SEO Blog Posts

SEO

(A post only an SEO or Dev could love) Not too long ago, the Portent SEO team was sitting around in a meeting when we came across a 4xx level HTTP status error and couldn’t remember the meaning. Might have been a 410 or a 418… Anyway, when you have a flock of SEOs in… Read More

SEO

This is cheesy but true. It takes a village of phenomenal people to “raise” and train good digital and search marketers. As SEOs, Product Managers, and Social Media strategists, our work is not created alone in a vacuum. We don’t simply apply a static set of best practices and hope for the best. We need… Read More

SEO

According to a HubSpot survey, video is now the most popular kind of content consumed online (when text based content types are spit into categories). Users are certainly more likely to consume it thoroughly since skimming a video takes more effort than written text. They either watch it or they don’t. Companies like Google and… Read More

SEO

Here are the slides and links from “Technically, SEO,” in which I ranted, raved and talked about technical SEO for marketers. This focuses on issues I found on automotive industry sites, but it all holds true everywhere. The Deck BS: Own It – Technical SEO for Marketers from Ian Lurie Random Me, on Twitter I… Read More

SEO

Big agencies throw “SEO” on their services pages the way I throw exercise clothes into my suitcase: They know there’s no way in hell they’ll use it. Another “big-time” agency just did it, and I’ve got steam coming out of my ears because this means another list of Fortune 1000 clients will get second rate… Read More

SEO

Want to get more for your money on your next SEO audit or site review? After two years of reviewing sites offering everything from dog food to process automation, (I still have no idea what that is either), I decided to put together this half-blog-post-half-PSA covering a few of the most common SEO mistakes or… Read More

SEO

Rich snippets, rich cards, knowledge graphs and panels, schema.org, JSON-LD, featured snippets, featured features, Richie Rich, KEVIN BACON! Wait, that was more than six degrees… There’s a lot of terminology out there about the different ways search engines, Google in particular, display their search results. Two of the most oft confused are the snippets, both… Read More

SEO

Here’s the updated deck and links from my 2017 Resonate presentation. I ranted and raved about changes to the Amazon and Google algorithms. It was fun. If you missed it, alas. But at least you can look at the slides. Remember, you can ask me questions on Twitter at @portentint Amazon and Google: The State… Read More

SEO

Out of the gate, an SEO will try to convince you not to change domains unless it is absolutely necessary. Changing domains can potentially have a negative impact on organic search rankings for a site. Major search engine ranking algorithms (i.e. Google and Bing) factor in signals from both the domain and page levels. Even… Read More

SEO

Have you given or received an SEO report that involved keyword data recently? What did that section of the report look like? Perhaps something like this? How useful was it? We’re all aware of the profound changes that have been happening in our field regarding the lowly keyword. Keywords used to be the basic unit… Read More

SEO

Warning: some humble-brag follows, but I promise it’s in the spirit of sharing marketing and SEO lessons. My new apartment is perfect. Walking distance from the Space Needle and huge windows the full length of our living room. It doesn’t get much better than that in Seattle for less than my entire monthly paycheck. But… Read More

SEO

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

SEO

[This post originally appeared in 2011 and was refreshed in 2017 by popular demand.] If you were to map out your website’s internal links, would there be a logical order to it, or would it look like a steaming plate of spaghetti? Be careful before you answer. Strip away all the fancy design, the hours… Read More

SEO

First order of business, this is a pretty long post on Shopify SEO best practices. Here’s what you’re gonna get. Contents Shopify SEO Basics Introduction Shopify URLs Shopify Title Tags Meta Description Image Alt Navigation 301 Redirects Wrap up Shopify SEO Basics Warning: This is not a full-bore Shopify tutorial, this is a deep walkthrough… Read More

SEO

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