Articles by Ian Lurie

The best way to drive a client crazy? Talk a lot, but tell them nothing. The SEO industry has a lot of people who are really, really good at that. I’ve seen some true artists: Men and women who can speak or write thousands of words without uttering a single useful thought. Stuff like this: [...]

People. search. for words. Other stuff 22 ways you’re making marketing difficult. Speak carefully WSJ, WTF?! Google Panda & Subdomains 18 random thoughts about internet marketing When everyone works together, SEO just works. Marketing truths: People buy pleasure, not prevention 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies 11 reasons no sane person starts an [...]

A lot of Portent-ites helped me write this. They submitted their ideas. I added the attitude. So please don’t blame them if this is obnoxious. It’s allll me. You’re too busy. Nothing works. Everything takes too long. You can’t get anything done. There are too many distractions. Your boss is a jerk with ridiculous expectations. [...]

I’ve now written this blog post three times. The first version was 1500 words. The second, 400 words. This version is much shorter, and I think more fair. Yesterday I wrote about the Wall Street Journal, bad SEO advice and subdomains. There’s a deeper lesson, though: When you blog, report or speak, you have an [...]

Take a deep breath, everyone. The Wall Street Journal published an article July 13 all about HubPages, and how the site saved itself from Google Panda’s evil clutches by spreading their site across multiple subdomains. In the article Amir Efrati implies in a very-hard-to-pin-down-but-easy-to-assume way that subdomains may be a magical solution if you’ve been [...]

Bonus tip: Learning the difference between “Chile” and “Chili” is really helpful. A little semi-random Wednesday thinking: Always ready our analytics reports. Understand them. Demand that someone make you understand them. Making business decisions without that knowledge will probably kill your company. Never buy a product with ‘Crusher’, ‘Disintegrator’ or ‘Miracle’ in the name. Anything [...]

SEO works best when everyone works together: Creative, PR, social media, writers and yes, the SEO team. I’ve preached that for years. But it almost never happens. The PR agency ignores us. The dev team smiles like they just smelled sour milk and then leaves. The branding team holds up relevant holy symbols and backs [...]

People buy pleasure, not prevention. I know, deep for a Friday afternoon. It’s a rule that’s helped me sell for years, though. Try it on for size: Bike helmets and prevention: A marketing failure It’s hard to scare people into buying something. When I was in law school, I worked in a bicycle shop that [...]

A few people described yesterday’s post as ‘soul killing’, ‘depressing’ and ‘horrifyingly accurate’. Today, I’m taking not-incompatible view that all smart people in the internet marketing biz should start their own agencies. Note that I’m not a “follow your bliss” hand waving business philosopher. I think in terms of building a lasting business that can [...]

This is the first of a 2-part series that documents 2 voices in my head. One voice perpetually says “You are an idiot for running an agency.” The other says “This rocks. It’s the greatest job in the world.” So fear not: I’m not having a mid-life nervous breakdown. Or, if I am, it’s not [...]