What is Google Sites?

It's an online application that makes creating a team web site as easy as editing a document. You can quickly gather a variety of information in one place -- including videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and gadgets -- and easily share it for viewing or editing with a small group, their entire organization, or the world.



News about Google Sites Around the Internet:

• ZDNet: Google Sites: A Sharepoint Killer?
• Information Week: Taking Google Sites For A Spin
• CNN Money: Google launches Web site creation tool
• SlashDot: JotSpot Relaunched As Google Sites
• Associated Content: Google Sites Adds to Google's Internet Empire
• Web User UK: Google launches sites for teams
• eWeek: Google Sets Its Sites
• Pandia Norway: Google adds free online eroom collaboration tool

Labels: Google

Labels: Omniture, Web Analytics

Labels: global thoughtz, Web Analytics

I was quite pleased with Day 1 of the Coremetrics Client Summit, learning many different ways that our clients can leverage Coremetrics as well as the services provided by the Coremetrics partners. 300 people were in attendence which made asking questions and having one one chats with Coremetrics analysts VERY easy.

Joe Davis, President of Coremetrics, kicked things off with a keynote discussing a few concepts including:

• There is more adoption of Internet technologies at an earlier age.
• People are not just consuming content anymore but rather creating and sharing content as well.
• Watching and listening to your customers is extremely important because they will show you what they want.
• It's not about just conversions anymore, it's about creating relationships and maximizing the life time value of a customer.

Laura Evans, Executive Studio Director, Resource Interactive, Inc. was up next and based her entire presentation on the concept of the iCitizen and the benefits of Open Brands (Revenue, ROI, R & D, Relevance, and Relationships). iCitizens consists of 4 different types people:

• First people who show expertise and knowledge surrounding a specific subject matter.
• Next is people who have a passion about a subject and often review and create content surrounding their passion.
• Third is Transparency where people show a desire with no corporate filters.
• Finally, there is notoriety which includes people who are online celebrities and have created a following.

Later in the afternoon I attended various sessions put on by Coremetrics experts where I got insight on the topics of:

• Attributing revenue/conversions to proper channels across throughout a consumers' life span.
• Segmenting data in numerous ways such as referring sources, content, products, etc....
• Measuring web 2.0 technologies such as AJAX, Flash, Blogs, RSS, Widgets using Coremetrics.
• Behavioral re-targeting using LiveMail as well as best practices for email campaigns

Labels: coremetrics, Web Analytics

Coremetrics, announced the launch of Coremetrics Connect™ which integrates leading digital marketing applications—including search, online content optimization, email and behavioral targeting technologies—to effectively monitor, measure and optimize campaign performance across multiple channels. Coremetrics Connect enables a network of closed-loop marketing solutions with a single view of campaign performance, and campaign optimization based on the most comprehensive and accurate picture of customer behavior. Coremetrics Connect launches with 25 Certified Partners with more to be added as they pass certification.

A January 2008 report, The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Marketing Platforms, Q1 2008, surveyed 73 marketers and found that “nearly 60% of respondents lack the ability to manage marketing processes and resources and coordinate interaction management across channels.” The report goes on to say that “given the scope of their responsibility, marketing leaders look for platforms that integrate processes across the department, deliver tools that enhance collaboration and productivity, measure overall performance, and deliver on the promise of integrating marketing across channels.”

Coremetrics Connect is specifically designed to help marketers address the pain points of integrating the various components of their online marketing campaigns. The Coremetrics Connect platform provides a single, consistent and accessible data source that enables marketers to acquire data about visitors, analyze trends and opportunities based on key visitor segments and act on this data for effective targeting throughout all their marketing channels.

“Coremetrics Connect sits at the center of PETCO’s efforts to match our passionate community of online users with performance data to make significant strides in our online business,” said John Lazarchic, Vice President of E-commerce at PETCO. “By leveraging the integration of Coremetrics with Bazaarvoice, our provider of user-generated content reviews, we’re able to accurately see the impact of our user-generated campaigns.”

Accredited Coremetrics Connect Certified Partners include:

Labels: coremetrics

comScore reports that Google surged past Microsoft last month to become Canada's most visited web property. This is the first time that Google has been number 1 in Canada and everyone knows that when Google takes the lead in something it's usually for good. Yahoo, Facebook and EBay round out the top 5 most visited web properties in Canada.

Top 25 Properties by Number of Canadian Unique Visitors *January 2008 vs. December 2007 Total Canada - Home and Work Locations** Source: comScore Media Metrix
Jan-08 Rank	Dec-07 Rank	Property	Total Unique Visitors (000) Jan-08
N/A	N/A	Total Internet : Total Audience	23,802
1	2	Google Sites	22,440
2	1	Microsoft Sites	22,424
3	3	Yahoo! Sites	16,481
4	4	Facebook.com	15,354
5	5	eBay	13,856
6	6	Wikipedia Sites	11,683
7	N/A	AOL LLC***	10,707
8	7	Yellow Pages Group	9,746
9	8	Amazon Sites	9,521
10	9	Apple Inc.	8,684
11	10	Canoe Network	8,596
12	13	Fox Interactive Media	8,084
13	15	CTVglobemedia	7,876
14	12	CNET Networks	7,706
15	11	The Weather Network Meteomedia	7,702
16	16	New York Times Digital	7,532
17	14	Ask Network	7,309
18	18	Viacom Digital	6,374
19	20	CBC-Radio Canada Sites	6,226
20	19	Adobe Sites	6,073
21	N/A	Time Warner - Excluding AOL***	5,583
22	22	Gorilla Nation	5,462
23	21	WhitePages	4,939
24	35	Expedia Inc	4,890
25	24	TD Bank Financial Group	4,573

*Ranking based on the top 100 Canadian properties in January 2008.** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.*** Beginning with January 2008 comScore data, Time Warner Network has now been divided into AOL LLC, which includes all AOL related entities, and Time Warner - Excluding AOL

Labels: Google, Microsoft

Labels: reputation management

This week I am headed off to Fort. Worth, Texas where I will be attending my first Coremetrics Client Summit. It's actually perfect timing as I will be attending the Omniture Summit next week so it will be interesting to compare what's to come from the two web analytics giants in the future. Late last week I had a demo of Coremetrics' SEM Tools where I was impressed with the integration of SEM + Web Analytics and the ability to slice/dice that data as well as manage keyword bids.

Here are some of the items on the Agenda which I will hope to attend:

• Multichannel Measurement: Tying Online and Offline Together - Thomas Mann, Bank of AmericaWilliam Greene, Coremetrics
• Best Practices in A/B Testing: Matt Cardwell, Quicken LoansKate Heintz, Coremetrics
• Measuring Engagement Workshop: Eric Peterson, Web Analytics Demystified - John Squire, Coremetrics
• Search Engine Optimization: How to Play the Game - Jessica Maier, Calendars.com Kelli Blankenbaker, Coremetrics

Keynotes this year will feature:

• Laura Evans, Executive Studio Director, Resource Interactive, Inc.
• Eric T. Peterson, CEO and Principal Consultant at Web Analytics Demystified
• Kenneth Seiff, CEO, Diet Channel Network, Inc.

Labels: coremetrics, Web Analytics

As a writer you always hope that your content gets picked up by some of the more popular blogs and news portals in your vertical. The search marketing industry has many different news hubs which regularly make mention of the best content within our industry, here are few good ones to try to get mentioned in:

• BIGLIST of Search Marketing Blogs: A list containing more than 400 popular SEO/SEM blogs which was created and is maintained by the TopRank Blog.
• Search Newz: Everyday they highlight 4-5 of the top stories within search marketing. Additionally authors get a picture of themselves with their post.
• Search Brains: A search marketing news aggregator comprised of 60 of the most popular online marketing blogs.
• Web Pro News: Their "Blog Talk" section features daily updates on the latest topics within online marketing.
• 9 Rules: A directory which qualifies different types of content from the millions of sources on the internet.
• Search Engine Land's SearchCap: Danny Sullivan and Barry Schwartz hand pick and highlight some of top stories from the search marketing industry each day. Additionally they mention the most popular articles from Sphinn.
• Sphinn Hot list: Making it on the front page of Sphinn shows that your peers appreciate your content.
• Linky Goodness from Marketing Pilgrim: Everyday Andy Beal and his team pick a select few posts/articles that the industry is talking about.
• Adage Power 150: 575 blog ranked using metrics such as PageRank, Technorati Rank, Alexa Rank, Feed Subscribers and more! Hey Adage, we should be on your list!
• Daily Search Forum Recap: The Search Engine Round Table team recaps the day's top stories from the online marketing forums.
• Top Web Analytics Blogs: Avinash Kaushik ranks the industry's top web analytics blogs based on Technorati Rank and Feed Subscribers.
• SEO Moz Roundup: Similar to their regular posts, SEO Moz performs a detail recap of the week's most interesting stories.
• SEO Space Top 7: A monthly recap of the top 7 stories in the industry. To be on this list you better do something real important.
• Search Engine Journal Blog Awards: Yearly blog awards spanning industry topics such as PPC, SEO, SMO, Link Building and more.
• SEMMYs: An annual awards event honoring the great content produced across the search and online marketing industry.
• This Week's Must Reads: Web Analytics World's very own weekly recap of search marketing and web analytics content.

Labels: SEM, SEO

Yesterday at the Google Analytics Blog, Kristen Nomura wrote about how to drill down in Google Analytics to view your paid search referral data. The ability to find the paid search referral data is very simple, however it's the complex bid decisions you can make based on ROI that show the true power of something like Google Analytics (or most analytics). If a given set of phrases drive thousands of referrals to your site and if those same visitors aren't returning and additionally those phrases aren't converting, are they really working that effectively for you?

Furthermore, Kristen shows a quick example of how to tag paid search campaigns from other engines (besides Google) to help show the entire picture for your paid search efforts.

Manual Tagging for non-AdWords PPC Traffic To get started with the manual tagging process, our URL Builder tool comes in handy. You can actually use this tool to generate URLs to track any online marketing campaign, but that’s a topic for another post. For paid search campaigns, the main thing to remember is that the campaign medium must be set to “cpc” or “ppc”.Imagine you are driving people to a landing page, www.example.com/landingpage and have a campaign to promote your delicious chocolate product line.

Labels: Google Analytics, ppc, Web Analytics

Labels: Technorati

Semphonic, a leading web analytics consultancy, announced the release of the Implementation Toolkit for Omniture SiteCatalyst. The Toolkit is the first ever, independently written reference that gives guidance and best practices for making wise decisions on how to build SiteCatalyst tags to ensure complete and accurate web site data collection.

Written for web analytics practitioners, web managers and web developers, the Toolkit includes an:

• Implementation Guide: 80 page manual full of in-depth answers and insight based on Semphonic’s years of Omniture implementation experience
• 20 Point Quality Assurance Checklist: for prevention of data collection problems
• Implementation Project Plan Excel Template: lays out all of the tasks for managing a successful SiteCatalyst implementation
• Functional Specification Excel Template: the key documentation a user needs to map business requirements to metrics to tag implementation.

With Semphonic’s Implementation Toolkit for Omniture SiteCatalyst, staff will learn:

• How to set tags to ensure complete collection of data;
• The keys to collecting Web 2.0 content, such as Flash and AJAX;
• Strategies for using SiteCatalyst custom variables for capturing survey and form data
• How to use eVars to track success events
• Best practices for using eVars and s.props
• How to manage a SiteCatalyst implementation project
• Who key stakeholders for tagging issues in your organization are and how and when to involve them in the implementation process
• And much, much more…

Click Here to Purchase - 10% Discount (use the code manoj1008)

“Omniture provides a rich, powerful and extremely flexible suite of web measurement and optimization tools. However, all of that power does come with a price,” states Gary Angel, President of Semphonic. “Getting started with Omniture – measurement design, implementation, Q&A and debugging, and
reporting strategies – can be challenging – and our Implementation Kit provides
proven methods on how to chart a smooth sail through what can seem like rough
waters.”

Labels: Omniture, Web Analytics

Labels: CMS

comScore: Yahoo! Sites continued to lead as the top property with more than 138 million visitors, followed by Google Sites with nearly 135 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with 119 million visitors. Beginning with January comScore Media Metrix data, Time Warner Network has now been divided into AOL LLC, which includes all AOL related entities, and Time Warner – Excluding AOL. During the month, large increases were experienced by the following properties; Superpages.com Network (rising 13 spots to position 19), Disney Online (up four spots to position 22), and Expedia Inc. (up nine spots to 32). CareerBuilder LLC entered the ranking this month grabbing position 27.

comScore Top 50 Properties (U.S.) January 2008 Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations Unique Visitors (000) Source: comScore Media Metrix
Rank	Property	Unique Visitors (000)		Rank	Property	Unique Visitors (000)
-	Total Internet : Total Audience	184,239		-	-	-
1	Yahoo! Sites	138,059		26	Craigslist.org	26,660
2	Google Sites	134,886		27	CareerBuilder LLC	24,752
3	Microsoft Sites	119,297		28	Glam Media	24,626
4	AOL LLC	109,442		29	Shopzilla.com Sites	24,210
5	Fox Interactive Media	83,752		30	Monster Worldwide	24,185
6	eBay	78,789		31	CBS Corporation	23,643
7	Amazon Sites	59,003		32	Expedia Inc	23,454
8	Wikipedia Sites	55,589		33	Gannett Sites	22,997
9	Time Warner - Excluding AOL	52,645		34	Bank of America	22,990
10	Ask Network	52,102		35	Yellowpages.com Network	22,869
11	New York Times Digital	48,471		36	United Online, Inc	22,065
12	Apple Inc.	48,413		37	E.W. Scripps	20,952
13	Viacom Digital	42,011		38	Photobucket.com LLC	20,497
14	Weather Channel, The	40,478		39	Real.com Network	19,747
15	CNET Networks	34,859		40	Lycos Sites	19,484
16	Facebook.com	33,861		41	WebMD Health	19,219
17	Adobe Sites	31,169		42	ESPN	19,166
18	Wal-Mart	30,747		43	WorldNow - ABC Owned Sites	19,115
19	Superpages.com Network	28,299		44	NBC Universal	17,828
20	AT&T, Inc.	27,890		45	Best Buy Sites	17,813
21	Target Corporation	27,874		46	Weatherbug Property	17,456
22	Disney Online	27,524		47	iVillage.com: The Womens Network	17,383
23	Verizon Communications Corporation	27,220		48	Cox Enterprises Inc.	17,286
24	Gorilla Nation	27,119		49	AmericanGreetings Property	16,771
25	Comcast Corporation	27,068		50	Hearst Corporation	16,708

Labels: comScore, Google, Yahoo

Web Analytics World will be providing full coverage of this year's Omniture Summit, so we hope to see you there. It will be interesting to see what Omniture has to announce for the future of the company at the Omniture Summit this year especially considering the very active 2007 they had. The biggest news must have been the purchase of Visual Sciences and I hope to find out the full details on how they intend to integrate all the technologies.

This year's keynotes features Omniture CEO Josh James, Lance Armstrong, Seth Godin and Forrester Research's Shar VanBoskirk. Additionally, Omniture is offering insight on many different industry verticals including: Retail, Media, Financial Services, Travel, High-Tech & B2B, Fighting a Recession with Web Analytics, and Automotive.

Here are few of the sessions I hope to attend at the Omniture Summit:

• Actionable Analytics: Best Practices for Taking Significant Action
  Presented by ZAAZ
  In today’s dynamic online marketplace, the race is on to find and retain the best customers while achieving the strongest ROI. There are a variety of tools and tactics available to help make this a reality, but the real leap occurs when you become data-driven and take significant action based on analytics. ZAAZ will present the best practices and insights they have developed during the past decade of working with Omniture.
• Using APIs to get the Right Data in the Right Places
  Presented by Bret Gunderson
  Using simple scripts can automate the data import/export process for you. learn how Omniture data can be exported to desktop widgets, executive summaries, CMS systems, BI tools and others, and how data can be imported from your Web server, call center, point-of-sale system or other applications into Omniture SiteCatalyst for reporting. Additionally, you’ll learn how reports and configuration settings can be managed via the Administration API.
• Use SiteCatalyst 14 to Measure and Optimize Video Consumption
  Presented by Bret Gunderson
  New video features in SiteCatalyst 14 inform you about which videos are being watched, (even which parts of the video are being watched), and how effectively video contributes to conversion. See how easy video is to track as the data simply collects to a single server. If you have video or are considering it for your site, this is a session you won’t want to miss.
• Landing Page Optimization for Search
  Presented by Joel Hall & Jason Bishop
  Pay-per-click costs are rising every quarter, yet many companies are experiencing falling conversion rates. We will discuss the strategies, techniques, and tips that will make your SEM and landing page optimization efforts more effective. Learn how search marketers can convert, not just acquire, more traffic by asking the question “What really matters?”
• Shortening the Cycle of Analysis to Action with Site Search
  Presented by Mercado and Omniture
  The power to significantly drive revenue is at your fingertips. When analytics and “searchandising” come together, the opportunity for nimble and effective merchandising decisions and actions increase substantially. Mercado will talk about the benefits of integrating valuable business metrics into merchandising practices, and why automating this process not only saves online retailers time and money, but also generates more revenue.

Labels: Omniture, Web Analytics

With CompleteRSS you can say goodbye to invalid RSS and partial entries — your feeds show your entire article no matter what, bringing you the traffic you deserve, and no longer use the very-much abused 'content:encoded' tags that cause many feed readers such a headache.

Labels: Blogging, Web Analytics, WordPress

Blogger Buzz reports that there have been numerous fixes to Blogger in February. The updates include:

• Clearer identity options on the comment form, which now highlights some of the more popular OpenID providers more obviously.
• Transliteration is now available in Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu as well as Hindi
• Posts with more than 200 comments have them split across multiple pages.
• Layouts blogs now have a “Layouts” tab instead of “Template.”
• Better Persian translations and other BiDi layout fixes
• A fix to the long-standing incorrect label counts bug
• Safari 3 support for the Layouts template editor pages
• Faster loading times for the post editor
• Improved international support in the post editor’s date and time fields
• Compatibility fixes for Picasa’s BlogThis! button

Labels: Blogger, Blogging

SinglesNet.com the Top Visited Dating Website Last Week Visits to Dating websites have increased 26 percent YoY The market share of U.S. visits to the Dating category increased 26 percent for the week ending Feb. 9, 2008, compared to the same week in 2007, Hitwise reported today. The most-visited website within the Dating category for last week was Singlesnet.com which received 14 percent of all the U.S. visits to the category.

Other top Dating websites for last week included Plentyoffish.com which received 11 percent of the U.S. visits followed by eHarmony.com who received six percent of visits as did TRUE.com. Plentyoffish.com posted the largest year-over-year traffic growth among the top five websites within the Dating category with an 87 percent increase in U.S. visits.

Average Session Time

The average visit time for the Dating category during the week ending Feb. 9, 2008, was 17 minutes and 7 seconds, up from 14 minutes and 5 seconds, for the same week during the previous year. For the week ending Feb. 9, 2008, the average time spent on Plentyoffish.com led among the top five dating websites with users spending an average of 21 minutes and 31 seconds on the website. The average visit time on the free dating site increased 31% from the week ending Feb. 10, 2007.

New and Returning Visitors

For the week ending Feb. 9, 2008, True.com received 26 percent of its share of traffic from new visitors. Among the top five dating websites by market share, Yahoo! Personals and Singlesnet followed with 15 and 13 percent, respectively, of new traffic that has not visited during the previous month.

Labels: HitWise

Did you know that iPods can be used for more than just listening to music? You can use your iPod for studying and learning as well. Amy Quinn over at the Online Education Database has come up with 100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better categorized in 8 main sections. You can check out Amy's full post here, but here are a few of the top iPod tips and resources.

Study Guides

• Spark Notes: Long considered a busy high school or college student's best friend, the online study guide database now offers users an iPod-friendly version. Get summaries and analyses of books like A Tale of Two Cities, Beowulf, Hamlet and more.
• iPREPpress: This website provides study guides, travel guides and foreign language training, all compatible with iPods.

Podcasts and More

• GoogleGet: Get your Google News and iPod in sync by installing this software program. You'll stay current on all the top news stories, making you better prepared for class or work.
• Soundwalk: This site currently only sells CDs and MP3s, but you can use an MP3-iPod converter to check out unique self-guided audio tours like "The Bronx Graffiti Walk" or "The Paris St. Germain Walk."
• Pod CityGuides: This site has hundreds of city guides that are compatible with iPods, so no one has to know you're really a tourist.

Tutorials

• Learning Podcasting: If you want to create your own podcast to share your skills or expertise on a particular subject, read this in-depth introduction to podcasting from Wise-Women.org.
• Podtender 3.0: This software program will teach you how to make all kinds of tasty cocktails for your next party.
• PodGourmet 2.0: Teach yourself to become a master chef when you get recipes

Applications

• iGadget: Make your class notes, presentations, study guides and other materials iPod-friendly by using iGadget. You'll be able to move documents and files back and forth between your iPod and your computer easily and securely.
• Plato Video to iPod Converter: Use this app to transform all kinds of video formats into MP4 formats so that you can upload video clips and footage onto your iPod.

More Downloads

• iJourneys: Take walking tours in cities like Salzburg, Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris and Ancient Rome by downloading iPod-compatible guides from this site.
• Audio Bibles for iPod: AllBibles.com offers iPod-compatible Bibles for theology and seminary students, or for those who just want a more portable version to take along with them.

iPod Learning Support

• iPod in the Classroom: Take a look at Apple's collection of lesson plans for teachers who want to use their iPod for classroom work.
• iLounge: Get together with other iPod users to find out about new things you can do with your iPod.

Tools and Sites

• ShowFootage: Browse through this site's library of video clips to make your presentations and projects more attractive.
• Audible.com: Find a large variety of books, newspapers and magazines ready to download to your iPod on this site. Categories include Romance, Classics, Business, History and more.

iTunes U

• Stanford on iTunes: Take a class from Stanford by downloading one onto your iPod. Or, you can find interviews with faculty and lectures to help you better understand the course material at your own school.
• University of California -- Berkeley: Classes from this well-respected school are available in chemistry, the social sciences, journalism and much more.

Labels: iPod

The VisualCalc AdWords Dashboard is a web-based solution that transforms complex PPC data into interactive, easy-to-interpret graphs and charts that help you quickly identify and act on issues and opportunities, maximizing the effectiveness and ROI of your PPC programs. The VisualCalc AdWords Dashboard is a flexible solution that enables the display and analysis of virtually any combination of PPC data.

The VisualCalc AdWords Dashboard turns your raw AdWords/PPC data into graphical performance indicators, such as clicks vs. impressions, conversions by ad group, click through rate by keyword, etc. Indicators can be created for virtually any combination of Google AdWords or PPC data. These indicators are expressed by a variety of graph formats of your choosing, including bar charts, pie charts, line graphs, gauges and heat maps. Each time the underlying AdWords/PPC data changes, the indicators that use this data are automatically updated. Google AdWords indicator graphs are then grouped into customized AdWords dashboards that provide a visual, easy-to-understand view into the performance of your Google AdWords campaigns. The VisualCalc AdWords Dashboard provides immediate, visual answers to you key AdWords questions, such as:

• Which campaigns, ad groups and keywords are delivering the best return on investment (ROI)?
• How are key measurements such as impressions, clicks and conversions trending over time?
• Which keywords are generating the most clicks, conversions and sales?
• How do effectiveness measures such as click through rate (CTR) and conversion rate compare across ad groups and keywords, and how are they trending over time?
• What are the causal factors behind changes in clicks, conversions and impressions?

Labels: ppc, Sponsored

"Separating out the SOA hype from the ECM reality remains difficult, as vendors have aggressively positioned their products as SOA-ready – while most are not,"said the report's lead analyst, Alan Pelz-Sharpe. "When vendors talk about SOA,they mostly mean that they have SOAP-enabled their APIs," added Pelz-Sharpe,"but that's not really the point."

Labels: CMS Watch

• URL vs. Title: The URL of your post doesn't have to be the exact same as the title of your post. Creating a custom URL allows you to insert additional keywords which can benefit your post from a search engine perspective. Some blogging platforms such as WordPress allow you to define a custom URL for a post (also known as the post slug) whereas platforms such as Blogger construct the URL by taking the post's title word for word (it also applies a character limit for the URL). For platforms that don't allow custom naming I recommend creating a keyword rich title initially and then after posting, changing it to something enticing to draw in readers.
• Interlinking of Top Posts / Hot Topics: As a blogger you will occasionally write a post which will considerably outperform your other posts OR you will blog about a hot topic in your industry which you hope will perform well in the search engines. For both cases, a good idea is to hard code keyword rich links to these posts on your blog's side bar or in your footer so that they receive added attention from search crawlers and readers.
• Re-Ignite Past Posts: Staying on the topic of hot posts, it is often a good idea to keep the momentum rolling on popular topics by updating their content or adding 2nd and 3rd parts to the original post. What has worked well for me in the past is to create a 3 or 4 part series on a popular topic and then combine all the posts into a PDF which readers can download.
• Yahoo/Google Finance: When writing about publicly traded companies it is a good idea to mention the company's full name or even their stock symbol. Many times these types of posts get aggregated into a given company's news section of their Google/Finance page which leads to more readers coming back to your blog.
• The Importance of Variety: Offering posts which vary in length, topics, format (lists vs. news vs. opinion vs. interviews), or content type (images vs. video. vs text) can prolong the life of your readers. Mixing up your posts will keep your readers coming back rather than being bored by the same old content day after day.
• Relationships with Companies/Bloggers: It is important to have relationships with companies or their PR firms because they will potentially release information to you before it goes to the public giving you an edge on your competition. Additionally, companies can offer you access to software/services during test periods before it is officially released.
  
  Relationships with other bloggers is key because they can help you spread the word on your most potent posts as well add value to your blog by guest blogging from time to time.

If you're looking to kick start your blogging in 2008, check out our Blog Setup and Configuration Services.

Labels: Blogging

Labels: emetrics, Web Analytics

Enquiro Search Solutions and Omniture Inc., recently released a webinar in which Enquiro President Gord Hotchkiss and Omniture's Director of Online Marketing, Wes Funk discuss using SEM to understand your Sales Cycle:

Download Webinar Here!

Some of the main takeaways from the Omniture/Enquiro webinar include:

• The importance of online research in B2B purchases
• What B2B users are looking for online
• Buyers' roles and intent in B2B Purchases
• Matching user intent
• Working Memory and Satisficing
• The Search Shopping Mall: Qualifying traffic coming from the Results Page
• Matching the promise on the landing page
• Eye Tracking Scanning Patterns on the Home Page

Labels: Enquiro, Web Analytics

Hitwise, announced the Super Bowl XLII advertiser websites with the largest increases in market share of visits on Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 3, 2008) were Hyundai (www.hyundaigenesis.com), up 1450 percent versus Saturday, Feb. 2, 2008, Paramount’s Ironman Movie (www.ironmanmovie.com), up 800 percent and GoDaddy.com, which increased 616 percent.

Super Bowl Advertiser Websites Ranked By Percent Change Based on Daily Market Share of U.S. Visits
Advertiser	Domain	Sunday % Change	Monday % Change
Hyundai	www.hyundaigenesis.com	1450%	-55%
Paramount	www.ironmanmovie.com	800%	-33%
GoDaddy	www.godaddy.com	616%	-30%
Audi	www.truthinengineering.com	433%	NA
SalesGenie	www.salesgenie.com	333%	15%
Office of National Drug Control Policy	www.theantidrug.com	200%	0%
New Line Cinema	www.semipromovie.com	200%	133%
Gatorade	www.gatorade.com	200%	-33%
Under Armour	www.underarmour.com	156%	-22%
Bud Light	www.budlight.com	100%	0%
Tide	www.mytalkingstain.com	57%	NA
GMC	www.gmc.com	39%	-25%
Coke	www.coca-cola.com	33%	25%
CareerBuilder	www.careerbuilder.com	27%	39%
Budweiser	www.budweiser.com	25%	20%
Planters	www.planters.com	15%	0%
Dell	www.dell.com	8%	9%
Cars.com	www.cars.com	2%	5%
Garmin	www.garmin.com	0%	22%
T-Mobile	www.t-mobile.com	-1%	-7%
Victoria's Secret	www.victoriassecret.com	-2%	19%
Toyota	www.toyota.com	-10%	-3%
Toshiba	www.toshibadirect.com	-15%	32%
Disney	www.disney.com	-17%	-34%
Taco Bell	www.tacobell.com	-20%	-25%
eTrade	www.etrade.com	-27%	175%
Sunsilk	www.lifecantwait.com	-29%	100%
FedEx	www.fedex.com	-31%	136%
20th Century Fox	www.jumperthemovie.com	-50%	-50%
Claritin	www.claritin.com	NA	100%
Vitamin Water	www.vitaminwater.com	NA	-50%
AMP	www.ampenergy.com	NA	200%
Note - the data is based on the daily market share of U.S. visits among all US Internet users from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. The Sunday percent change is based on comparing the daily market share of U.S. visits for Feb. 3, 2008 vs. Feb. 2, 2008. The Monday percent change is based on comparing the daily market share of U.S. visits for Feb. 4, 2008 vs. Feb. 3, 2008.
Source: Hitwise

Labels: HitWise

comScore recently published the results of their annual survey which measures the results of consumers' thoughts on the Super-Bowl ads. Hyundai and Budweiser scored as the most favorable advertisers this year, but I'd like to look at some of the brands which hurt their reputation the most this year (SalesGenie.com and GoDaddy.com).

SalesGenie.com had the highest “brand damage” score, but still managed a small net improvement score. Perennially controversial Super Bowl advertiser GoDaddy.com also drew a high negative response with its racy ad featuring race car driver Danica Patrick.

Q: Which Super Bowl advertisers' ads improved or damaged your impression of the brand in any way? February 3-4, 2008; n=1,139 Source: comScore, Inc.
Highest Improvement	Improved	Damaged	Net Improvement Score
Hyundai	46%	1%	45%
Anheuser-Busch (Bud/Bud Light)	44%	2%	42%
Bridgestone	42%	3%	39%
Lowest Improvement	Improved	Damaged	Net Improvement Score
SalesGenie.com	21%	18%	3%
GoDaddy.com	26%	13%	13%
Under Armour	30%	12%	18%

Labels: comScore

Labels: VisiStat, Web Analytics

Hitwise, today announced that Google accounted for 65.98 percent of all U.S. searches in the four weeks ending January 26, 2008. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 20.94, 6.90 and 4.21 percent respectively. The remaining 48 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.97 percent of U.S. searches.

Percentage of U.S.Searches Among Leading Search Engine Providers
Domain	Jan.-08	Dec.-07	Jan.-07
www.google.com	65.98%	65.98%	63.06%
search.yahoo.com	20.94%	20.88%	21.40%
search.msn.com	6.90%*	7.04%*	10.35%*
www.ask.com	4.21%	4.14%	3.54%
Note: Data is based on four week rolling periods (ending Jan. 26, 2008, Dec. 29, 2007 and Jan. 27, 2007) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users. * - includes executed searches on Live.com and MSN Search.
Source: Hitwise

Labels: Google, HitWise, MSN

• Avoid common mistake of disregarding BlackBerry and other mobile readers and increase sales by up to 262%.
• Find out how good deliverability can increase email-generated revenue by up to 143%.
• Learn how the right subject lines can improve clickthroughs by as much as 92%.

Below are MarketingSherpa's Dirty Dozen

• Mistake #1. Blatant Lack of Permission
• Mistake #2. Utterly Deficient Segmentation
• Mistake #3. Lame ‘Welcome’ Messages
• Mistake #4. Frequency Decisions Made for the Wrong Reason
• Mistake #5. Institution-to-One Messaging
• Mistake #6. No Real Interactivity
• Mistake #7. Deliverability: Content, Formatting & Lack of Self-Advocacy
• Mistake #8. Designing Images That Appear as Red Xs
• Mistake #9. Disregarding Your BlackBerry and Mobile Readers
• Mistake #10. Repeating Ad Types
• Mistake #11. Collecting Bad Response Rates
• Mistake #12. Relying on Email Only

Labels: Email Marketing

There's a lot of talk in the measurement community about best practices--accepted methods to measure and optimize a website.

Of course, if you're not following these, chances are you're operating with one or all of the 5 worst practices in web analytics.

#5 - No Segmentation

Many of the out of the box web analytics dashboards and reports lump together all sources and churn out one summary metric. If this is all you're reporting on, it's time to slice and dice those numbers.

Averages lie. Start segmenting your data to find interesting differences. Break down results by traffic sources. Look at paid search analytics by ad group. Set benchmarks with historical email campaign results and compare new campaigns to those standards.

Break away from lumpy reports.

#4 - Goals? Forget 'Em

"Is that good or bad?" is among the most common questions asked about web analytics data. Our conversion rate is 1%. We had 1,000 more visits today. How are you supposed to interpret trends?

Web analytics tools are great at producing data, but they don't answer questions. Analysts answer questions.

Good analysis happens when you look at the data. Great analysis happens before you see any data at all. It starts by defining your business questions, goals and identifying the metrics that will help you gauge success.

#3 - Skip The Summary

Tools are full of endless screens of data. Simply amassing the right information into a dashboard is a start. Unfortunately, just having a set of data doesn't convey the story behind the numbers.

In a marketplace short on web analytics understanding, you need to connect the dots. A summary helps combat scarce time and less technically inclined audiences.

Tailor your summary to the different audience types. 1 page for execs is enough. You can probably be a bit more in-depth for directors and managers. Cut out key points for anyone actually doing the work, e.g. copywriters or technical folk.

#2 - Ignore External Data and Context

Getting the data in your tool reasonably close to reality is a job in and of itself. It's so tempting to believe all the answers can be found in what's readily available at hand. Sadly, it's just not always the case.

External events add context to your analysis. Site changes, market events, competitive initiatives--they can all have an influence on how many people come to your site and what they do there.

Start documenting key events and noting them in reports. Put them as events right on trend charts. Seek out access to tools like Hitwise, Compete, Quantcast and other competitive intelligence to understand how global trends influence your site's local trends.

#1 - Leave Out Insights and Action

Commenting on all of the trends you see draws attention to notable changes. Gathering and charting the data can help illustrate trends and a little explanatory text can narrate what you see.

That's great for people who aren't close to the data, but it only raises a whole new set of questions.

Instead of single charts, pair each notable data point with a corresponding insight and recommended action. Sure, you won't have all of the answers, but it's a great place to start.

You can count on "What happened? What does that mean? What should we do about it?" being the first 3 questions you hear, so come prepared.

-> If you liked this post, you might also enjoy my recent post about a basic method for website analysis at Digital Alex.

Labels: Web Analytics

Labels: Blogging

• Both websites are also strong in retaining their traffic – 93% of the traffic to yahoo.com and 89% of the traffic to msn.com for the week ending Jan. 26th had visited in the last 30 days
• Each company exhibits strengths in attracting traffic to their front pages and delivering the traffic to other properties within their networks. The front page of Yahoo! (yahoo.com, ranked 4th in market share of visits among all categories) sends 65.78% of its downstream traffic (based upon the top 100 websites) to other Yahoo properties.
• For MSN (msn.com, ranked 8th in market share of visits among all categories), the front page sends 52.43% of its downstream traffic to other MSN properties. There is little overlap between the networks at this point – only 1.4% of the downstream traffic from yahoo.com visited an MSN property afterwards and 3.96% from msn.com visited a Yahoo! site.
• Web-based email services and search are the top destinations for the traffic from the portals, the combined downstream traffic to these properties from yahoo.com and msn.com were 47% and 31% respectively. Email is also good for sending traffic back over – Yahoo! Mail and Windows Live Mail each sent 12% of its downstream traffic for the week ending Jan. 26th to their network front pages.
• One category where each of the portals is delivering visitors outside of their own networks is Social Networking. The charts in the post illustrate that MySpace is the 3rd ranked recipient of downstream traffic for both yahoo.com and msn.com.
• MySpace is currently the leader within the Social Networking and Forums category (ranked 1st with 42.14% market share of visits) and receives close to half of the total category downstream traffic from both websites. MSN and Yahoo! both have diversified properties with significant positions in the marketplace that offer attractive ad inventory, so hopefully a combined MSN and Yahoo! could also take advantage of Microsoft’s investment in Facebook.

Labels: HitWise, Microsoft, Yahoo

• Increases Exposure of your content
• Helps build your reputation as an author and thought leader
• Generates back links to your original content
• Allows more feedback on your content

• An Additional 4 Tips for Video and Image 39 Sphinns
• 9 Ideas for Blog Posts When You Are Stuck 43 Sphinns
• 4 Tips and 11 Resources for Increasing Subscribers 18 Sphinns
• Google Indexing Even Faster? 29 Sphinns

Labels: Blogging

Labels: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo