The Portent Blog

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Robots.txt is a small text file that lives in the root directory of a website. It tells well-behaved crawlers whether to crawl certain parts of the site or not. The file uses simple syntax to be easy for crawlers to put in place (which makes it easy for webmasters to put in place, too). Write… Read More

Internet Marketing

It’s more important than ever for all small businesses to have a strong presence online. Regardless of industry, customers are online all day long, whether it be on their desktop at work, phone on a bus, or tablet at home on the couch. Representing your business well digitally is easier said than done. Getting found… Read More

Content Strategy

Content-as-marketing isn’t new. The promotional tools, though… Those are new. We’ve never had as cool a toolset as we have now. It’s easy to get drunk on the possibilities. Sober up: Promote Lightly-Branded Content at Top of Funnel Lightly and non-branded content is a top-of-funnel vehicle. Don’t promote it to a high-intent, bottom-of-funnel audience. You’ll… Read More

Analytics

Data is great……sometimes. Data can also be maddening and make you want to go all Office Space on the nearest printer. These days businesses have an abundance of data at their fingertips. That makes knowing how to sift through information an essential part of every marketer’s existence. Personally, Google Analytics (GA) has been making my… Read More

PPC

AdWords Editor is a fantastic tool created by Google that allows you to quickly create and edit campaigns, ad groups and keywords on a mass scale. Personally, for the accounts I work on I’ve found it to be at least a 50% time savings for things like building new accounts compared to using the standard… Read More

Social Media

If you’re working your way down the “must-have” list of digital marketing needs for 2016, organizing a coherent presence across social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter would get slotted in right under “Setting up my website.” At least it should. Social media fosters brand loyalty and community, increases sales, and helps strengthen SEO, and… Read More

Internet Marketing

This post will be very hard to read on a small screen. I show screen caps of Zapier steps. Sorry about that. “I can’t keep track of it all.” I hear (and say) this a lot. Marketers get drowned in data, posts, notes, texts, images and video. The only way to survive the experience is… Read More

Copywriting

This is a steadily-growing list of links from my talk about amazing content tactics: The slides Creating Amazing Content from Ian Lurie Markdown-related Daring Fireball guide to Markdown Syntax Marked: An OS X desktop Markdown preview tool MarkdownPad: Windows Markdown preview and editing tool Dillinger.io: Web-based Markdown editing Editing/proofing HemingwayGrammarlyMy plague words list Images Imageoptim… Read More

SEO

Pssssst! Hey, you! Want to know the best way to drive a client crazy? Talk. A lot. But tell them nothing. The SEO industry has a lot of people who are really, really good at that. We’ve seen some true artists; men and women who can speak or write thousands of words without uttering a… Read More

Project Management

What is a brainstorm? Since the inception of the term in 1948, brainstorming has been the most powerful tool for creative problem solving for designers and marketers. The brainstorming process has been adjusted and reworked by many, but the core principles have remained intact. The term brainstorm elicits a vivid image of a storm of… Read More

SEO

Whether you’re thinking about starting a company, revamping your current business, adding a new product line, or just making sure your current SEO approach is on the right track, keyword research is a fundamental part of the process. The reason keyword research is so indispensable is that it’s one of the easiest ways to get… Read More

PPC

Most commonly, advertisers starting off with a paid search platform such as AdWords reach their respective audience through keyword targeting. However, with Google Shopping (or product listing ads), e-commerce businesses utilize a product feed as the main targeting tool. The feed contains information about your products such as price, availability, brand, etc. The better the… Read More

Content Strategy

An alternate title for this post: “How A Working Content Meeting Saved Me from Broken Toes and Smashed Fingers.” I used to throw a lot of temper tantrums at work. About ten years ago I kicked my desk so hard my foot started bleeding right through my shoe. I also punched a palm tree, and… Read More

PPC

One of the most common questions our clients ask us when starting a new PPC campaign is “Where are my ads? I searched for my keywords and didn’t see my ad.” This is a reasonable question. They are paying for clicks. So how come they can’t trigger ads themselves? It’s important to understand the internal… Read More

Internet Marketing

Thinking about experimenting with the Google Display Network (GDN)? This could mean a variety of different things, but most commonly, this means showing banner ads on site that are a part of the GDN. The GDN isn’t exclusively for banner ads. Ad formats vary from text ads to video ads, animated banners, and ads on… Read More

Content Strategy

In cycling, to handle a turn at high speed, you lean. As you enter the turn, you push down on the outside pedal, and you lean slightly more than seems prudent. You complete the turn. Then you sprint out of the corner, leaving your competition behind. Marketers often equate “lean” with “lightweight” or “minimal.” It’s… Read More