Articles by Ian Lurie

First things first: I have law degree. I’m not a practicing lawyer. I am not giving legal advice. Nor can I. This is, instead, common-sense advice as a social media nerd. Your staff are all over the internet. You know that, right? They’re writing stuff on Facebook. And on Twitter. They’re blogging, too. Best case? [...]

You’re a plumber. You want to rank #1 for ‘Seattle plumbing’. That means you have to write interesting content about plumbing, in Seattle, every 2 days, for the next year. All you can think is “Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap.” Well, Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (ex-college professor) laughs at your silliness. You [...]

A quick update: A lot of folks are e-mailing/IMing/Tweeting me that I ‘outed’ FTD. I didn’t out anyone. The New York Times sent 6000 suspect links to Google a while ago. And the Seattle Times contacted Google while writing this story. All I’m doing is analyzing what folks said in light of the link profile. [...]

I make no promises. But I suspect if you do some of this stuff, your customers will thank you. Or, they won’t notice the stuff that used to make them curse you: Make every page on your site load 1 second faster. Start by taking every image on your site and compressing it. Please. It [...]

A big part of problem solving is stepping away from the problem. Whether you’re writing code, writing a book or trying to figure out why a web site isn’t generating sales, there comes a point where your brain over-saturates and needs a good wringing out. Here are some common signs you need a break: You [...]

Never underestimate the Marine Corps. Here’s one of their reading lists: Yep. Ender’s Game. One of the greatest pieces of science fiction ever written. On the US Marine Corps. reading list. That is awesome. The Marines do more with less than any other branch of the military. They do it, in part, by encouraging creativity [...]

First, a brief interlude: AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHH OK. I’m good now. Primal scream complete. The documentation for Google App Scripts is… less than perfect. So I have to start by thanking Tom Critchlow of Distilled. He sent me the initial script that made Google Spreadsheets play well with the LinkScape API. Otherwise, I’d be in a small, [...]

When I wrote Why all SEOs should learn to program lots of people sent me compliments and praise. That was fun. Now time for the hate, I suspect. If SEOs need to learn to program, then web developers need to learn SEO. Scream if you want. You can reach me on Twitter at @portentint. Who [...]

Every SEO should learn at least 2 programming languages. Here’s why: Two languages means you can program. One means you can read a manual. You can easily learn one language and have no grasp of programming. Learn two, though, and you learn some of the stuff that all programming languages have in common. You have [...]

I don’t think I’ve embedded a video by someone else on this blog in 5 years. However, this piece about marketing and physics is beyond brilliant: It defines marketing in a way that totally, completely makes sense. It’s only 7 minutes long. Watch it.