Articles by Ian Lurie

Actually, it doesn’t, but I figured I’d say it before someone else gets all the links. Go back to work. Don’t you have anything better to do?

With a few notable exceptions, SEO sales tactics tend to range from merely nauseating to vomit-inducing. I’ve kept a log (seriously) over the last three months, and here are my favorites: The rankings guarantee The ploy: Promise your SEO fu will get your client top-10 or #1 rankings for their keywords. The problem: Why do [...]

The best way to control a social media crisis is to own it. And really any pictures of me constitute a crisis, so I’m owning this one: I hate – hate getting pictures taken. That’s why I use a little cartoon instead. But I was starting to get some flack from certain people (you know [...]

Tip ‘o the hat to Lisa Barone, who’s written a few great how-to guides for conferences, too. I am a social moron. It’s true. When I’m speaking up on stage I have a blast. Throw me into a pre-conference mixer, though, and I guarantee multiple cringe-worthy moments, like: Happily waving at someone while calling them [...]

Saying there’s no longer a duplicate content penalty is a semantic weasel routine that ignores one hard fact: Duplicate content will kill your rankings. I’ve written a lot about canonicalization and the content duplication toilet bowl of death. Those are causes of duplication. Read the two articles I linked to above first if you don’t [...]

I just finished writing The Fat Free Guide to Google Analytics. You should buy it. Now would be good. It’s chock-full of analytical goodness, including info on: Calculating the value of one visitor to your web site; Setting up goals in Google Analytics; Interpreting analytics data. I worked hard to make this a super-practical, easy-to-apply [...]

You can’t decide what to write for your next blog post. So you do a list. Then you do another list. Then you do a list of ways to write a good list. I fall into that trap, all the time. If it’s not lists, it’s sarcastic posts about marketing fads, or cute analogies, or [...]

Linda Sherman and co. just launched a new blog called Boomertechtalk. The site offers everything from backup advice to marketing tips. Linda interviewed me about local search and posted my semi-coherent ramblings on the blog: If I’m a little incoherent, I’ll note that the previous 48 hours included: Me recovering from King Kamehameha’s Revenge. 2010 [...]

A thought that’s been germinating in my head for some time: People want content that does the same thing. If you can produce online content – text, ebooks, video, whatever – that makes folks want to read it the instant they glance at it, you can get a major internet marketing win. Apple’s example Apple [...]

I’m in Hawaii at Search & Social Woot!, and I keep losing stuff. My cell phone’s USB cable. My tickets to special events. My wedding ring (thankfully found again on the floor in my hotel room). My mind. I have no excuses, but the rash of absent-mindedness has me thinking about the stuff I always [...]