around the update, from its length to the death of the helpful content update (HCU) to all of the quality issues on the SERP (talking about you, Reddit ). To be clear: none of this is definitive.

Construction 117

Construction Follow-up Start-ups Presentation 117

SaaStr

MARCH 27, 2024

There are basically two paths, and one predicate step The predicate step is your product has to do >one< reasonably important thing that is 10x better than the “enterprise”-proven solutions already out there. No one is going to rip out Workday or SAP to try your product. So how do you get those customers?

Tradeshows 83

Tradeshows Customers Pitch Start-ups 83

SaaStr

APRIL 2, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What Do Founders Need to Know to Navigate a Merger/Acquisition? For most of us, especially if the acquisition is after years of doing it “our way” — that can be very frustrating. And try to help more there. Don’t take it personally; and Try to find your replacement when it’s time to go.

Sell 89

Sell Product 89

SaaStr

DECEMBER 23, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Advice Do You Have For a First-Time VC? Sometimes, don’t even do a deal your first year. Your job is to try to only invest in the potentially amazing ones. #3. Once your portfolio is firmly up in NAV, in value … you’ll see you didn’t really need to do this. So we all feel this.

Start-ups 115

Start-ups Pitch Closing Conversion 115

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 14, 2023

When one reads these articles, usually, the author is trying to sell the readers something. When one reads these articles, usually, the author is trying to sell the readers something. But then I think of all the sales people working with retailers, trying to get end-caps, eye level shelf space, promotions, and so forth.

Sell 122

Sell Retail Promote Up-sell 122

Search Engine Land

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

When you’re running a Search campaign and trying to stay profitable, but you don’t have a large budget and or a large enough data signal, manual bidding often works well. I typically do this until I have enough conversion volume, and then I try to switch to Maximize Conversions or Target CPA.

Campaign 125

Campaign Objectives and Key Results Profit margin Lead generation 125

Search Engine Land

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

Does Google use user click data in ranking? “Technically, yes,” Illyes said. This is because historical search data is part of RankBrain. Unlaunches happen ‘a lot’ Things change a lot (emphasis his) in search ranking at Google, Illyes said. What is true for ranking today could be wrong in two weeks. ” Illyes said.

Niche 143

Niche Launch Engineering Promote 143

Search Engine Land

MAY 9, 2024

To proactively control the narrative, it’s critical to work on connecting your brand to appropriate semantic fields to make it easier for language models to comprehend: What you do. Who you do it for. Your online reputation is what users can learn about your brand within a few seconds. We also need to care about AI.

Engineering 108

Engineering Networking Clients Construction 108

Search Engine Land

MARCH 22, 2024

The next Google won’t do what Google does, just as Google didn’t do what AOL did. ” “But I don’t think it’s that interesting to say, “How do we go do a better job of giving you 10 ranked webpages to look at than what Google does?” I know, because not long ago we were in that garage.

Engineering 123

Engineering Launch Product Market share 123

SaaStr

APRIL 19, 2024

How do you reverse-engineer your first million as a SaaS startup founder? You Need A Business Model with Economies of Scale As you’re trying to reverse engineer whether your business model makes sense, you have to look at your business model. To the OG software people who read SaaStr, Jason is “the guy,” Sam says.

Engineering 98

Engineering Price Cross-sell Niche 98

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 8, 2024

The idea of reaching out, trying to engage prospects in talking about their challenges, problems, concerns, as well as their dreams and aspirations is boring and dull is striking. Whether it is an email, a social outreach, a text, or phone call, we’ve lost sight of the person we are trying to reach. They are human beings.

Prospecting 114

Prospecting Service Customers 114

Martech

APRIL 11, 2024

Higher-ups want us to do more with less (efficiency). In our zeal to harness the tech part of martech, the ops part of MOps and the automation part of marketing automation, MOps professionals have failed to accomplish the most important part of the equation — marketing. Here’s why. Technology is great at automation and efficiency.

B2B 125

B2B Manufacturing Technology Technology 125

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 14, 2024

How do we survive (though some real leaders are asking themselves how we thrive.) Stopping programs that do not directly contribute to the organization’s goals is critical, but it is one of the most difficult things to do. In many cases, organizations have cut many people, but try to continue the work done before the cutbacks.

Objectives and Key Results 121

Objectives and Key Results Clients Drivers/motivators Start-ups 121

Search Engine Land

MARCH 8, 2024

I think it falls on all of us, whatever industry we’re in, to try and help limit our carbon emissions. That might surprise many, but for anyone who spends any time doing logfile analysis, most sites are now being hit by a huge amount of unrequested bots and web crawlers. 62% of respondents were male, 34% female.

Objectives and Key Results 128

Objectives and Key Results Manufacturing Clients Education 128

Search Engine Land

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

That led me to do an X thread , and several people replied asking for a blog post, so here we are. For the longest time, I’ve avoided writing or talking about E-E-A-T. With the recent clarification that E-E-A-T is not a ranking signal , factor, or system, I want to jump in and hit on several key points. First of all, what is E-E-A-T?

Engineering 127

Engineering Contact Start-ups Launch 127

Search Engine Land

JANUARY 26, 2024

ChatGPT and Claude generally don’t attempt to do this (due to not having a current picture of the web), and Bard only does it very rarely. Anthropic has developed its own solution, Claude. Therefore, I decided to redo the study while adding more test queries and a revised approach to evaluating the results.

Objectives and Key Results 143

Objectives and Key Results Drivers/motivators Follow-up Consult 143

Search Engine Land

OCTOBER 11, 2023

If you do appear, the impact will be less severe. Google is known for sticking to plans and trying to make its products work. While there are some reasonable assumptions of how Search Generative Experience (SGE) might affect our sites, others are not so realistic. This article highlights: Theories about SGE’s traffic impact.

CTR 133

CTR Electricity Real Estate Angle 133

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2024

Try to close the first 10-20 customers yourself beyond you hire 1-2 reps, so you know how to do it. And once you do hire a sales team, and especially a VP of Sales — don’t exit sales. And once you do hire a sales team, and especially a VP of Sales — don’t exit sales. It’s great.

Sales 98

Sales Quota Closing Up-sell 98

Search Engine Land

MARCH 13, 2024

We do it to every single query and every single result. It’s pervasive throughout every single thing we do.” He said (my emphasis): “E-A-T is a template for how we rate an individual site. He added, “ E-A-T is a core part of our metrics. ” E-A-T, and, subsequently E-E-A-T, are discussed by SEOs all the time. Then, crickets.

Niche 117

Niche Engineering Follow-up Process 117

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 20, 2024

How do I handle objections… ?” ” I take these hacks, trying them out myself. I’ve become relatively agile in prompt engineering, so I keep tweaking them, trying to find that “Aha” revelation. What are qualifying questions… ? What are trends… ?

Gaming 124

Gaming Engineering Presentation Start-ups 124

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 26, 2023

And regardless what we do, we never will. When we try to call in follow up, no body picks up on a number that isn’t recognized. And this drive for efficiency, is not just with prospecting letters, it touches everything we do. We no longer actually have to talk to people, bots do that work for us. Time is a problem.

Follow-up 135

Follow-up Prospecting Conversion Technology 135

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 29, 2023

Many will read this, thinking, “Dave, I don’t have the time to do this, after all, I have to send 1000 emails today… ” My thought is, “Would you have to send 1000 emails if you tried to connect in a meaningful way? And, as you might expect, everyone has “personalized” their outreach.

Presentation 107

Presentation Meeting Sell Prospecting 107

Search Engine Land

JANUARY 23, 2024

They make it feel like the goalposts that measure whether we’re doing a “good” or “bad” job are constantly shifting. But this is also why next year’s SEO results come from the work you’re doing this year. But this is also why next year’s SEO results come from the work you’re doing this year. Yes, things change.

Entertainment 118

Entertainment Engineering Start-ups Launch 118

Search Engine Land

MAY 8, 2024

Dig deeper: 4 SEO tips to elevate the user experience What can SEOs do to ensure we delight our audience? Investing in UX and SEO Every $1 invested in UX delivers a return of $100, according to a Forrester report. There are mixed reports on the return for SEO ranging from $3 to $5 for every $1 spent. Understanding user intent is key to this.

UX 92

UX Objectives and Key Results User Experience Legal 92

Martech

JANUARY 16, 2024

I have been trying to purchase these ads for three months — surely it cannot be this hard?” I’ve called in over a dozen times — they tell me someone will call back, but they never do. To do this, they would need to talk to their rep. They don’t respond to emails either. They don’t respond to emails either.

Service 113

Service Customers Represent Networking 113

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 12, 2023

However they were doing things in the past were displaced and replaced with our solutions. We are part of the problem keeping them from doing more, to doing things differently, to addressing new opportunities. Trying to get the customer to think differently, to imagine new possibilities. But are all of these enough?

Cross-sell 133

Cross-sell Up-sell Sell Customers 133

Martech

FEBRUARY 7, 2024

We didn’t sell a lot because no one knew who we were, but we were doing things like swapping gigs with other bands across the web using forums. I learned about the importance of partnerships just from being a struggling indie band in the Midwest and trying to get gigs, basically. And how do we make it as visible as possible?

UX 105

UX Technology Technology Up-sell 105

SaaStr

JANUARY 8, 2024

But it isn’t, so I’m going to try to help by being brutally direct: No VC on Planet Earth Wants to Invest in a Startup with Mediocre Growth None. Not on every deal, but they at least have to believe every deal can do it. ” or “Our customers love us. I get it, I hear you. and trust me, I’ve been there.

Growth 126

Growth Trust Meeting Customers 126

Search Engine Land

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

The term “AI” has become someone conflated with “ChatGPT” over the last year, so to be very clear from the outset, we are not talking about using generative AI/LLM-based systems to do your redirect mapping. Doing this process manually for a single person would usually be days of work. Migrating a large website is always daunting.

Process 139

Process Start-ups Service 139