So for this fun, furry, Friday post I present The Pets of Portent:

Zookeeper & Account Strategist Ariana Burgess @aplejax. Kasey only wants attention when she wants it. If you try to pet her otherwise, she will run away. And you have to pet her rough, like smacking her hind legs rough. Otherwise she isn’t satisfied. She’s never been much for play but she has stolen a slice of pizza off the coffee table and takes random swipes at the dogs just because she can.

Pandora is queen of the castle. Even though she is the youngest furry child, she is the ruler of all. She lets her big brother think he is the alpha but truly she is. She only plays with Phoenix’s tail, no toys ever have made the cut. She LOVES oranges and noodles and anything that crunches (including things that shouldn’t be ingested). She pretends she hates everyone but Mommy and Daddy but once we are our of sight she would go with pretty much anyone.

Phoenix enjoys chasing and sometimes retrieving yellow fuzzy balls, long walks anywhere (except where he doesn’t want to go – which changes depending on the day), licking babies hands, head and feet and to beg for food even though he knows he won’t get any. He also loves snuggles and noodles. His favorite meal is whatever the humans are eating and he lets his younger sister chase him around.

Cat Herder Account Strategist Chris Hugo @chugonator. While sistas from other mistas, Tango and Indigo are nearly inseparable. Tango is a wise soul who enjoys catnaps and being included in everything while Indigo spends most her day stalking shadows, reflections, and ankles. You can usually find these two snuggled together until Indigo decides it’s time to play again.

Wildlife preserve presented by CEO Ian Lurie @portentint. Feline siblings that look nothing alike, Isis and Romulus have terrorized each other and Ian’s houseplants for 3 years now. They valiantly defend the house against intruders by growling and fleeing from the room whenever someone knocks on the front door. They are also known to kill flies, if the flies don’t fight back too much.

Our small teddy bear hamster is approaching Methuselah-like age. He’s an unrivaled escape artist, having once pried the bars of his cage apart and slipped out, evading cats, only to end up in the guinea pig cage. Not too bright, apparently.

Our large (gigantic) black guinea pig is now about 251 in guinea pig years. He loves to get on the floor and chase the cats (seriously). This guinea pig prefers carrot tops, arugula, and oranges to silly things like timothy hay. She likes her water cold, her cats compliant, and her cage clean.

Five pounds of steely-eyed canine fury, Alfred is so cute and cuddly he’s utterly incapable of scaring anything. He also doesn’t seem to want to. He does, however, terrify the cats, both of which outweigh him 3:1. At 16 weeks old, Alfred has serious incontinence issues. He also doesn’t like bees.

Catopia sponsored by Director of SEO Josh Patrice @syzlak. Heartthrobs both, Waylon & Willie pack a double punch of precocious love at the Patrice household. Waylon is the epitome of graceful, bounding from couch to condo with the ease of Baryshnikov. Always demanding attention, Waylon is either in your lap or at your feet all day long. He loves to lick fingers or toes and he “ain’t givin’ in or givin’ up without a try.” Willie, on the other hand, is bat-sh#t crazy. When the “evenin’ sun goes down, you will find Willie hangin’ ’round”… and running, and climbing, and jumping… It’s always an adventure when Willie gets the wild-eyes.

Hot dog vendor – Account Strategist Kimberly Williams. Frank has the soul of a poet and philosopher, which makes him a ladies magnet. When he’s not sniffing out injustices and righting wrongs (mostly having to do with him not getting enough treats), you can find him sleeping in, snuggling, and giving love to anyone and everyone. One note of caution, like his honey badger cousin – it’s dangerous to cross him. He’s likely to revenge pee, because Frankie don’t give a …..Well, you know.

The Golden Girls by Senior SEO Strategist Marianne Sweeny @msweeny. Shady came to her through Old Dog Haven, a rescue organization that specializes in finding homes for dogs 7+ years old. She likes to think that two old dogs found each other. She’s quiet and smart. Marianne nicknamed her the Baronness Münchausen as she ate $4400 worth of vet bills in the first 6 months eating dark chocolate and, on another occasion, all of her NSAID medication at once.

Professional Ball Retriever Account Strategist Lisa Sali @lisaesali. Abby is a high energy multi-tasker who greets everyone as though they are her new best friend (a la “Up”: “I just met you but I love you already”). When we go for walks, she literally makes people walking past break out in a smile. She is so HAPPY. She is also smart – a bit of a cat-dog. Indoors she keeps busy playing with no less than 2 toys at a time, and invents games to keep her mind entertained – like putting a ball under furniture so she can play the game of trying to retrieve it. But that’s also a ploy to get me to play with her, and retrieve out of reach balls.

Kitten Moodinator Creator Katie Fetting @katielfetting. Izzy is a cute cuddler who believes 1.) the world is her litter box and 2.) Katie is her personal scoop. She also enjoys cleaning herself and half-heartedly fighting brother Ollie. Ollie is a terrorist. His current threat level is orange (sleeping). That is also his color. He regularly battles blinds, hampers and rogue glasses of water. Feel free to read more about Oliver and how he inspired Portent’s own Kitten Moodinator. Hannie is a stud. Full-stop.

Meow Mix Purveyor Account Strategist Mike Fitterer @MFitterer. As a former provider of free fortune readings, Miss Cleo’s lifestyle has simplified in recent years. These days she enjoys running back and forth for no apparent reason, indulging in foot odor from stray shoes, and hopping into the laps of unsuspecting couch sitters. Her show of strength when a random cat or bird crosses her path may appear fearsome, but the reality is she’s a big softy who craves pets and attention.

Dog Shaming Content Strategist Rebecca Bridge @rebeccabridge. Space and Charlie are perfect complements of one another. She thinks Space summed it up nicely on his blog, www.OneDogoneBlog.com, when he described his living situation with Charlie thusly: “When we’re home alone together without any humans, I swear I can hear his heart breaking in his chest over and again from lack of attention. Of course, this only makes me want to ignore him more fully.” Space doesn’t need nothing from nobody never (except food, he hasn’t figured out how grocery stores work yet), while Charlie can’t get enough of anything (including food) ever, now let him up on your lap! Charlie’s never had any gainful form of employment, but Space did used to be the mascot for a rather large SEO software company. He was fired for “not displaying the TAGFEE spirit.”

Who Owns Who? Director of Social Sara Lingafelter @saralingafelter. Gibson’s a nine-month-old Formosan Mountain Dog mix, who was rescued as a tiny, malnourished little thing from the streets of the third largest city in Taiwan. We were looking for a Boston Terrier, but when they saw the photo of her – all legs and Formosan eye roll – being held by her foster mom after getting off the plane at SeaTac, it was all over. She was theirs. Gibson loves long walks on the beach (literally – the ocean is her favorite place), camping trips, chasing squirrels, and playing with her favorite t-shirt in the backyard (Look! It’s a cape! Now, it’s a chew toy! Now it’s a flag!). Gibson’s working on her Canine Good Citizen certification, and her favorite tricks are “roll over” and “crawl.”

Door Opening Extraordinaire Senior Content Strategist Isla McKetta @islaisreading. Rocky is 100% pure Attention Hound. He knows how to be sweet with the little dogs and play rough with anyone his own size. Found at PAWS but hailing from the rough parts of Tacoma, Rocky enjoys wrestling, biting waves, and being read to. His favorite thing is to go out the back door. No, in. Make that out again. Or in…

Dog referee Senior Director of Search Marketing Elizabeth Marsten @ebkendo. Lumi is a black and white Setter, St. Bernard, Border Collie who-knows-what mix that enjoys chasing flashes of light, shadows, and birds. She also enjoys waiting until 1 a.m. before making her stealth move of jumping onto the end of the bed and curling up into a ball, covertly stretching out more and more until you resemble a ball. Her WWE Smackdown partner is Kismet, a Sharpei German Shepard mystery mix and the reason to rescue. Found on the side of I-5 in Southern CA with a broken hip, severe mange, tapeworm, deep scars and starving, this now fuzzy dude is the little engine that could and melts hearts along the way. He also boasts the deepest bark ever to come out from a 40lb dog, usually right before devouring his food in 30seconds or less. (His Facebook story is here with the Animal Aid and Rescue Foundation.) Go Dawgs!

And because it’s Friday I present one last animal:

A freakish squirrel who used to flex outside of Ian’s office in Tukwila.

Partial writing credit goes to Brian Furey, our PPC intern. Thanks Brian for getting it all organized!

The post The Amazing Pets of Portent appeared first on Portent.

Content strategists of the world unite!

Have you heard? Content marketing is the future. I hear you saying to yourself, “But you’re an inbound marketer, Rebecca, isn’t that statement just a tad self-serving?” It’s not just me. Look at the spike in interest over the past two years:

This is a conversation that’s being had over and over again, both in and out of the inbound marketing industry. If we’re right about content as the future of the Internet (hint: we are), then marketers need to make some promises to ourselves and the larger world. And then we need to keep them, so listen up. This is our manifesto.

We will respect the Internet as a place

You know how you’d never, ever go over to your grandmother’s house and put your dirty boots on her coffee table? You know, because you respect her? Well how about we all stop putting our dirty boots all over the internet!

From now on, we promise, collectively, to only produce content that adds to a larger conversation. We understand that people come to the Internet for two reasons: to be entertained and to be informed. We will endeavor to always create content for our clients which achieves those means. We will NOT:

• Write the same old, tired list post that’s been written fifty-billionity times before
• Write content whose only purpose is to contain keywords and links
• Publish content that would embarrass us if it had our names on it
• Write content just to have a content strategy
• Add blog posts just for the sake of keeping your blog content “fresh”

I know, I know, our clients want guest posts, they want link building, they’re not going to let it go easily. There’s not a lot we can do about these requests other than set out to prove that the new strategies are actually more effective in the long-term for our clients.

We know that our clients will come into our engagements with their own strategies. That’s okay. But we will do our best to educate our clients on why the old techniques don’t work anymore while simultaneously arming them with a full understanding of why we are making the choices that we are.

We will look into the future and not dwell on the past.

Look, we’ve come a long way, baby, but in a short amount of time. I mean, remember when this lovely blog post title was indicative of what people expected of inbound marketing?

Image courtesy of Ricardo Bueno

Let’s promise ourselves that we will not go back there. Yes, keywords are important, but perhaps even more important to the world of inbound marketing is authority. It’s content that is lasting and meaningful that will end up doing the most for our clients in the long run – and will help keep the Internet a place that we all want to hang around in. We will anticipate and be the future of the internet before it happens.

We will understand that “content marketing does not exist as a tactic”

We are not black hat SEOs, after all. We are writers and marketers and designers and creative folks who have more to offer than just a few gimmicks. So, to paraphrase my boss, Ian Lurie, content marketing is NOT a tactic or something that exists at all, really.

What does exist, however, is marketable content. Or at least it could exist if we made it. This is content that allows us to help our clients build a strong and dynamic message, then communicate that message effectively with others in order to grow an audience. Let’s be like Kevin Costner and realize that if we build great content, our audience will come.

We will match our content to our client’s needs

You know what would be fun? If every client was a “Red Bull” client who put their content first and their product second. But they’re not. And that’s a good thing. After all, there’d be no balance if all we ever produced were extreme sports videos and viral content. Plus, for most clients, that kind of content would stand in opposition to the needs of their brand. What are the needs of the brand?

We will take the time to find out and then we will build a body of content that enhances their brand. We will find out what types of content could be the equivalent of a viral sports video in their field and we will help them produce it. We will be the doctors of the Internet and we will first do no (brand) harm.

We will push our clients to the content edge without pushing them over

Oftentimes, our clients want to see a return, but they don’t want to take a risk. That’s not okay. Yet, it’s also not okay for us to step all over the brand messages that they’ve spent years developing. Instead, we will develop content that builds on their existing work but that also pushes their brand forward. Here at Portent, we call this the 70-20-10 strategy.

Clients tend to want to stay solely (and safely) within the 70% content. Or they tend to want that infinitely-more-difficult-to-produce 10% content. It is our job to convince them that it is not an either-or and explain to them why balanced content is the best content. Then we’ll act on those strategies and create content that improves our clients’ sites.

We will assign real value to our work

It’s simple. We know that we are doing important and valuable work for our clients, yet we’re not always the best at communicating that value. That’s partly because it’s more difficult to assign a specific analytical value to content that’s intended to build authority. Not domain authority, but honest-to-goodness brand authority.

We can look at bounce rates and repeat visitors and such, but the real work that we’re doing isn’t a quick fix, so those results don’t really reflect the long-term aim. It’s not our clients’ faults that they don’t “get” content, it’s ours. So let’s fix it.

So what do we do? We work to find new ways to convey value in content. We do case studies. We learn the metrics that we can use to measure value. We figure out algorithms that go beyond the scope of Google Analytics (but we still learn how to prove value with Google Analytics). We work together as an industry to prove the value of the very difficult work that we do.

We will discover new things every day and find ways to challenge ourselves

In order to do the best work that we can – every day, we must remember this motto and repeat it to ourselves:

If I’m bored while writing the content, then it’s boring content.

If we’re not consistently learning and having fun at our jobs, we will remember that it shows in the caliber of our work. We will remember that this isn’t a job that can be done by rote if we expect to succeed. When we’re on our five hundredth product description, feel as if our eyes are bleeding, and that every adjective we’ve ever known has escaped our brains and floated off into the ether, we will stand up! We will walk away! We will do something else or talk to someone in another department.

We will rotate and balance the work that we do for our clients so that we stay fresh.

Furthermore, we will spend time every day learning, growing, and developing new techniques. We won’t be content to let someone else tell us what works on the Internet; we’ll actively try new things and make these discoveries for ourselves. We will read up on the latest thinking, we will go to conferences and meetups and engage with our peers, and then we will form our own strategies. And we’ll share them.

We will endeavor to be seen as the strategists that we are

The nature of inbound marketing demands that we work fast to obtain the best results. While in traditional channels of marketing and advertising decisions are made over many months and by committee, this is not the case with inbound marketing – which has made us all strategists in ways that other types of marketers could only dream of.

We recognize this and we will endeavor to be thought leaders. As inbound marketing’s star rises, we will rise with it. We will recognize that for many years, our field had a bad reputation, yet we knew the work we were doing was important. Now that the value of a solid content strategy is being recognized, we will not rest on our laurels. We can still be the “cool kids” that we’ve always known we were, but we will continue to engage intellectually. We will create content that is the best and that is the smartest.

We will change the world (one blog post at a time)

We will. Or at least we can. Now let’s do it.

The post The Inbound Marketing Manifesto appeared first on Portent.

We live in a culture of YES. Positive reinforcement abounds. Grade school kids get awards simply for participating. Everyone is special. Encouragement is great, don’t get me wrong. Accolades are a big part of what motivates us in life.

In the business world, however, this can translate into dangerous decision making. Fear of killing creativity, squelching ambition, and being perceived as an office meanie has caused countless managers to green light projects that never should have seen the light of day.

NO can be incredibly powerful and effective as a means to pause—to force everyone involved to stop, evaluate, and ensure all the pieces are in place. Here are just 6 situations in which NO will help you run a successful marketing campaign.

1. No goal, no go

This might seem obvious, but it’s amazing how many projects fail because the parties involved have different understandings of what success looks like. Consider a conversation like this one:

Client: We want more traffic.
Account Strategist: Great! How much? And in what time frame?
Client: Well… I dunno… my VP just says she wants to see more.

Yup, it happens more often than I’d like. But herein lies a great opportunity. As the project lead, it’s your responsibility to ask the direct questions and get direct answers.

What kind of traffic? What kind of visitors? What do you want them to do once they arrive?

Bottom line: Until all the key stakeholders of a marketing project agree on its Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), do NOT give it a green light. As a bonus, your team will recognize your leadership and respect you for demanding clarity.

2. Your goals are not supported by user behavior

Say you sell kitchen knives and you’re embarking on an SEO effort to increase organic traffic to your website. Getting more search traffic seems simple enough—rank well for “kitchen knives” and related terms. But you completely ignore the most highly searched phrase in the category: “cutlery.”

Instead of saying NO or asking for supporting data, like the above from Google’s Keyword Tool, your web manager changes all instances of “cutlery” on the site to “kitchen knives.”

Instead of the millions of searches you thought you’d garner, you are suddenly cut down to thousands. Ouch.

Bottom line: Do the research before you start an SEO effort and build your plan of action based on the data. If people on your team are making decisions based on their “gut” or “common sense,” put on the brakes and demand a review of available data sources.

3. Your team is chasing shiny objects

Your plan is set. You’ve got a budget and individual tactics lined up and in motion. And then your CFO forwards you an article about how a competitor acquired 10,000 Facebook followers by giving away free stuff. “We gotta do that too,” he says. “Get with the product team and figure out what we have in excess inventory that no one will miss.”

Sigh…

Say YES, and your marketing resources will be diverted into chasing the new project. Here’s what could happen:

• Your previously stellar, high ROI PPC campaigns sputter out. Revenue gone.
• Your creative team is tied up making a shiny app for your Facebook page, so, alas, your lead-nurturing emails are nurturing no more.
• In the weeks that follow, you watch your sales drop off precipitously, despite leading into a seasonally strong time of year.

Say NO, and you can keep doing what’s working, while establishing a timeline for testing Facebook campaigns for increased social engagement, search visibility improvement, and potential lead generation. Because those are all excellent goals. But not at the expense of your core marketing tactics.

Bottom line: Red herrings are everywhere. Beware. And don’t be afraid to manage up. Your boss wants to hear you say NO when it means you’ll make more money for his business.

4. You can’t measure your efforts

Over the last several years, you’ve seen solid—not amazing, but steady—growth with a diversified Internet marketing campaign. Your PPC campaigns are driving a positive ROI. Your organic traffic has doubled in the last year.

But your CMO thinks the online space is tapped out. He is convinced that a billboard campaign in your five biggest markets is going to be your company’s saving grace this year. So you pause PPC, allow SEO and content to stagnate, and buy up all that highway signage.

You’ve probably figured out where I’m going with this. Billboards are great for branding and getting a message out to the legions of distracted, texting, cell-phone-yammering, yelling-at-the-kids-in-the-back-seat road warriors. They’re not great for measuring ROI.

Bottom line: Never put your eggs in one basket. Or into a black box even. So many cliché expressions apply here. High spend and no way to measure results? Just say no.

5. There are too many cooks in the kitchen

You’ve been there—a giant conference room with an appropriately giant conference table and 17 people seated around it. Marketing is there. Creative services is there. IT is there. The guy from accounting is there (what’s his name again?). Don’t forget about the intern (aka your boss’ nephew) your boss forced you to hire. The meeting’s topic: the name for your upcoming Pinterest promotion.

Oh, how I wish this was an exaggeration.

Committee-based decision making has its time and place. It’s often essential when creating a long-term roadmap or discussing a major strategic shift. It’s how you ensure the right goals are set (see #1 above) and get buy-in from your team. But in marketing, it very rarely makes sense to have representatives from multiple departments providing input on tactical decisions.

Bottom line: Everyone’s opinion does not count equally. Identify task owners and give them the authority to make (informed) autonomous decisions.

6. There’s no long view

Your CFO wanders into your office and demands to know why you’re spending $100,000 on SEO over the next year. The work started two months ago and the result? Minimal growth. “Why aren’t we spending more on PPC?” she wonders. “It’s much more scalable.”

Oh boy.

You could easily agree to the change. SEO isn’t reaping benefits now. In the short term, you’ll almost certainly make more money on PPC.

But she’s dead wrong. PPC doesn’t scale the way SEO does. Even with optimally-structured campaigns and ad groups and quality scores in the 8s and 9s, you’ll still pay for each and every click. And you’re playing in a much smaller universe. One August 2012 study claims that an astounding 94% of UK searchers click on organic results. At Portent, we subscribe to a 75/25 split on organic vs. paid. So, conservatively, if you’re focused on the short term and investing more time and money into PPC, you’re only competing for 25% of potential search volume. Yikes!

Bottom line: Don’t let the fear of losing in the short term get in the way of long-term success. Just ask any Red Sox fan and they’ll tell you waiting 86 years for a World Series title was painful, but sooooo worth it. Of course, your SEO campaign won’t take quite that long to bear fruit.

When it comes down to it, we all want to see our projects succeed. And that can be so much more rewarding than temporarily placating those around us through misguided agreement. When have you said NO and lived to tell your tale of achievement? Tell me all about it in the comments below!

The post 6 Reasons “No” Will Save Your Marketing Strategy appeared first on Portent.

So skip the multiplex this weekend and get the legit skinny on a day in the (Real) Life of Pi.

Graphic courtesy of Rebecca Bridge

6:45        Designer Anna is first in the office: “It’s dark because the lights aren’t on yet. And it’s quiet. And I can watch the sunrise at my desk.”

8:27        Associate Director of Content Jaelithe strolls in.  And this is what she was up to an hour before:

If it looks like she woke up at 6 am to organize a train-side breakfast complete with waffles, china and a card table, well, that’s exactly what she did.

9:37        Senior Copywriter Katie arrives (late) via this elevator…

…passes Office Manager Shauna…

…and enters the kitchen to find there is NO ICE IN THE ICE MACHINE.  Fail.

9:43        New employee alert.  All-company email announces the arrival of a Customer Development Associate.  In the words of Director of Sales Steven, “We are excited to have him on board so please be kind to him for at least the first few days.”

10:30     Staff meeting kicks off with Associate Director of Accounts Aviva announcing some new clients.  We can’t tell you who they are, but they’re awesome.

Account Strategist Alexander pronounces SEO Team Lead Josh’s performance in a client’s video on tooth decay “Oscar-winning.”

Meeting concludes with CCO Tracy trash-talking fantasy football to PPC Specialist Michael.  These guys really just moonlight at Portent.  We know where their hearts are.

11:35     CEO Ian leads a new client kick-off meeting emphasizing overall site triage while dropping knowledge on grommets, cholera, Doctor Who, the assassination of Benjamin Harrison and a variety of strangely relevant, yet way obscure, topics.

11:55     Off-Site SEO Strategist Nick receives this amazingly excellent rejection to his request for a link:

12:24     LUNCH. Thai, Indian, meatball sandwiches and one big bag of Doritos.  We’re obviously a multi-national.

12:37     Director of Search Marketing Elizabeth attempts to eat an entire Jimmy John’s Pickle.

12:41     She fails.

12:45     Social Media Team Lead Doug announces a new plan to increase Klout scores for individuals throughout the company. He explains how Klout scores aren’t actually that important, but since prospective clients always talk about Klout, our Klout scores should be very important to us.

12:59     Various factions draw eSwords over an upcoming webinar title.  No one is seriously hurt.

2:00        Portent U – Marianne tells all about iPhone and iPad app search and how it can be optimized for our clients’ proprietary applications.

She emphasizes creating a positive user experience with suggestions like “when you put the page on the site, you really want that page to articulate the benefits and features, because they may not get that when they go to the iTunes store.  You know if they’re like me, they’re just like install, install and let me get out of here.”

3:30        Portent President Steve sits down for a 1-on-1 with new Account Strategist Lisa to discuss the future of Portent, its philosophy and strategic goals.

3:36        This happens:

3:38        After submitting her list of demands (yes to couches in the nap room but Red Hots are verboten), Copywriter Isla spends a few minutes staring out the window.  Writers are writing even when they aren’t actively typing, and watching the ceaseless traffic on northbound 99 inspires a kick-ass intro for a piece of link bait about fishing.

4:05        Time to check in with Grievance Board updates:

4:23        Social media reporting gets interrupted when Doug asks those around him how they feel about the movie Caddyshack. Social Strategist Bryden replies, “It’s a classic.” Doug argues that it’s “wildly over-rated.” Somehow, the conversation transitions into Fletch and other old Chevy Chase movies… which somehow leads to video games from the 90s. The team goes back to work after agreeing that Oddjob is practically impossible to kill while playing multi-player in the Nintendo 64 version of GoldenEye.

5:00        Elizabeth finishes her gargantuan inventory of company efficiency and profitability.  She wishes she had the rest of that pickle.

6:37        SEO Developer Matthew heads home, closing down the office, concluding just another day in the (Real) Life of Pi.

 Additional reporting, eavesdropping, spying and the like by Doug Antkowiak and Isla McKetta.

The post The (Real) Life of Pi appeared first on Portent.

If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase “That’s Tukwila Life” – it’s the motto of the city of Tukwila, where Portent has made it’s home for the last ten years or so. It’s also the phrase used by Portent employees to explain an event or circumstance that can only be summarized as being “Tukwila Life.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a south of Seattle gal at heart. My sister works two blocks away, my first job was at the Ross down the street from the mall and I went to high school not more than five miles from where we are currently. However, Tukwila isn’t known for it’s overwhelming impressiveness, nor was our office park. It’s known for it’s affordability. And in 2008, I think a lot of companies, including us, found being here a really good thing.

So please join me on a trip down memory lane, where Portent, Inc. says goodbye to the city of Tukwila and heads off for new adventures at Smith Tower. These are our Tukwila Life memories, scrapbook style…

Large office park parking lots means lots of space..to play foursquare. BEFORE it was an app.

Dam upstream threatens to break, flooding miles upon miles down the Green River. Sandbags put in. Covering miles of a wonderful trail. Dam fixed. No flooding. No money to remove sandbags. Sandbags stay, slowly being overtaken by plant life.

Aviva doing her best to save the few boxes of paper files in the office.

Fishing hut! Across the river from the office park. I do not recommend eating any fish out of this river, though on any random day there IS a guy with a fishing pole standing in it.

Kids steal car. Kids run from cops. Kid jumps in river. Office park filled with cops. Barnaby’s sees the most action it’s ever had.

If you’ve never handed out candy on Halloween to random cars in a hot dog costume…you’re missing out.

Being close to the airport means you can leave your car here. It does not mean it’s safe from bored employees on a snow day.

We have a Coldstone Creamery. You can by no means walk to it and back in a reasonable amount of time. Let alone in August before an ice cream cake melts. (Yes, someone tested this.)

If you’ve ever wanted to set up a blender, a video camera and add a tungsten ring to said blender in front of a sandbag wall in a parking lot…we know a place you can go.

The Parthenon in Kit Kat form. We rented out the office space across the parking lot just for this.

Tukwila has one of possibly every chain restaurant in the Pacific Northwest. This includes The Sizzler. It also includes dance off competitions between mattress retailers and the Pita Pit.

I’ve take the epic bus journey from North Seattle exactly three times in six years. This happened on time #2. Leading me to believe that it must happen a lot at my bus stop. At least 33% of the time.

If you’ve never been cut off at a bowling alley before, Acme Bowl is very nice about it. No pictures of this one though. It was too dark in the parking lot. Please enjoy this picture of a no parking fire zone being observed instead.

We didn’t get broken into. Upstairs did. We just don’t have any pictures for the time we got broken into.

Being this close to IKEA means you not only get to build your own desk, but go buy it, pick it up and deliver it to the office.

PUPPY DAY. BEST DAY EVER.
(Turns out Smith Tower isn’t keen on not-so-housebroken 9 week old puppies.)

I’ve been collecting photos of Tukwila Life for six years now and I finally got to use them! We’ll miss lots of things about Tukwila. Target. Free parking. Running across Strander Blvd through four lanes of traffic because there’s no crosswalk. 7-11. Bringing pets to work. Giving directions to building A. Squirrels, bunnies and blackberry picking. The dark side.

However, I’m sure adjacency to Pioneer Square, two sports stadiums (maybe three?), a pub in stumbling distance and public transportation holds many, many, many, more stories.

Farewell, Tukwila Life. You served us well.

The post And So Are the Days of Our Tukwila Lives… appeared first on Portent.

“I’m excited to be on the board with such a great group of search marketers,” Lurie said. “SEMPO’s done some great things for our industry, and I know we’ll be able to grow the organization.”

Lurie joins the 13-person SEMPO Board that will take office on March 22, heralded by outgoing chairman Jeff Pruitt for its “combination of talent, vision and energy.”

Building a SEMPO presence in the city of Seattle, where Portent is located, is something Lurie is excited about. “Seattle has a thriving search marketing industry, so establishing a SEMPO chapter in this city will be great for this community,” he said.

Congratulations to Ian, and to all those who were elected!

2012-2014 SEMPO Board of Directors

About SEMPO:

“SEMPO is a global non-profit organization serving the search engine marketing industry and marketing professionals engaged in it. Our purpose is to provide a foundation for industry growth through building stronger relationships, fostering awareness, providing education, promoting the industry, generating research, and creating a better understanding of search and its role in marketing.”

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New clients

Full Circle, organic produce delivery company: Now a Portent client

Full Circle hired Portent as their internet marketing agency as they expand beyond their Northwest base. We’ll be helping with overall strategy and tactics spanning the entire inbound marketing spectrum, including SEO, PPC, social media and e-mail campaigns. I’m very, very excited about it.

Full Circle delivers fresh, organic produce. Their mission, though, is to really change the way food gets to American tables. Given the problems we have in this country with eating habits and health, it feels really good to be working with a company committed to this kind of change.

It’s a huge opportunity for both companies to take a great idea and run with it—exactly what Portent most loves to do.

The only downside? My home vegetable garden, already kind of sad looking, is now relegated to guinea pig food. The stuff we get from Full Circle is far better.

Kindermusik is now working with us, as well. We helped them with lead generation and SEO back in 2006-2008. It’s great to work with them again—they’re a fantastic brand that does great things for kids.

New site

The new Portent site, complete with free training and other goodies

We just re-launched the Portent site. It’s now live at www.eigene-homepage-erstellen.net. It’s faster, easier to read and generally prettier. The biggest change: We’ve got a set of free e-mail training series on PPC, SEO and marketing strategy. We’ll be adding social media, copywriting and deeper dives into all of these topics over time.

You can sign up here. Best part? We don’t put you on a list. Sign up, receive the five-part series. Then it’s up to you if you want to receive more or contact us about working together. No sales calls unless you want ‘em. We’ve got better things to do than interrupt your lunch hour.

New staff

I’m also really, really excited to have brought Aaron Kronis on board at Portent as an SEO analyst.

Aaron and I met at a series of Wappow events, including Hawaii, where he witnessed me puking my insides out over the rail of the sunset ‘cruise’. If he’s willing to work with Portent after that, I suspect he likes what we have to offer.

Aaron brings a healthy SEO skill set, plus experience working with clients and explaining the complexities of SEO to them. He’s joining a team that already includes Matthew Henry, Elizabeth Marsten, Tom Schmitz, Doug Antkowiak, Josh Patrice, Nadine Bedford, Matthew Gratt and Mesha Lockett.

Aaron coming aboard means yet another Portent singer/guitar player, too. I believe we now have enough to create a small, all-guitar boy band.

Aaron Kronis - a man of many talents

And the usual, of course

We’re still working on the usual: Teaching, training and helping clients improve their businesses online.

We’ve released our latest e-books: The 2-book series is on PPC. You can purchase them here.

I’ll be speaking at MozCon in July, in Seattle. It’s the best SEO training you can find (even if I’m not there).

Coming soon…

The kickoff of Portent’s free webinar series. Keep in touch, and we’ll tell you when.

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