Articles by Ian Lurie

Whenever I try to explain the concept of true Pagerank – not the fake number you see in the Google Toolbar – I find myself going into all sorts of metaphorical gymnastics. PageRank is like a tree… no, it’s like a fountain… no, wait, an electrical grid… or is it a squid…? At long last, [...]

It’s hard to write an SEO proposal. Clients are skeptical. You’re skeptical. Hell, everyone’s skeptical. But there are some things that can help. These are a few of the components I put into any proposal – these avoid misunderstandings, set expectations and help me seal the deal. The price. Don’t hide the price. Do put [...]

I’m rapidly reaching some kind of cranial detonation point, I think. Don’t get me wrong – after 15 years in this business, I have colleagues and clients I really like. Through arguments and successes we’ve stuck together and done some cool stuff. But there are those other ones. They’re like a water torture, dropping ridiculous [...]

Note that I am using ad.ly as part of this test. I am not saying ad.ly is bad. They have a great site, a nice toolset and make no promises. I am suggesting (spoiler alert) that sponsored tweets rank in profitability somewhere below hiring alchemists to try to turn lead into gold. Sometimes, I just [...]

Marketing nerdiness alert! This post has some heavy-duty marketing geekination in it. You have been warned. At last night’s SEMPDX presentation I talked about the multiplier effect and social media. Here’s the multiplier effect as I defined it: The multiplier effect: Each additional quality friend or follower in your network increases the value of all [...]

Thanks, SEMPDX, for inviting me to speak tonight – it was a blast (as always). Here are my slides, if you need ‘em. I’ll be writing posts that expand on some of the points in the presentation over the next few weeks. Search and Social Media View more presentations from Ian Lurie.

Here’s the thing about Google Instant: It doesn’t change search as much as you might think. I’m not ignoring the fact that it’s a big innovation. The speed required to make Instant work is mind-boggling. Somewhere in the world lights flicker every time you do an Instant search. But it’s not going to cause SEO’s [...]

It’s not about Google Instant, but if you want to get a few tips on taking advantage of Google’s new brand stacking feature (so last week) I wrote a column about it: How to grab more rankings with Google’s branded search results

A lone bird (apparently bomber-sized) gives its opinion of Google Street View:

SEO. What’s the deal? Why do marketing VPs, IT teams and CFO’s flee, screaming, at the mere mention of search engine optimization? I have no answers. However, I do have a few points – data-driven or otherwise – that I’ve used to sell SEO in the past. I’ve tested extensively, and I can tell you [...]