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Google Analytics tips - ESSENTIAL knowledge for an effective web strategy

So you've just gotten access to the shiny new version of Google Analytics? Here are the 27 essential features of the best analytics software money can buy (it's free, of course), and how to utilize them to your advantage.

Search engine optimization has changed dramatically over the past few years. The shift is from one of web page optimization and link hounding to content and engagement optimization. In short, search engine optimization and social media are now undeniably intertwined. It has become extremely difficult to achieve any measure of success for important keyword phrases without the use of social media.

Great list of terms dealing with Google Local search results and local SEO

A collection of terms and definitions from a number of Google's patent filings on Local Search (not everything discussed in these patent applications have been incorporated into Google Local search - but the interesting thing about many of these patent filings is exploring whether or not they may have been).

Great local SEO tip

This is a Showcase Lawn Map on the web site of WiseGrass, a small lawncare service provider in central Pennsylvania. It's an embedded Google Map with user-created content for each of the showcase lawns. Here's a list of reasons why this is great:

Great tips from the aWeber blog on what personalization means when it comes to email marketing..

Personalization isn't a bad thing in and of itself. But when it gets misused for the sake of an extra open or click, it becomes a bad thing. It also becomes less effective over time. And it allows us to think that we're creating "personal" emails just by merging a name into the message. A truly personal email addresses the subscriber's needs, desires, fears, preferences and other aspects of their personality.

SEO and analytics tools you may not use - and are priced very well... FREE!

If you've done much publishing on the web, you're probaly already familiar with Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. However, many web workers stick with the same small handful of SEO tools. There are quite a lot of them available online for free, and testing keywords and looking at analytics across multiple tools can make a lot of sense, especially since optimizing them is an inexact science.

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In this article I'll use the SEO filter, made by Andé Scholten, to make some new interesting SEO reports in Google Analytics. I realized that the data, provided by the filter, had given me some new opportunities. It wasn't possible in Google Analytics to get good SEO related reports. The reports I did get were these: * An overview of keywords during a specific period and (after clicking) the landings page on which visitors landed after clicking on the Google result. * An overview of the 'Entrance Keywords' of a specific page.

The days of a long-standing, static website are over. Start a blog (preferably integrated with your website) and start leveraging the power of these tools to bring fresh content and high-relevance to your website.

In 2009, an active blog at the centre of your Web presence says that you are ready to have an engaging conversation with your ideal guest today. As such, your blog needs to become the centre of your online Web presence, and that means it's time to prioritize your marketing efforts in the new year.

All website analytical tools have their pros and cons, and many people use more than one to track their website's visitors and gather other important data. With that in mind, I've put together this list of some of the best. All of these web applications offer a free service; while some are completely free, others offer a premium account as well. There is an exception. I've included the Mint and Yahoo analytical software packages in this list due to their popularity, although they are not free.

Google will begin showing ads on Wednesday to people based on their previous online activities in a form of advertising known as behavioral targeting, which has been embraced by most of its competitors but has drawn criticism from privacy advocates and some members of Congress.

Great social media strategies for resaurants

The financial crisis is likely to hit the fine dining industry very hard. Already there have been reports of exclusive London restaurants slashing their prices in order to maintain a steady flow of clientele and therefore subsequent cashflow. Competing on price, however, is never a wise, or usually profitable, strategy, so dining establishments need to look for alternate ways to bring in the customers. One easy way is to develop a social media strategy to connect with your customers and create a community of regular diners.

This is an AMAZING digest of internet marketing posts from 2008 covering SEO, Social Media tools and strategy, twitter, facebook, friendfeed, blogging etc. This is a must read for any internet marketer from beginner to advanced.

Here's how this works: In the Internet Marketing Best Posts "series," I take posts that are typically timeless - they're not confined to a specific event or news occurrence - they're valuable for the long haul in terms of Internet Marketing and creative strategy. Hopefully, you'll see that these posts are still relevant in a few years down the road. These posts range from beginner to advanced with a greater emphasis on the more intermediate posts. I'd argue that if you're starting your Internet Marketing business with not much know-how, you should check out the 2007 posts; in fact, most may still find them relevant regardless of the skill level.

Twitter is one of the most satisfying ways to spread your website or idea. In addition to referrals, you can also gain loyal users, expert opinions, and possibly friends. It's unlike any other medium in its ability to propagate interesting things. Word of mouth has always been the best advertising and Twitter is the best vehicle on the internet for word of mouth.

Spreading your links and ideas virally with twitter

A great starter guide for SEO - if you want to start learning, this guide is a great start.

Our Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide covers around a dozen common areas that webmasters might consider optimizing. We felt that these areas (like improving title and description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, anchor text, and more) would apply to webmasters of all experience levels and sites of all sizes and types. Throughout the guide, we also worked in many illustrations, pitfalls to avoid, and links to other resources that help expand our explanation of the topics. We plan on updating the guide at regular intervals with new optimization suggestions and to keep the technical advice current.

There's something very straight-forward about Google's branding. It doesn't complicate the experience with flowery user design or site mascots. It offers exactly the type of experience you'd expect to receive from a company that showcases its name in mostly primary colors. However, when Google announced today's additions to the "Google Services for Websites" suite, it took us a minute to remember what the company blog post was referencing. In a world where even browser names conjure images of animals or finely tuned cars, the company's simply named "Google Services for Websites" is extremely useful but often easy to forget.

There's something very straight-forward about Google's branding. It doesn't complicate the experience with flowery user design or site mascots. It offers exactly the type of experience you'd expect to receive from a company that showcases its name in mostly primary colors. However, when Google announced today's additions to the "Google Services for Websites" suite, it took us a minute to remember what the company blog post was referencing. In a world where even browser names conjure images of animals or finely tuned cars, the company's simply named "Google Services for Websites" is extremely useful but often easy to forget.

In the first part of this series, I provided an overview of Online Reputation Management (ORM) and why it's an important activity to adopt in your business and professional life. This post will outline some of the free tools available for monitoring your online reputation.

Great post about the importance of content in a small biz SEO strategy

anking well in the search engines when prospects are out there searching for the kinds of solutions you provide has become an essential component of the marketing mix... When it comes to simple SEO for your small business remember this math formula - Content+Competition+Customer = Conversion

When considering the tools of social media and how they relate to your business communications needs, it's important to think about two parts of the equation: possibility + function. These tools open up new ways to communicate, which is great. It also means that you have to consider what the functional goal of that communication means to your need.

In this article I'll give you a few tips that have helped me over a bit of time to save a bit of time. The fact that running a website and writing for it as well can require quite a bit of time and dedication, we all need new ways to help us publish and promote our articles quicker. While this tutorial was written with a focus on the Wordpress CMS, I think any webmaster will be able to take something away with them from it.

Sideline, announced on the Yahoo user interface blog, is a desktop application that displays real-time mentions of specific keywords, brands, or names. It is capable of custom search groups, advanced queries, and refreshes the application with new mentions automatically. How does it do this? It pulls keyword mentions from Twitter, of course!