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	<title>SparkToro</title>
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	<link>https://sparktoro.com/blog</link>
	<description></description>
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	<item>
		<title>SparkToro Raised a Very Unusual Round of Funding &#038; We&#8217;re Open-Sourcing Our Docs</title>
		<link>https://sparktoro.com/blog/raised-a-very-unusual-round-of-funding-were-open-sourcing-our-docs/</link>
		<comments>https://sparktoro.com/blog/raised-a-very-unusual-round-of-funding-were-open-sourcing-our-docs/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Jun 2018 15:38:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rand Fishkin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[SparkToro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Startups]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://sparktoro.com/blog/?p=3719</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Short Version
Our new company, SparkToro, LLC has just completed a $1.3mm angel financing. And, because we think our structure might be right for many other businekasses, we&#8217;re making our documents open-source for anyone to use.
The Story
SparkToro is, obviously, a product of my and my cofounder, Casey&#8216;s, experiences in the mostly venture-backed worlds of software startups. The&#8230;]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[The Short Version
Our new company, SparkToro, LLC has just completed a $1.3mm angel financing. And, because we think our structure might be right for many other businekasses, we&#8217;re making our documents open-source for anyone to use.
The Story
SparkToro is, obviously, a product of my and my cofounder, Casey&#8216;s, experiences in the mostly venture-backed worlds of software startups. The&hellip;]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>https://sparktoro.com/blog/raised-a-very-unusual-round-of-funding-were-open-sourcing-our-docs/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Announcing SparkToro &#8220;Trending&#8221; &#8212; a Front Page for the Web Marketing World</title>
		<link>https://sparktoro.com/blog/announcing-sparktoro-trending-a-front-page-for-the-web-marketing-world/</link>
		<comments>https://sparktoro.com/blog/announcing-sparktoro-trending-a-front-page-for-the-web-marketing-world/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 30 May 2018 15:47:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rand Fishkin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SparkToro]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://sparktoro.com/blog/?p=3706</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Over the last decade, there have been numerous attempts to create an news aggregation tool for web marketers &#8212; Threadwatch, Sphinn, Inbound.org, GrowthHackers, Alltop &#8212; but none of them quite scratched the itch. Plus, almost all of them were susceptible to rampant spam and/or ugly drama+trolling in the comments.
Casey (SparkToro&#8217;s cofounder) and I have lots of experience in this&#8230;]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[Over the last decade, there have been numerous attempts to create an news aggregation tool for web marketers &#8212; Threadwatch, Sphinn, Inbound.org, GrowthHackers, Alltop &#8212; but none of them quite scratched the itch. Plus, almost all of them were susceptible to rampant spam and/or ugly drama+trolling in the comments.
Casey (SparkToro&#8217;s cofounder) and I have lots of experience in this&hellip;]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>https://sparktoro.com/blog/announcing-sparktoro-trending-a-front-page-for-the-web-marketing-world/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Pushing Back Against Shame and Failure (plus a story about D&#038;D)</title>
		<link>https://sparktoro.com/blog/pushing-back-against-shame-and-failure-plus-a-story-about-dd/</link>
		<comments>https://sparktoro.com/blog/pushing-back-against-shame-and-failure-plus-a-story-about-dd/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 29 May 2018 09:37:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rand Fishkin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Personal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Psychology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Startups]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://sparktoro.com/blog/?p=3681</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Recently, I had a series of epiphanies about my experiences as a founder. Please forgive the length of the post, and stick with me, I&#8217;ll do my best to make the journey worthwhile.
I was eleven years old, maybe twelve, and my family lived way out in the middle of nowhere, in unincorporated King County. We were a 15 minute&#8230;]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[Recently, I had a series of epiphanies about my experiences as a founder. Please forgive the length of the post, and stick with me, I&#8217;ll do my best to make the journey worthwhile.
I was eleven years old, maybe twelve, and my family lived way out in the middle of nowhere, in unincorporated King County. We were a 15 minute&hellip;]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>https://sparktoro.com/blog/pushing-back-against-shame-and-failure-plus-a-story-about-dd/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A Welcome to SparkToro&#8217;s Cofounder: Casey Henry</title>
		<link>https://sparktoro.com/blog/a-welcome-to-sparktoros-cofounder-casey-henry/</link>
		<comments>https://sparktoro.com/blog/a-welcome-to-sparktoros-cofounder-casey-henry/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 May 2018 16:23:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rand Fishkin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[SparkToro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Startups]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Team]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://sparktoro.com/blog/?p=3670</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In 2011, in one of my favorite hiring stories, a longtime SEOmoz community member joined our team. He&#8217;d been contributing to the blog for years, commenting and emailing with us, even building some SEOmoz-related side projects. He was young (as was I), but had the temperament and demeanor of a much older soul. Geraldine even described him as &#8220;a cranky&#8230;]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[In 2011, in one of my favorite hiring stories, a longtime SEOmoz community member joined our team. He&#8217;d been contributing to the blog for years, commenting and emailing with us, even building some SEOmoz-related side projects. He was young (as was I), but had the temperament and demeanor of a much older soul. Geraldine even described him as &#8220;a cranky&hellip;]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>https://sparktoro.com/blog/a-welcome-to-sparktoros-cofounder-casey-henry/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Buy Lost And Founder and PRH Will Send You This Zelda-Style Startup Map</title>
		<link>https://sparktoro.com/blog/buy-lost-and-founder-and-prh-will-send-you-this-zelda-style-startup-map/</link>
		<comments>https://sparktoro.com/blog/buy-lost-and-founder-and-prh-will-send-you-this-zelda-style-startup-map/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 May 2018 15:27:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rand Fishkin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Startups]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://sparktoro.com/blog/?p=3648</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s been a whirlwind of a few weeks, launching a new book, launching a big piece of software for Moz (my final project with the team there), and launching this new company&#8230; As I shared on Twitter:


Feels like for two years, I had nothing to launch. The occasional blog post or WB Friday notwithstanding. Then BAM. Spring 2018 is&#8230;]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[It&#8217;s been a whirlwind of a few weeks, launching a new book, launching a big piece of software for Moz (my final project with the team there), and launching this new company&#8230; As I shared on Twitter:


Feels like for two years, I had nothing to launch. The occasional blog post or WB Friday notwithstanding. Then BAM. Spring 2018 is&hellip;]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>https://sparktoro.com/blog/buy-lost-and-founder-and-prh-will-send-you-this-zelda-style-startup-map/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>New Data: How Google&#8217;s Organic &#038; Paid CTRs Have Changed 2015-2018</title>
		<link>https://sparktoro.com/blog/new-data-how-googles-organic-paid-ctrs-have-changed-2015-2018/</link>
		<comments>https://sparktoro.com/blog/new-data-how-googles-organic-paid-ctrs-have-changed-2015-2018/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Apr 2018 03:24:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rand Fishkin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Data]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://sparktoro.com/blog/?p=3637</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s good news for SEOs &#8212; the number of searches on Google keeps growing, interest in SEO remains massively higher than other forms of web marketing, and the field is far less distrusted than even a few years ago (source).
But, there&#8217;s bad news, too. Thanks to the kind folks at Jumpshot (whose clickstream data covers tens of billions of&#8230;]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[There&#8217;s good news for SEOs &#8212; the number of searches on Google keeps growing, interest in SEO remains massively higher than other forms of web marketing, and the field is far less distrusted than even a few years ago (source).
But, there&#8217;s bad news, too. Thanks to the kind folks at Jumpshot (whose clickstream data covers tens of billions of&hellip;]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>https://sparktoro.com/blog/new-data-how-googles-organic-paid-ctrs-have-changed-2015-2018/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>I Wrote a Weird Kind of Business Book</title>
		<link>https://sparktoro.com/blog/i-wrote-a-weird-kind-of-business-book/</link>
		<comments>https://sparktoro.com/blog/i-wrote-a-weird-kind-of-business-book/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Apr 2018 14:59:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rand Fishkin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Book]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Startups]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://sparktoro.com/blog/?p=3611</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For the last two years, I&#8217;ve been working on a book about what it&#8217;s like to build a tech startup and how Silicon Valley&#8217;s startup culture biases founders and companies to make a lot of poor decisions. That book, Lost and Founder, comes out in 14 days&#8230; I&#8217;m the usual mix of excitement and nervousness, elation and fear.
The face&#8230;]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[For the last two years, I&#8217;ve been working on a book about what it&#8217;s like to build a tech startup and how Silicon Valley&#8217;s startup culture biases founders and companies to make a lot of poor decisions. That book, Lost and Founder, comes out in 14 days&#8230; I&#8217;m the usual mix of excitement and nervousness, elation and fear.
The face&hellip;]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>https://sparktoro.com/blog/i-wrote-a-weird-kind-of-business-book/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>New Jumpshot 2018 Data: Where Searches Happen on the Web (Google, Amazon, Facebook, &#038; Beyond)</title>
		<link>https://sparktoro.com/blog/new-jumpshot-2018-data-where-searches-happen-on-the-web-google-amazon-facebook-beyond/</link>
		<comments>https://sparktoro.com/blog/new-jumpshot-2018-data-where-searches-happen-on-the-web-google-amazon-facebook-beyond/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Apr 2018 16:35:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rand Fishkin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Startups]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://sparktoro.com/blog/?p=3596</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Over the last few years, I&#8217;ve been incredibly frustrated with inaccurate, unrepresentative data sources about how traffic flows on the web and where web searches take place. Some of these are well-intentioned mistakes (e.g.), while others feel like they&#8217;ve got a specific motivation. But one source that&#8217;s been consistently excellent is Jumpshot, a collector and provider of anonymized, clickstream-level data&#8230;]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[Over the last few years, I&#8217;ve been incredibly frustrated with inaccurate, unrepresentative data sources about how traffic flows on the web and where web searches take place. Some of these are well-intentioned mistakes (e.g.), while others feel like they&#8217;ve got a specific motivation. But one source that&#8217;s been consistently excellent is Jumpshot, a collector and provider of anonymized, clickstream-level data&hellip;]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>https://sparktoro.com/blog/new-jumpshot-2018-data-where-searches-happen-on-the-web-google-amazon-facebook-beyond/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Why Web Marketers Should Invest in Demand Creation</title>
		<link>https://sparktoro.com/blog/demand-creation/</link>
		<comments>https://sparktoro.com/blog/demand-creation/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Mar 2018 21:05:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rand Fishkin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Startups]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://sparktoro.com/blog/?p=3579</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Every month, hundreds of thousands of people search on Google for &#8220;upcoming movies.&#8221; And in the SEO and web marketing worlds, there are a lot of practitioners who&#8217;d argue that movie studios should be investing more effort into ranking in the lists, news items, and search results that show for those queries.
After all, according to the Moz Explorer tool,&#8230;]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[Every month, hundreds of thousands of people search on Google for &#8220;upcoming movies.&#8221; And in the SEO and web marketing worlds, there are a lot of practitioners who&#8217;d argue that movie studios should be investing more effort into ranking in the lists, news items, and search results that show for those queries.
After all, according to the Moz Explorer tool,&hellip;]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>https://sparktoro.com/blog/demand-creation/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Contrarian Take: Don&#8217;t Start Your Content Marketing with &#8220;What Do My Customers Want?&#8221;</title>
		<link>https://sparktoro.com/blog/contrarian-content-marketing/</link>
		<comments>https://sparktoro.com/blog/contrarian-content-marketing/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Mar 2018 06:55:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rand Fishkin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://sparktoro.com/blog/?p=3572</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you&#8217;re in the business of content marketing, I know you&#8217;ve seen advice like this:

&#8220;Start with your customer personas.&#8221;
&#8220;Create content that will resonate with your customers.&#8221;
&#8220;Great content is content that your customers actually want to consume.&#8221;

It sounds compelling. But in my experience, it&#8217;s wrong. Or at least, incomplete. Why?

#1) Because, most content marketing goals are&#8230;]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[If you&#8217;re in the business of content marketing, I know you&#8217;ve seen advice like this:

&#8220;Start with your customer personas.&#8221;
&#8220;Create content that will resonate with your customers.&#8221;
&#8220;Great content is content that your customers actually want to consume.&#8221;

It sounds compelling. But in my experience, it&#8217;s wrong. Or at least, incomplete. Why?

#1) Because, most content marketing goals are&hellip;]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>https://sparktoro.com/blog/contrarian-content-marketing/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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