Visit Our Blog
What Are Your Obsessions?
Obsessions can be useful or harmful.
Thanks to GigaOm I learned about Jeff Bezos’ obsession in a footnote he wrote to Amazon’s 2008 letter to shareholders:
” At a fulfillment center recently, one of our Kaizen (continual improvement) experts asked me, “I’m in favor of a clean fulfillment center, but why are you cleaning? Why don’t you eliminate the source of dirt?” I felt like the Karate Kid.“
Amazon’s obsession with continual improvement has permeated their culture and made them a great company.
Here are just a few dangerous obsessions holding back many of our readers from more success:
- Data collection obsession – 79% of businesses obsessively capture Internet traffic data, yet only 30% of them changed their sites as a result of analysis.
- Keyword obsession – Keywords don’t fail to convert. We fail to convert visitors for that keyword.
- Short copy obsession – Of course people won’t read your copy if it isn’t relevant.
- Search Engine obsession – SERP rankings are crucially important but I never met a search engine spider with a creadit card. What happens after the searcher clicks through matters just as much.
- Shiny new object obsession – It’s the corporate version of ADD. Companies get distracted with the newest new new thing, invest lots of energy into it then they have unrealistic expectations of success.
What are your company’s obsessions? Are they useful or harmful?
About the author
Jeffrey is the co-author of New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling books Call to Action and Waiting For Your Cat to Bark. Jeffrey is available as a professional speaker. You can friend him on Facebook or LinkedIn.
More articles from Jeffrey Eisenberg
- Nobody wants to read your sh**!September 21st, 2009
- Redesign? Ask The Right Questions!September 18th, 2009
- Cross-post: How to Improve a Product Page, Part 1September 15th, 2009
For More, Subscribe To Grok!
- Capterra: The Conference Sept 13-15, Wash., DC
- "Recession Marketing: From Pre-click to Post-click" (webinar) Sept 16, 12pm EDT / 9am PDT
- "Securing the Sale: Turn Your Site's Browsers Into Buyers" (webinar) Sept 17, 2pm EDT / 11am PDT
- Excellence and Innovation conference Sept 28-30, Orlando
- The SEM Conference
Sept 23-24, Oslo, Norway - eConsultancy Peer Summit Oct 8, New York City
- The Bolo Conference Oct 12-14, Scotsdale, AZ
- Google GAAC/WOAC annual meetings
Oct 13-16, Googleplex California - eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit Oct 19-23, Wash., DC
May 11th, 2009
5:54 pm
My new obsession is conversion rate, conversion rate, conversion rate…….. oh and did I mention conversion rate?
May 13th, 2009
10:15 am
So, I think, I have to find some obsessions in my life right?? Hmmm…I better find some…
May 13th, 2009
10:23 am
@ penguinkribo – I just hope you find healthy ones
May 13th, 2009
10:29 am
[...] funnel and may help more than they hurt. GrokDotCom’s Jeffrey Eisenberg says that no matter how much we obsess over the data, it’s not the keywords that fail to convert, but what we do with those [...]
May 13th, 2009
4:46 pm
Shiny new object obsession… Now that’s one worth writing down.
May 17th, 2009
4:04 am
My obsession is taking action on whatever your analysis reveals – and not just trying to get even more information.
May 17th, 2009
2:30 pm
Aside from traveling, I admit my other obsession is in data collection.
September 3rd, 2009
11:33 pm
Eisenberg says that no matter how much we obsess over the data, it’s not the keywords that fail to convert, but what we do with those [...]
September 7th, 2009
9:37 am
Well – Great to see I am not the only one combining the Keyword obsession and SEO obsession.
October 8th, 2009
12:53 pm
Well suggestion for SEO. Thank you.
October 8th, 2009
10:49 pm
Short copy obsession — oh yes I forget it.
October 11th, 2009
4:19 am
It’s good article. Thank you
October 12th, 2009
4:15 am
I appreciate this very article.
October 19th, 2009
10:50 am
it is obvious that my obsession is conversion rate.
October 28th, 2009
8:33 pm
I’ve met many people that only care about rankings. They don’t seem to understand that being no. 1 for a key phrase which won’t bring them any traffic whatsoever, is completely useless!