Anzel Online

Inside AdWords: Beta Testing News: An Updated AdWords Interface

2008-11-20T15:33:00.000-08:00

The Power of an Attractive Woman

2008-08-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

Talk about funny timing. I have been working, with my designer, on creating a series of new landing pages. The intention is to use Google multi-variant tester to test every conceivable aspect of the page. Yesterday we finished art selection.

Today I popped open my reader. On the home page was a link to Neuromarketing. The post: A Pretty Woman Beats a Good Loan Deal. Interested, I clicked. There was the photo we had just selected for OUR attractive woman.

While using the same stock art really only means that we both use iStock, it will be interesting to see if our results agree with the results discussed in the post.

This photographer is doing some popular work. I have several of my competitors also using their work.

Suburban Vancouver Enters Middle East Missile Race.

2008-07-10T09:22:00.000-07:00

Fearing that Iran could indeed have long-range missiles, suburban Vancouver WA countered with their own ~~Photoshop~~ missile launch.

Cue "Team America: World Police" team.

And just so you missile building punks out there know, that actually is my back yard.

For those who missed it there has been a few stories circulating about Iran's official missile launch photos. To get up to speed go here.

Swag II: Google Reaction 08 Invite

2008-07-09T21:35:00.001-07:00

Got a call from my Google account manager two weeks ago wanting to confirm my address. A week later, I received a package. This was printed on the outside:

On the inside was a lab coat and goggles.

But much cooler was the invite to attend a conference at Google's Headquarters in Mt. View California. The conference focuses on b2b marketing and has a list of great speakers. Don't know if I can attend yet, but it would be really really cool.

Swag: Yahoo Presses the Easy Button

2008-07-07T10:46:00.001-07:00

If ever there was a "Me Too", this is it. Yahoo totally ripped off Staple's idea. What happens when you press the button? It goes, "Yahoooooo!" If you have heard their TV or radio comercials you know what I am talking about.

I might post a short clip of the sound, that is if I can bring myself to turn it back on.

Jerry Yang, Get bent, asshat?

2008-06-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

WOW, Mr. Honan thinks Yahoo is going down. If you are a Yahoo employee, he wants to help you leave the company with style.

Check out the DIY Yahoo! Resignation Letter at http://yahoorezinr.com/.

When you hit submit, you send an e-mail directly to jerryyang AT yahoo dot com with the subject line "Get bent, asshat"

This has to be the funniest thing I have seen in a while.

I might be wrong but Mat Honan appears to be a freelance writer and contributing editor to WIRED.

Notes from the Search World

2008-06-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we write things we regret

The Amateur Gourmet felt bad about overly flaming some poor food joint because we all make posts we are not proud of. Just check out some of mine. Some are good, some are steaming piles of... Anyway Cornwallseo who it apparently some big shot copywriter/linkbaiter gave his entries for a headline writing contest. The contest is in Ad Words or at least requires Ad Words formats. But mister Cornwallseo apparently had not ever written AdWords copy.

Don't feel bad, I made that mistake all the time when I was a noob.

Obsession with Battle Star

Check out this Twitter.

dannysullivan frak! hulu takes down old battlestar episodes? because then i'll buy them on itunes? no, i can't do that either. hate old media dinosaurs 23 minutes ago from web

Makes we wonder if the obsession for BSG in Internet geek types is nature or nurture.

Google Tinkers with Ad Words

2008-05-27T19:00:00.000-07:00

Depending on how much work you do in Ad Words you may or may not have noticed a few improvements that Google has released in the last few weeks. These are two basic changes but, as Google's tweaks usually do, they make my life that much easier.

Placements Tab

First is the new "Placements" tab in at the Ad Group level. This is a convenient feature, now you can have your keywords and your placements both serve the same ads. This saves the trouble of maintaining duplicate ads.

Performance Metrics in MCC

So if you maintain multiple accounts you are probably familiar with MCCs. For those who are not, MCC allow you to maintain numerous Ad Words account with the same login. Anyway, is the olden days MCCs did not show much performance data, and the data they did show was a day old. Now you are presented with the all the latest data you would see in the summary of the campaign summary (sorry for the strange wording but I think that's most accurate).

Good Conversion are Not Good Enough

2008-05-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

So you spend all this time optimizing your PPC campaigns. CTRs are good and increasing. Costs are declining while traffic is increasing. However, your conversions are not trending the way you want or you are converting but like any good, competitive human being, you want more.

Its time to start the cycle of landing page optimization.

Question: Why not just start making changes to see if your landing page's conversion rate increases? Good question. I would respond with a question, "How well do you know your target market?" Its a basic marketing mistake to assume that you already know the best way to communicate with your market. Granted in more traditional forms of media you have to take that leap of faith, but not on the internet. Further more, one might say, we will make the changes and just watch the analytics. True you could do that but analytics is more for answering post-mortem "why" type questions.

Take it from me, and I know from experience, you do not want to be in the situation of figuring out which version landing page worked better based on performance data. Its doable, but it creates an extreme mess of data that is way better to avoid.

Landing page optimization takes two pages (or mulit-variables) and gives you a nice clean answer. If you want to know why one worked better than the other, use your analytics and conduct more tests.

Now, back on topic. The concept is simple. Continuous improvement. Obviously, you start with a leap and put something out there and see how well it converts. Allow some time to steep. You want to build up a good baseline in your analytics. Now create a page with minor variations (I should say variation, to keep the test pure), and run the optimizer for at least two weeks. If you are using Google Web Optimizer, it will tell you when there is enough data to give a statistically significant result. During those two weeks you should be watching the analytics, making observations and readying the next variation.

Now I think that most successful people in the PPC world generally have analytical, logical, scientifically oriented minds, but I will say this anyway. Apply the scientific method. Generate a hypothesis and test it. Be deliberate in this method, that way you can keep your tests clean and truly start to learn about the market.

Is There a Virus Hunting Google?

2008-05-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

I was using the ad preview tool when I got this (see above). The error is presented with a CAPTCHA that allows you to continue normally. I have heard from my co-workers that its appearing in the regular searches as well. Anyone know anything yet?

UPDATE: Google Ad Words is not showing any data for today.

UPDATE (10:49 AM): Google account manager say that Google is looking into the error. It started this morning.

UPDATE (11:04 AM): Ad Words data is starting to trickle in.

UPDATE (11:41 AM): Showing impression and conversion but no clicks. Also looks like the data is catching up as traffic look like what it should have been six hours ago.

UPDATE (12:48 PM): Looks like everything is back to normal in Ad Words.

UPDATE (1:30 PM): The System Engineers were noticing the problem. They say the error is not occurring outside our IP block (but across our entire IP block). So, going back to thinking its us, I contacted Google again. And again I was told that we are not the only ones seeing this error.

UPDATE (May 7 12:00 PM): Looks like the error is gone. Still talking to Google. So far they have given no explanation. This error was entirely unrelated to the Ad Words issue, which is now resolved. Just bad timing.

How will a GooHoo deal effect PPC?

2008-05-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

For those who have not heard, there are new bites and rumors about a potential deal between Google and Yahoo. This deal could be worth $1 billion in revenue to Yahoo. Under the agreement Google would serve ads in Yahoo's search results. It seems to me that there are pros and cons to Google serving its ads in Yahoo’s search results. These are five items that came to mind when reading about a potential Google/Yahoo deal.

Pros of Google Yahoo Advertising Deal:

More search advertising through the same Ad Words interface: I am a fan of the Ad Words interface. I think its leaps and bounds ahead of anything thing else out there. Being able to conduct both Yahoo and Google advertising in the same interface would save me a bunch of time and frustration.

Ward off the Evil Empire: while I would agree with the notion that Google is attempting to take over the world, I would rather have Google running things that Microsoft. The Microsoft hegemon is always looking after itself. The Google hegemon on the other hand realized a long time ago that its interests were tied to its customer’s satisfaction.

Cons of Google Yahoo Advertising Deal:

Quality Issues: I have always felt that the leads I received from Google were much better than the leads received from Yahoo. I suspect this has to do with the demographic differences in users, but neither of the search engines has been willing to share their market research with me. I suspect in Yahoo’s case they either don’t know or my account manager does not know who knows (if that makes sense).

Pricing Instability: Those who conduct a lot of competitive SEM will know that the PPC market can be lively. Adding an additional, and large, channel to Google’s network would force prices to find a new equilibrium. Also, Google’s clicks are generally more expensive that Yahoo’s. Will Yahoo’s clicks (served via Google) become more expensive or stay the same? Will Google clicks get devalued? In the final analysis is would probably be different for everyone, depending on how you set up your campaign and your industry. Maybe the Ad Words interface would give you the choice of networks.

Possible Algorithm conflicts: My first question is who’s algorithm chooses the ads? The obvious answer would be Google’s but will there be any interaction between Yahoo’s search algorithm and Google ad serving algorithm? Example: Yahoo tries to guess what you really want, then Google takes those results and further tries to guess what you really want. I guess this is a minor problem as both Yahoo and Google employ smart people who will be able to work it out.

Please share your thoughts.

Review of Searchme.com

2008-04-23T18:39:00.000-07:00

Quick review. I have been playing with Seachme.com. They have a great idea and I hope they can do it justice. My concerns are as follows:

- If you are going to create a search engine, your number one priority must be your algorithm. If people are not happy with your search results, they will quit searching, no matter how cool the interface it. Having said that, I am not sure they are making the right decision by reinventing the wheel on this. This might have been better off to use Google's search results.

- What is Searchme's business model. I think we are at the point where, if you are a search engine, you need to be doing PPC. I hope that Searchme, comes up with a cool way of serving PPC ads, while not compromising their user experience.

- There is still glitches here and there. For example, Safari hesitates as a query is typed. I think it has something to do with the search category functionality. But this is a beta, and I fully expect them to work these glitches out.

- Finally, I would hope Searchme decides no show live shots of the search results. There is nothing worse than landing in a place you were not expecting.

Hopefully, this does not come off sounding like a lot of grumbling. I am exited to see where they goes.

Review of Hulu.com

2008-04-22T22:45:00.000-07:00

To be honest I was/am holding a grudge against NBC for removing their content from iTunes. But I have an open mind, and I don't mind watching ads if I am getting content for free. Furthermore, having the ability to watch content whenever I feel like it is a big perk.

Hulu gives you the ability to watch a large selection of Fox and NBC content. This means Battle Star Galactica, Hells Kitchen, The Office, American Dad and The Simpsons. The also have a selection of old movies. The best part is (at least with Battle Star) the episodes appear to get posted as the episode airs, so you don't have to wait.

As will all things there has to be a down side, and Hulu is far from perfect. As I watch their content there is a big difference in user experience between animated shows and live action. I am guessing this has to do with the amount of data required for a good picture. Even so, watching a live action show can be agonizing. It seems that on the good days I can only watch about three min before I have to stop and let Hulu re-buffer. I wish the Hulu designers would just give it time to buffer in the first place so I don't have to keep hitting pause. Hulu, if your listening, create an application that measures the users bandwidth and adjusts the buffer time and quality accordingly. I would rather take a hit in quality than suffer though choppy dialogged.

To be fair, I did attempt to watch Battle Star on Scifi's website and encountered the same problem.

From a marketing point of view, Hulu is really cool. It appears they can place any advertisement in the program breaks (see the dots along the progress bar). This might be the first wave of the new mass media. And its CPM. Just think if you could place you video ads in Hells Kitchen or The Office, using your Ad Words account...

New Edge Rolls Out Class of Service over DSL

2008-04-14T09:57:00.001-07:00

New Edge announced today they are the first company to offer Class of Service (CoS) over DSL. For those who don't know, this means applications can be prioritized to maximize performance. Example: your VoIP always takes priority so their is never any latency. This also means that if you are chatting on the VoIP line and a co-worker fires up You Tube, your experience will be unchanged, your co-worker on the other hand might have to give You Tube more buffering time depending on the bandwidth.

This is a big deal. This will give small companies, or companies with many small locations the ability to hook their locations up to a powerful and comprehensive network. In the past companies that wanted to use MPLS (or Class of Service) required a $400 T1 line. Sites connected through DSL to an MPLS network will only need one, relatively inexpensive, data line and they will be able to service all their voice, video and data needs.

New Edge already had the nations largest DSL footprint. Implementing CoS over DSL was made possible by deploying Red Backs throughout their network. The Red Back aggregation points are really cool pieces of hardware, if you ever get to see one.

If you are interested, you can find the press release here.

read more | digg story

Spying On Your Visitors

2008-04-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

Warning this is another Google Analytics loving post.

As some of you may know, one of my motivations for this blog is to try out cool new things before implementing them on a site where changing the source is a process. The things that are really cool I apply to the sites I maintain for my employer. This is one of those things.

Recently, I was looking for way to further spy on my users and I found it, again in Google Analytics. This is not a new feature but cool none-the-less.

Problem:
Say you have a page with a bunch of external pointing links, and you want to see where your users are going. Normally GA would not track those users because the landing page does not have your GA tag. Or here is another scenario, you have a page with multiple links pointing to the same page. GA would normally tell you, these are the same link.

Solution:
Add a this code to your link:

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/posts/post_title/example.com');"

After adding the code, you link will look like this:

<a href="http://www.example.com" onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/posts/post_title/example.com');">

This will appear in your content reports as page views. The content will be labeled, in this case as "/outgoing/posts/post_title/example.com". I have created a syntax that I stick to, allowing me to easily understand where the link is and where its going. You could just put "example.com" but if you had that link in a few location it would be hard to tell which one was actually creating the traffic (outside of the navigation summary report).

You will also need to move you GA tag. Instead of the tag being right before the close body tag, it needs to be right after the open body tag.

Results:

Your results are reports that clearly tell you where your users are going and what they are clicking on.

I would say, this does involve touching every link you would like to track in this manor. So it can be very labor intensive. In my opinion, this should only be implemented selectively.

Back to the sandbox thing, if you look at the source of this blog (beyond this post) you will see that I have successfully implemented this technique here.

View Google Analytics Graphs By Months & Weeks

2008-04-04T11:08:00.000-07:00

The guys over at Google Analytics are working hard. This morning when I logged in I was pleasantly surprised. Google has given us the ability to view graphs in analytics by month and by week, in addition to day. Why is this important, you ask? Easy, often looking at the data on a day to day basis can be very misleading. Only when zooming out the a longer time period can you see trends developing. While looking at longer time periods you are also less likely to make recency bias related errors (This guy does a great job or explaining recency bias).

Weekly View:

Monthly View:

Benchmarking Lives

2008-03-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

If you are using Google Analytics and Benchmarking, check it out. Its up and running!

http://analytics.google.com
Analytics Blog

Blogging 101: Where To Start

2008-03-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

Ever thought of starting a blog but don't know how? This is a crash course designed to get you up and running; fast.

Get A Domain Name:
Pick whatever you want, like I did with Anzel Online or pick a name that will give you an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) edge. Try to think of a name that is relevant to what you are going to be doing. If you are making a website about yourself, your domain name should be www.[yourname].com. If you are talking about the best colors to paint your house, you should choose www.besthousecolors.com.

When searching for the name, do not search on the domain name registration sites or WHOIS. If you do, and you decide that you just don't want to buy it today, there might be a chance that a prospector will snatch it away from you. Instead, just type for prospective names into the nav bar of your browser or do a Google search.

Generally I go to Go Daddy. You could pay sticker, or you could do a search for Go Daddy promo codes and see if you can get a few dollars off.

Get E-Mail With Your Domain:
It's nice to have an e-mail address that is associated with your domain. You can do this for free by using Google Applications. Go to www.google.com/a/ and follow the directions. If you already use Gmail, you can just link the accounts.

Get a blog:
Who wants to pay for web hosting or try to install word press? Use blogger. It's part of the Google family so it will play nice with your Google Applications account. All you will have to do is follow the directions given by Blogger, creating a CNAME file. You will have learned how to do this when you got your Google Apps account. I suggest that you create a sub-domain (example: blog.anzelonline.com) and redirect www to that sub-domain. This way when your blog takes off and you want to create a real website with your domain name, you will not have mispointed links all over the Internet. You should also get a FeedBurner account. This will help you syndicate your blog. They also have a ton of cool features like FeedFlare, Site Stats, and most importantly, Subscriber Count.

Customize Your Blog:
Choose a layout that is simple. Then do your creative thing. Remember, this is not a MySpace profile, your blog pages should still look nice, be user friendly and load quickly. There are tons of CSS tutorials out there, and I am a proponent user of Franken-coding. Meaning you take functioning code (with permission) and edit it to work for your uses. If you use Firefox, and I suggest you do, get the Web Developers tool bar, its got lots of handy tools to help you understand what DIVs are doing what.

Set Up Analytics:
Now is a good time to set up Google Analytics. Just go to analytics.google.com and follow the directions. They still give you an option of old Urchin tag or new analytics tag, use the new tag. Put it on your layout in blogger, so it appears on every page.

Produce Content:
This is either the hard part or the easy part. If you are like me, creating the content is the hard part because I mostly like playing with the pages, various features and dabbling in the social media. If you have something to say, I guess learning how to edit CSS and keeping your DIVs straight will be the hard part.

Promote Your Content:
This is the fun part, or the part that will get you in trouble. I suggest that you submit your own content to social bookmarking sites (like Digg). That way you have control over the title and description. You should submit your site to any social bookmarking site where its content is relevant (if it's not relevant, it's what we call spam). Additionally, you should tell all your friends on MySpace and Facebook.

Network, Network, Network:
The more people you tell, the more people will visit. Just remember, you are trying to be helpful, not a spammer. If you are writing about Beer and Wine, you should not be posting links in AA's forums.

Monetize:
So, you want to make money off your site? Easy, because you are using a Blogger account just add Ad Sense boxes. If you are not a Blogger user go to: adsense.google.com (or click on the link in my sidebar) and follow the directions. If you take my advice, you can also use FeedBurner to place ads in your feed and on your site. The ads will appear above or below your FeedFlare.

NBC: Choosing Hulu over iTunes does not make sense. (Open Letter)

2008-03-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

Dear NBC,

As a fan of Battle Star Galactica and occasional watcher of The Office I feel compelled to tell you how happy I am to have an outlet to get my fix. Choosing to distribute your content via Hulu.com makes a lot of sense. This way you can control your media while selling advertisements.

For a while I am afraid that you were going to make the same mistake that the music industry did. You see, fewer and fewer people are watching TV anymore. We prefer to get our media via the internet. Then we want to consume it at our own pace. The music industry for the longest time did not understand this, so the market created supply (Napster). The same thing is happening to tv. Recently we all read the article stating that over 50% of bit torrents were TV shows. If that is not a telling piece of consumer behavior, I don't know what is. (See chart)

Still the thing that I can't figure out is why not sell on iTunes. Take my brother for example, he is a college student with a MacBook. He is not in the minority, we all also read the stories about Apple over taking Dell in the education sector. My brother, purchased every episode of Battle Star Galactica on iTunes. This is the thing, we are talking about digital media where all the costs and revenues are variable. If I want to purchase BSG on iTunes, why not let me. If you don't sell the episodes on iTunes, I will watch it on Hulu.com. Furthermore, I think that when we discuss you various distribution channels (Amazon [saving this for a different day], iTunes, Hulu, BitTorrent) we are actually talking about different markets. Amazon users are PC users that don't mind paying and want higher quality, iTunes users are mostly Apple users or iPod users and also don't mind paying, Hulu users don't want to pay but don't mind the ads, BitTorrent users are just angry. You see I could lay out a simple equation that would tell you what to do. It would look like: Channel with most $$$$ = Chosen Channel. However, your distribution channels are not mutually exclusive, hence you should put your media anywhere where customers will consume it.

And if you're after a really radical idea, why not release your episodes (with ads) on BitTorrent. Thats called making your enemies into friends.

Your Former Paying Customers,
Anzel Online

BTW:

TorrentFreak

Why Google Docs is HOT and Office Live is NOT.

2008-03-04T20:48:00.001-08:00

Functional Office Suite entirely web based = HOT
Web based sharing tool, without the abiliy to edit documents = NOT

Things are changing in the software world. Software is shifting from something that you buy to something that you rent. This movement is called Software-As-A-Service (or SAAS). Software companies like it due to the magic of recurring revenue. Users like it because they will always, if the provider is any good, have up to date applications. If this software is web based and runs inside a browser window (so it can run on any computer, those who know the history of Java should be feeling like you have been here before), you have a force to be reckoned with. Google has taken Open Office, SAASed it and provides it for free. Recently, Microsoft, not wanting to be outdone rolled out with Live Office. Microsoft wanting to compete with Google, stole Google's interface and applied typical Redmond thinking (more on that later).

How Google Documents (or should I say SAAS) Has Changed My Life:

Google documents has fundamentally changed the way I use computers. I no longer carry a flash drive full of my documents. When I need to work on something, I log into Google documents and there it is. Take for instance, this blog post, part of it was written on my six year old iBook, while watching TV with Crystal (my significant other), it was later finished on my new iMac. I did not have to transfer files between the computers and if I wanted to use a Windows box, I could. In fact the laptop's batteries died while I was at Crystal's house (something to do with not charging it for a week) but I was not worried. I knew that my work was safely stored on some Google server somewhere*. Furthermore, when I want to share a document with someone, I simply give them access.

Don't get me wrong, Google Documents is a work in progress. The documents are not the best when printed, presentations leave a lot to be desired, my favorite excel tool, Pivot Tables are just not present and forget about macros. However, the strength of the online platform is enough to dissuade me from actually using an office suite on my personal computers. I would guess that it would be possible for a, broke, adaptable college student to complete their entire academic experience in Google Documents.

Where Microsoft Went Wrong:

As I said, my personal favorite tool, Pivot Tables are not present in Google Documents. Microsoft had the opportunity to capitalize on this. Why not take Office, SAAS it, wrap around the online sharing and presto, killer app. However, Microsoft was thinking with their pocket change not their portfolio. What I mean is Microsoft appears to not be thinking about the long term implications of SAAS, rather they are trying to reinforce the old model. As I am cheap, there is little chance that I would pay for Microsoft's service. However, many business would. And for guys like me, there is always contextual advertising.

As it stands now Live Office is only a sharing tool. It lacks the ability to actually edit the documents. Creating a SAAS type office application without the ability to actually edit the documents is about the same a making a doomsday machine and not telling anyone... pointless. This behavior of doing something half-way so you can still sell your software through the traditional channels is what I would expect from Microsoft. Furthermore, the idea that they would give their software the ability to run anytime anywhere thought the magic for the Internet is Microsoft blasphemy.

Now to be fair, Live Office does have some advantages for people who are not wanting to host their own Exchange server. But really, really... I want a web based Pivot Table.

* Those of you reading this in your bunkers, with your tin foil hats, please chill out. At no time did I say this was a perfect system... or that Google is watching you... which they are...

Required Reading For Those New To Social Media

2008-02-24T11:13:00.000-08:00

My friends continuously ask me what they need to do to get their website/blog up and running. In my next post I am going to give step by step instructions. Before you can jump into the online world it help if you have context. The following is my required reading/doing list so you are in touch with today's Internet.

Be familiar with these sites/Have an account with these sites:

Myspace: Myspace is the wild west of the Internet. Its where teen and the pedophiles that stock them, come together. Myspace has become a news entertainment industry favorite. I believe that the stores about kids getting in trouble on Myspace are more a product of lack of education that people out to do harm. Someone entering the SEO world need to be familiar with Myspace and its history. It is important to note that you can use code to edit your Myspace profile, while that is not allowed on may other social networking sites. Google seems to sporadically crawl Myspace.

Facebook: Facebook is Myspace's biggest competitor. The users of Facebook should feel more secure in knowing that they are not being watched by pedophiles, but Facebook itself. Facebook has gotten itself in trouble for tracking it users a little to far. While some of their features have beencontriversial, they seem to be the social networking technology leader. If you have been watching the changes to Myspace's UI, you will know they have been taking pages from Facebook's book. It is important to note that Google does not crawl Facebook in a way that would be useful to a SEO.

Linked In: Facebook for professionals. Linked In much like Digg and Sphinn seems to have a special relationship with Google. Your public profile will get crawled and when your name is Googled, you will get greatSERP (search engine results page) rankings.

Digg: This is the most popular social bookmarking site on the web. Digg's categories cover a broad range of topics but mostly the stories appealing to geeky boys get Dugg (if that is the right way of spelling it). Digg is very important to SEO. Google seems to index its content continiously. When I submitted the first Anzel Online posting to Digg, Anzel Online was in Google's index in under an hour. There are tons of sites like this StumbleUpon is another. Flicker is like Digg but for photos.

Sphinn: This is a nitche social bookmarking site. They are mostly focused on search marketing. If you need to learn a lot about search marketing fast, this is the place. Try not to get bogged down in the endless discussions on SEO celebrity and [insert number here] [insert SEO task here] lists.

Be subscribed to these podcasts:

Diggnation: This is two guys who sit on a couch, getting wasted and talking about stories on Digg. This podcast is incredibly popular. This is a great example of how a home grown podcast can get big. In addition this podcast is seriously entertaining. It took me a while to get into it but now I am hooked.

Wine Library TV: Guess what this podcast is about. Try not to turn him off in the first thirty seconds. This guy took his family business from a $5 million to a $45 million business and the podcast is a large part of that. Obviously the guy is a great business man.Insted of attempting to use the podcast to (as Diggnation does) to sell products for other people, Gary is out selling his own business. Another good item to note: I watch WLTV through iTunes , Gary prefers that people watch the podcast on his website and does a great job of encouraging that behavior (watch is and you will see what I mean). He also does a truly stellar job of community building. Gary is you ever read this: what percentage of you community members purchase from your online store? I would bet that that number is a lot higher than other online retailers.

Start Using these online tools:

Blogger: You want a blog? Start here. So easy and with a little work can be integrated into any website. If you must host your own service check out WordPress. Blogger is owned by Google.
Feedburner: FeedBurner is another Google property. Feedburner is packed with tons of cool features that help promote and analyze you posts.
Google Analytics: Google Analytics is one kick ass analytics program. By placing tags on all your pages (or just one on your template, if you are using Blogger) you can see exactly where people are going and what they are doing.
Google Reader: Start using a RSS reader and subscribe to blogs. This blog might be a good start. At work I read over a hundred posts a day that relate to my industry.
iTunes: iTunes is a great tool for watching podcasts.

Search Engines:

Google: The search giant. If you don't already use Google you probably live is a cave. Where Google goes, the search industry follows. If you are thinking of doing business with Google it is worth while to understand their culture, it truly effects everything they do.
Yahoo: Yahoo is the only player still standing on its own (although that could change as Yahoo is acquisition bait) from the PG (pre-Google) world. They are number two and there are differences between Yahoo and Google. It would be a good idea to try to understand the history.

Google Analytics VS FeedBurner Stats

2008-02-18T18:48:00.000-08:00

For anyone serious about understanding their website, blog and its visitors/readers, a tracking piece of some sort must be in place. For those new to analytics, there are two major types of tracking: server logs or tag based tracking. Server logs are big ugly documents generated every time a request is made of the server. If you are serious about looking at your server logs (and you should be) get Aw Stats. Aw Stats parses the logs and makes them manageable by mere mortals. For those looking for trending and not necessarily the accuracy required by an accountant or you do not have access to your servers logs, tags are for you. Google Analytics is the 800 pound gorilla in the tag market. There are others out there that are very good, if not better than Google Analytics, but those are not free. For those publishing a feed through FeedBurner also have access to FeedBurner Stats. FeedBurner Stats is a nifty tool that might make a blogger wonder if they need Google Analytics.

How They Work

Google Analytics utilized a java script tag placed before the close body tag. Every time a tagged web pages is loaded, the tag goes and checks in with the mother ship. If you are using a service like Blogger, or you have a engine running your website, you are luck and only need to put the tag in once. If your site is old school, you will have to manually put the tag on every page. As a minor tangent: I have attempted to place these tags onMySpace, but they seem to get blocked. It might also have something to do with the fact the MySpace is using Google Analytics.

Feedburner works in several different ways. First, your feed exists on their site, so they already have that traffic when a subscriber requests updates. When you addFeedFlair to your posts you are essentially doing the same thing as adding a Google Analytics Tag. FeedBurners Headline Animator is another cool feature, works a bit like a tagged URL.

What They Record

The Google Analytics tag sends back a variety of information. When asked what Google Analytics can see, I like to tell people that when you visit my site the only thing I don't know is what your wearing but I could probably figure that out. The downside, if this is a downside, is every page that you want to track must have a tag. You will not get the all important navigation data if you leave one out (See my article "What Google Sees Referring URLs"). Google records all the traffic information you could want from search engines and referring websites. Direct traffic by its nature is harder to track. If you are sending the links, you can tag the URLs, this will give you some trackability.

Feedburner appears to tell you all the same basic data the Analytics would, however, in nowhere near the detail. Feedburner provides just the basics: visitors, pages, incoming and outgoing. The power of FeedBurner is its ability to tell you the number of subscribers (estimated based on the number of feed hits) and the reach (basically the number of unique visitors). The cool thing is these stats can be derived even when your blog is being read through a reader. This would be near impossible for Google Analytics as you would have to figure a way to get the tag in your post and all readers would have to allow posts to run java. Even then your data would be super strange, each reader would look like a page in your site.

What is sacrificed by using these services

Both FeedBurner and Google Analytics are Free (and owned by Google). When you use these services, you are paying with your data. If you don't like the idea of someone having access to our site's analytics, I suggest you stick with server logs and go live in a cave*.

What You Should Use

Feedburner would never record enough data to give you a clear picture of navigation on your site, nor would you expect it to. But Analytics would never give you the usage blog information needed by a serious blogger. So my answer is both. If you are serious about getting a clear picture of what your readers/visitors are doing, you use both. In addition,Feedburner is a veritable treasure trove of cool features, if you are publishing a blog, you should check FeedBurner out. If you are not already using some analytics program on your website, you are seriously behind. Google Analytics is a great application that is friendly for all experience levels**.

* Depending on your paranoia level, this still might not help you. You would definitely want to avoid an Internet connection and possibly never look up, for fear of being caught by a spy satellite.
** Ok, so it leaves something to be desired when trying to geographically segment Ad Words stats.

What Can Google Analytics See When A Page is Re-Directed?

2008-02-16T11:52:00.000-08:00

This week my buddies in IT and I (I am in Marketing) were pondering a question: What is the best way to track visitors coming directly to the site, from a link we have sent them, when different groups get referred to the same page but need to be distinguished?

Obviously the answer is tagged URLs but complicating things gives you the opportunity to look under Analytics' hood.

For those who are new to Analytics: a direct visit is one were the user types your URL into the navigation bar or they click a link that is contained in an e-mail. Without using one of the tricks described below, there is no sure bet way of tracking these visitors.

If you were going to complicate things you would create a dedicated landing page, with No Index markings (through META or Robots, because you don't want this page getting indexed) and a 301 re-direct. Then you would need to figure out if you needed a Analytics tag. We theorized that Google could probably recognize the referring page without a tag, as it can recognize the referring site.

We were wrong. Google will not tell you where your visitors are navigating without a tag on each page. Obviously, any magic in the HT Access file will get the same result. If Google is recording that data, they are not sharing*. Furthermore, just as their help files suggest, and un-delayed redirects will not give the tag time to send in the data.

So the moral of the story is, if you want to have full visibility on your site, you need to have a tag on every page. In addition its so easy to tag your URLs why mess around with using over complicated schemes to segment otherwise unsegmentable direct visitors into different buckets.

Happy Analyticsing

* So this might be hackable, but I am working within the rules today.

Fire Your Marketing Firm

2008-02-13T21:35:00.000-08:00

Acquiring or training the talent to conduct successful online marketing can be daunting and a very good reason to hire a firm. A company looking to start a SEM/SEO campaign needs to answer this question: What is easier/cheaper, hiring or training an employee that will know my company and customers inside and out or hiring a firm that will never really know your company or customers but are masters in their field?

The most important reason to bring SEM in house is visibility. What I mean by visibility is the ability to track a visitor all the way to sale and post sale service, with the fewest media breaks. An excellent SEM campaign is tuned to maximize ROI. If a firm can't see where the customer is going how is the firm going to properly optimize. Additionally, the company should know its customer inside and out. Search engines like Google and Yahoo make it easy to target just about anyone, you just need to know how to communicate to the customers. My role as a SEM is greatly aided by the ability to speak directly and regularly with my sales people. Because the sales people talk to my customers all day, they can give me insight into how the customers communicate as well as feedback on the campaign.

This gets more and more true with higher involvement purchases. If you are selling something that is really basic and can be ordered through your website without many questions, hire a firm, if it makes economic sense. If your product is complex, expensive, possibly critical to the customers future success your marketing needs are more complex. Use the organizational knowledge that you have acquired, yourself. Why put a another barrier between you and your customer?

Web 2.0 = New SEO

2008-02-13T13:15:00.000-08:00

SEO is changing.

The old ways of reciprocal linking and paid linking are going away. Google is on crusade to eliminate paid link and what self respecting corporation is going to put shady links on their website. Furthermore, is seems to me you would want to stay on Google's good side so participating is Black Hat schemes is risky idea.

Web 2.0 appears to create a myriad of link building opportunities, if it was not for rel="nofollow" *.

Instead the SEO needs to specialize, focus on making the code perfectly search engine friendly or become a publicist**. Thats right... a publicist. Be your websites evangelist. Go out a tell people on Digg and all the other social sites about the cool things happening on your site. If you get it right, you will create a buzz that will turn into links, which turn into SERP rankings.

In the final analysis, what is the real goal of SEO? To win customers! Getting top rankings is just an important step.

* Note: its still worth adding your client to Wikipedia, provided you are already indexed. Forget the link juice, if your link is relevant, you might actually get a customer.
**Even better, do both.