Courtesy of Xavier Casanova’s Blog: WebSite analytics is big business, and getting bigger. Unfortunately, most companies still do not see how web analytics can “save” their websites. Which I just don’t get. In my speaking around the country, I always talk about the importance of analytics, how every decision about the site can be made from intelligence gained from the analytics. Yet, I always hear the same excuse, “It’s something I know I should be doing, but it seems boring.” I think it comes down to two main issues: 1. People aren’t sure which questions to ask about their stats (which metrics matter). 2. People are overwhelmed by their stats as hundreds…
I am in Walnut Creek, CA today for Jill Whalen’s High Ranking Seminar. However, I don’t have to speak until later in the afternoon, as the last speaker for the day. Which I enjoy – there is aways a different midset of the audience for the last speaker than the first. I find that I can get away with more and also have more fun. Yesterday was a typical travel day , considering a trip to the West Coast. Fortunately, I missed all of the BART delays last night and got to the hotel early in the afternoon. Now it’s a matter of catching up from a missed day, catching up…
Courtesy of Rand over at SEOMoz, Google looks to have a search refining query for recipes. This immediately caught my attention, as I always seem to be searching for a recipe for the evening meal.
I love cooking and it is one of those activities that just seem to calm me after a long day. Amazingly, I found a very nice Middle-Eastern recipe for lamb right out of the initial search. A great tool for cooks and those who love food!
I first heard about this a few months back, when someone blogged about the attention Snakes on a Plane was getting from simply the combination of the title and the lead character, Samuel L. Jackson. I must admit, those to elements create some interesting images in my head. Apparently, it does for others as well, but to a whole new level. Google now has over 2 million results for “Snakes on a Plane“. The creators of the movie have watched intently as fan-created trailers have hit the net, along with plot suggestions, movie posters, T-shirts, and of course, blogs. Filming was wrapped up last summer, but the producers are re-shooting scenes…
An excellent observational post over at Customer Listening. The writer draws an analogy between taking his son to an aquarium and a marketer observing what he thinks is a real life focus group behind a one-way mirror. The aquarium may have real fish, but the environment is artificial. Life is sustained by scientists, students, diets regulated and very little “Law of Nature” is experienced in the aquarium. In the same right, a focus group is made up of consumers in an artificial environment. Customers that are not being asked to make a split decision between products in a store isle, but being led in a discussion with a “handler.” The…
This happened early last week, a Marxist parody site, The People’s Cube, seemed to have been dropped from Google’s index. Now, as a Marxist parody site, this was picked up in the conservative blog, Little Green Footballs (of Dan Rather memo-gate fame). Of course, this picked up steam as a conspiracy from Google to suppress a comedic view of Marxism. Shortly afterwards, Matt Cutts posted an explanation that had little to do with the content, but rather the hidden content of keywords, links and hidden CSS text. Matt recommended purging the spam first and then submitting a re-inclusion request. I have always recommended that people be extremely honest and sincere…
In the latest of ridiculous lawsuits against Google, this one has to be one of the most pathetic, creating a firestorm of criticism from the SEO community: Entitlement Mentality on the Web More Dumb Litigants If a website is going to sue Google for losing rankings, they should at least educate themselves first as to what the typical reasons are for losing those rankings. The Google Guidelines are probably the most underutilized resource for webmasters and web managers. While suing a search engine for lost rankings leading to lost income is a joke in itself, one SEO pointed out that they also are using Google’s Adsense at the top of…
Internet Marketing: An Hour a Day
Written by Matt Bailey, President of SiteLogic. Matt presents the start-to-finish guide for marketing online, answering many questions that most businesses don't know to ask!
