Yearly Archives: 2012

Social Media

The world didn’t end last week, meaning that whole 2012 Social Media Year-in-Review bit was a little off. On the other hand, it also means I get to bring you the countdown of our 15 most popular social media posts of 2012. We had a ton of social content on our blog throughout the year, so without… Read More

Social Media

I love LinkedIn, but either someone’s playing a joke on me, or my kids are getting to have a say in their rankings, or something’s really wrong. I currently rank number one for the word ‘pest’: For ‘internet marketing,’ on the other hand, I’m not even in the top 10. My daughter just said, when… Read More

Social Media

There was a lot going on in the world of social media in 2012 (see: This entire post). But the world is ending TODAY* – like, anytime now. While you wait for the apocalypse, this blog post will be one of the last things you read. And it may just be the last year-in-review thing… Read More

Design & Development

My daughter just turned 3. And aside from wondering where the devil the last few years of my life went, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make Christmas special for a girl whose birthday is in December.   Charlie loves technology. My iPad 2 was instantly hers the moment I brought it home… Read More

SEO

It’s hard to pinpoint when some of us fell out of love with Google. Maybe it was when they went from geeky Stanford students out to “not be evil” to the kinda creepy boyfriend who orders for us at restaurants because “that’s what we always have.” Like it or not, we were trapped. Over the… Read More

PPC

I’ve never done a prediction piece for the Portent blog before but based on the number of times a year I get asked “how much will I make from PPC?” I must have a crystal ball somewhere. (Particularly since when this question is usually asked, it’s been 5 minutes, I haven’t seen the cart funnel,… Read More

Copywriting

Last night, when most of Seattle was at a holiday party or stuck in traffic on the way to a party, a group of intrepid souls filled the Portent presentation room to discuss using content strategy to save the world. The event, Content Strategy Forum 2012 Redux: Out of Africa, was part of an ongoing… Read More

SEO

Recently I did a survey of our staff here at Portent to see if anyone had any questions about SEO they wanted answered. I made the survey anonymous using Survey Monkey, because sometimes people feel more comfortable asking a question without their identity being revealed. In the spirit of sharing and transparency, we decided to… Read More

Internet Marketing

I curse whoever first wrote “Have an image at the top of your blog post.” Ever since then it’s been a barrage of crappy stock photos slapped at the top of every half-assed blog post across the internet. Take this example. Am I supposed to believe there’s an company in the world that has this… Read More

Internet Marketing

You’re reading this post for one of two reasons: 1)      You’re thinking about starting a blog and wondering if it’s worth the time and energy, or 2)      You’ve already invested time and energy in blogging and are not seeing the return you imagined Let’s start at the beginning. Should I blog? Sometimes when you’re having… Read More

Internet Marketing

This is the somewhat annotated version of a talk I gave at this fantastic incubator here in Seattle called SURF. My main point: Marketing isn’t about interruption, trickery, SEO spam, etc. Marketing is about communicating true value and significance to your audience. Period. Anything else is just annoying. A brief expository interlude In 1992, I… Read More

SEO

I’m going to play mind-reader for a moment. Here’s what you think about SEO: You think search engine optimization is a closely-guarded secret bag of tricks You think SEO means beating Google at their own game You equate SEO with “buckets of cash” which would be pouring into your bank account if only you knew… Read More

Random

Intentional or not, Ang Lee and his certain-to-be-Oscar-nominated movie have infringed on our copyright.  Way before there was some weird kid in a turban floating around with a tiger, there was PORTENT, INC.  Pi.  And way, WAY before the weird turban tiger floating, we had a life.  And we still do. So skip the multiplex… Read More

Internet Marketing

You can learn to manage your time, or you can end each day curled up in a ball under your desk. At least, those were my choices. I never found a pre-conceived time management system that worked for me as an internet marketer. GTD, Pomodoro, etc. all have great elements but couldn’t quite fit the… Read More

PPC

In our endless quest to find the “next big thing” in PPC, we tried a small test at Portent on Portent products and services with Twitter ads. I noticed there were many “how to get started” posts but few data-supported case studies with results. Armed with PPC intern Tim, a $100 head start from a… Read More