A true screenwriter needs to be able to write with empathy for any and all characters that exist in their world. The same is true for building great marketing personas. | Continue reading
Time tracking might suck, but it can help you improve your workflows, make your team happier, and deliver better work to your clients. | Continue reading
Good research benefits from good interview skills. Use these four tips to become a better listener and ultimately a better researcher. | Continue reading
Headlines make or break an article, blog post, or evergreen content. We tested headline analyzers on Portent's blog to evaluate their effectiveness. | Continue reading
We've all been guilty of over-relying on a marketing best practices guide from time to time. But weigh the risks & know when it's time to customize. | Continue reading
The simple, yet seemingly confounding ingredients for a great, dedicated, PPC landing page. | Continue reading
Yes. Wait, no. Well... definitely, maybe. | Continue reading
In my time at Portent I’ve had the opportunity to work with and learn from some of the best and brightest in our industry, and most recently as a first-time parent. For this blog post I’ve decided to draw some lessons I’ve learned that are key to building a solid digital marketin … | Continue reading
If you're using both video and SEO to grow your business in 2017, and you should be, this guide is a must-read. | Continue reading
Technical SEO is a lost art, partly because SEOs are focused on content and partly because we're afraid to call bullshit. Here's how you do tech SEO. | Continue reading
Why a GitHub auto-deploy solution? The better question is "why not?" It simply makes a developer's life easier. And happy devs are good for everyone. | Continue reading
At SEMPDX Engage 2017 I spoke about my complete lack of experience as an influence marketer. I also discussed: How to find your biggest fans How to promote their praise using social media What not to do ever ever ever when doing this Here’s the video. My bit starts at 25 minutes. … | Continue reading
Would you reject a change that improves your bottom line 50% because you're already as good as your competitors? Of course not. But are a few options. | Continue reading
Want to figure out whether your agency is full of crap when they say "Yeah, we do SEO! No problem?" Ian Lurie teaches you how. | Continue reading
Last Friday, Google announced that it is “expanding close variant matching to include additional rewording and reordering for exact match keywords.” In other words: “exact match” will not exactly be exact match. Let's discuss. | Continue reading
This half-blog-post-half-PSA covers some of the most common SEO mistakes or missed opportunities that you can tackle, before you pay for that next formal SEO Audit | Continue reading
Where do Snippets Come From? Well, when a search engine loves your structured data very much… | Continue reading
I love ROI. And I freaking hate it. Read this post to learn why we can't live without it and it's slowly killing us at the same time. | Continue reading
A look at some of the most common ways that marketers sabotage their own PPC performance, by trying to do too much, too fast, and with too little data. | Continue reading
Moving. I tried to come up with an analogy for something that incites misery, throws out your back and reduces you to a gibbering lunatic while forcing you to blog using your phone as a mobile hotspot. But, after much suffering, Portent has moved two blocks south of our old locat … | Continue reading
Last fall, I began a 200-hour certification program to become a yoga teacher. I wanted to learn more about the philosophy of yoga, strengthen my public speaking and leadership skills, and teach one or two nights a week after finishing my day at work as a Content Specialist at Por … | Continue reading
What would ya say, that ya do here? If the answer is online marketing in any way, shape or form, you know the importance of having analytics configured correctly on your site. If you need help convincing anyone, take them over to Portent’s handy Marketing Stack Explainer. But wai … | Continue reading
OK, maybe panic. But you've got options. Ian Lurie did some research. These are the options he's found (so far). | Continue reading
Portent's Michael Wiegand shares the nuances of using keyword ranking data in the age of personalized search to further your SEO efforts. | Continue reading
Walk through any marketing group and I'll bet you’ll hear a similar theme: ‘there’s never enough time in the day.’ You already know the answer: work smarter | Continue reading
Marketers live for the moment they do that one thing and stats go through the roof. But that doesn't happen often, and when it does, there's more to it. | Continue reading
Out of the gate, an SEO will try to warn you against changing domains unless it is absolutely necessary. This post offers SEO guidance for those who must. | Continue reading
One of the fundamental concepts of formal business strategy is how to create sustained competitive advantage. Today, we look at how that drives your content marketing. | Continue reading
Funnel Driven Keyword Reporting looks at what actually compels users to buy from you in Organic Search. It's time to focus on what drives your business, and to make that easy to explain to any stakeholder. | Continue reading
Trust me when I say I didn't really want to support Breitbart News. Not my kinda site. | Continue reading
Ah January, another revolution around the sun complete. Yearly budgets are set, resolutions made, and the holidays are still recent enough you can taste the eggnog. I hate to be the guy who brings up that one thing, which causes you to go into a brand-new-year-and-I-already-forgo … | Continue reading
If you’re trying to drive visibility for a brand, you owe it to yourself to look for opportunities to optimize on directories beyond Google | Continue reading
Warning: some humble-brag follows, but I promise it’s in the spirit of sharing marketing and SEO lessons. My new apartment is perfect. Walking distance from the Space Needle and huge windows the full length of our living room. It doesn’t get much better than that in Seattle for l … | Continue reading
I love marketing jargon as much as the next guy. But we abuse it. Here are a bunch of of marketing terms, and what they actually mean. | Continue reading
OK. So Panda’s different. It’s part of the core algorithm. It doesn’t penalize sites. It can help you move up. What does that mean, day-to-day? More than “create great content,” that’s for sure. | Continue reading
Portent's head of SEO Zac Heinrichs looks at how so many companies hurt their performance by not having a plan in place to guide their internal linking practices. | Continue reading
Worried that your Shopify store might be invisible to customers who would love your products? Take a spin through these simple best practices to make the most of your online storefront. | Continue reading
This ebook is my approach to content creation - how I do blog posts, longform, papers, articles, product descriptions, and anything else that uses words. | Continue reading
I wrote an ebook about technical SEO. It's free. Come check it out. | Continue reading
You're not the only one who's struggled with this. Take a few tips from a marketer who's done this both in-house, and at an agency. | Continue reading
Let’s say you sell chocolate. You also happen to know all there is to know about making superb chocolate. A short-lived blog post or three won’t leave a lasting impression. An in-depth guide to taste profiles of cacao from different parts of the world will. | Continue reading
If you’re in digital marketing, the term “dark social” has probably floated around your office recently. This post digs into the: What, Why, and So What. | Continue reading
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a bit of an afterthought for most developers. But this checklist of SEO essentials you need to hit from day one. | Continue reading
These are the slides and links from my presentation at Digital Dealer Workshops. Enjoy! Distance from Perfect: Marketing w/ the Human Algorithm – DDW from Ian Lurie A few tools Bing webmaster tools Google PageSpeed Insights Grammarly Proofreading Software Hemingway Editing Softwa … | Continue reading
Email marketing is a strong tool. Here are some tips and strategies to think about to help you get the most out of your email list. | Continue reading
Google has been rolling out a lot of new features lately. Here is a quick recap of a few of the more significant changes that you should be keeping an eye on. | Continue reading
I’ll be at Pubcon next week, speaking my brains out. Here are my sessions: Speed Baby Speed Tuesday, October 11 11:25am-12:30pm I’d say more but this page loaded too fast. All about making your site faster. Not just Google Page Speed. I’m on a panel with Fili Wiese and Jenny Hala … | Continue reading
You can learn a lot when your cat's name ends up being the name of a terrorist organization. How to get people to change their minds isn't one of them. | Continue reading