This is part of the say something nice about an SEO/SEM series - feel free to nominate someone over here.
Ian Lurie, 49 years old, lives in Seattle, Washington and has been in the SEM and internet marketing space since 1995. He has been around some time now and ran a respected agency named Portent, which he recently sold after 22+ years at that company.
Ian can always be found writing something new, unique and useful about SEO or PPC on the Portent blog as well as at industry blogs. He speaks at conferences including SearchLove, MozCon, SIC and ad:Tech, as well as other smaller events. He is often posting useful tidbits on Twitter and other forms of social media.
He also touts on his LinkedIn profile that he has "40,000+ hours experience in internet marketing" - yes, he is very conscious of turning on the timer before he does any internet marketing tasks - just kidding.
Ian, for as long as I have known him, has been regarded as a kind, generous and sharing person.
Tylor Hermanson nominated Ian and wrote:
He has great perspectives, isn't afraid to challenge/disagree with the majority and is an effective (written and oral) teacher.
Ian Lurie Bio: Ian Lurie is the Founder of Portent, a Clearlink Digital Agency. Portent provides paid and organic search and social media, content, and analytics services to B2B and B2C brands.
Ian’s professional specialties and favorite topics are marketing strategy, search, history, and all things nerdy. He spends far too much time poring over Amazon search patents, Google rankings and natural language processing theory. His random educational background includes a B.A. in History from UC San Diego and a degree in Law from UCLA. Now, he teaches and trains his most excellent team, consults, and teaches his kids to play Dungeons and Dragons.
Note: Clearlink acquired Portent in 2017. Ian's new title is Executive Vice President of Marketing Services at Clearlink. As EVP, he heads up Portent, which is now the agency arm of the parent company. He’s still a curmudgeon.
Favorite thing about the SEO community? It’s the best bunch of left- and right-brained nerds around. Where else can you find novel-writing nerds who understand Linear Algebra?!
One piece of advice to the SEOs out there? Stop talking about links.
Favorite things in general? My favorite color is blue. Not navy blue. Bright, hurt-your-eyes electric blue. Don’t ask me why. I have no idea.
He loves Kit Kats and loves Cycling, Dungeons and Dragons, and going to the zoo.
What you want to be known for in the SEO space? In the SEO space, I want to get us far away from being one-dimensional. I am not an SEO. The best SEO practitioners aren’t pure SEOs, either. I’ve been a marketer for 22 freakin’ years. When we say we are “SEOs,” we’re just catering to the lowest common denominator of marketers - the ones who have to have nice, neat line-items on their spreadsheets for “SEO” and “PPC” and “social media.” Marketing is messy. We all have to finally figure that out.
To learn more about Ian, connect with him on LinkedIn or on Twitter, check out his company site as well.
This is part of the say something nice about an SEO/SEM series - feel free to nominate someone over here.
