Articles by Ian Lurie
Ian Lurie // 16 Feb, 2017
Pulling The Lever: Marketing Wins and Where They Come From
Marketers live for the moment they do that one thing and stats go through the roof. But that doesn’t happen often, and when it does, there’s more to it. There’s a ton of work and learning, and assuming it’s all magical does the field a disservice.
Ian Lurie // 1 Feb, 2017
I Support Breitbart News: The Perils of Remarketing
Internet advertising is perilous. Your ads can show up in all sorts of places. Remarketing is particularly dangerous. This story is an example of how remarketing can go horribly, horribly wrong. I am, in case no one guessed, a left-leaning over-privileged pinko liberal. I’m a feminist. I’m pro-immigration. I like taxes. OK, that’s a lie,… Read More
Ian Lurie // 17 Jan, 2017
20 Bits of Marketing Jargon, And What They Mean
I love marketing jargon as much as the next guy. It’s great fun when I’m at a family event. My family used to think I went into marketing because I couldn’t find anything else to do. But when I say “psychographics” my parents know all that college was worth it. If you’re plunking down tons… Read More
Ian Lurie // 10 Jan, 2017
There is No Panda Penalty. Get it?
Site owners frequently tell me “I think we’re under a Panda Penalty.” Google does not have a “Panda penalty.” Understand that and you’ll understand how optimizing for Panda-type ranking factors can improve rankings. By the way, Panda is now part of Google’s core algorithm. It’s one way Google measures the value of content. I’m going… Read More
Ian Lurie // 13 Dec, 2016
Lean Content, the ebook, and I’m Tired
TL;DR: I wrote an ebook called Lean Content: Kick-ass Content Creation for Teams of One. Get it here. Yeah. I wrote two ebooks in two months. Yeah, I’m tired. This one is free, too: Lean Content: Kick-ass Content Creation for Teams of One Yes, I used “lean” in the title. It’s a buzzword. Deal with… Read More
Ian Lurie // 8 Dec, 2016
Technical SEO Best Practices – New (free) ebook!
TL;DR: I wrote a technical SEO ebook. It’s free. You should get it here. You’re probably all wondering where the hell I’ve been. I haven’t written a blog post in, what, four weeks?! I’ve been working on two projects. The first one is a free ebook: Technical SEO Best Practices. I wrote it as something… Read More
Ian Lurie // 17 Oct, 2016
Distance from Perfect: Digital Dealer Workshops
These are the slides and links from my presentation at Digital Dealer Workshops. Enjoy! Distance from Perfect: Marketing w/ the Human Algorithm – DDW from Ian Lurie A few tools Bing webmaster tools Google PageSpeed Insights Grammarly Proofreading Software Hemingway Editing Software Moz Keyword Explorer Screaming Frog SEO Spider A few factoids How Quality Score… Read More
Ian Lurie // 6 Oct, 2016
I’m Speaking At Pubcon: Where to Find Me
I’ll be at Pubcon next week, speaking my brains out. Here are my sessions: Speed Baby Speed Tuesday, October 11 11:25am-12:30pm I’d say more but this page loaded too fast. All about making your site faster. Not just Google Page Speed. I’m on a panel with Fili Wiese and Jenny Halasz, with Barry Adams moderating.… Read More
Ian Lurie // 4 Oct, 2016
My Cat’s Name is Isis
Yes, there’s a marketing lesson here. But when I tried to write “How Digital Marketing is Like Naming My Cat Isis” I almost punched myself in the throat. I have two cats, a dog, and a guinea pig. One of my cats, an insane, overweight Siamese, is named Isis. Yes. Isis. She was so named… Read More
Ian Lurie // 27 Sep, 2016
Marketing as Worldbuilding: The Links
I know, I know. I piled on the tips and tools. It’s OK!!!! Here are the links, related content and slides from my Marketing Worldbuilding talk: 30 Tips For Better Content If you want a bunch of ideas for creating better places, check out this presentation and links Google Trends Compare trends around keywords. Figure… Read More
Ian Lurie // 20 Sep, 2016
How to: Avoid Word Vector Hysteria & Trend Surfing Idiocy
Update: Word vectors are a legitimate thing!!!!! I’m not saying you should ignore them. I’m saying there’s plenty of ways to take word vectors into account in your SEO approach, without diving down into Python and natural language processing. I’m also saying that many industry experts (term used advisedly) are talking about this concept without… Read More
Ian Lurie // 19 Sep, 2016
Deodorant & Other Challenges: How I Get Content Ideas
How do you write mind-blowing content about deodorant? It’s easy. I’m going to walk you through how I research content ideas. This stream-of-consciousness process has never failed me: Start With Questions I always start with questions. If the audience is asking a question, and you have an answer, you can help. My favorite questions research… Read More
Ian Lurie // 12 Sep, 2016
Four HTML Tags Every Digital Marketer Must Know
Earlier this year I wrote that any digital marketer must know how to write a blog post in HTML. I caught a little flak for that. I earned it. I should’ve been clearer: There are four HTML elements every digital marketer should know. If you know them, you can write a post using the code… Read More
Ian Lurie // 7 Sep, 2016
Why I Use Markdown, & You Should Too
This is a continuation of my rant about lean content and time management. You might want to read those, too. I once had to convert a Word document to a web page. Once. After spending hours deleting mso-style blocks and cleaning up thousands of lines of crap, I swore (and swore, and swore) that I’d… Read More
Ian Lurie // 6 Sep, 2016
What I’ll Do When Google Dies
Like any nerd worth a damn, I like to plan for the zombie apocalypse. I know whose house I’ll go to (he has guns and edged weapons). I know what vehicles I’ll take (bicycles, duh). I know my weapon of choice (a shovel – perfect for the spearing brain smash). But I have a new… Read More