At the top of my GA wish list has always been annotations – a place to document changes and make notes. Well, Google answered that wish in early December by including annotations, allowing you to place a quick note when you click on an actual date. This feature was not automatically available to the public; however, earlier this week we spotted it in our accounts. Some accounts had it and some didn’t, so we did some research to figure out why. Here is our conclusion:

Under 10,000 visits: Annotations

Above 10,000 visits: No Annotations

The accounts that had less than 10,000 visits this month had annotation capabilities while the others did not. The only reasoning we can come up with for this discrepancy is scalability. If Google tried rolling this out to every account at once and traffic suddenly dropped it would be easily noticeable and they would receive a giant web backlash. It’s easier to test new features on a small scale; if small drops appear, it’s less noticeable. Now i’m just waiting for Google to roll it out to my other accounts and i’ll be able to document all the changes that happen to a website.

Update: 1/27/10, Annotations have spread to all our of accounts.

I was born in 1976 in Baltimore, MD and so my formative football years were the mid to late 80s. My father wasn’t a sports guy, but my grandfather certainly was. I was a little too young when the Colts left town (ask any Baltimore native to describe that night, it will include the phrase “dark and snowy”) but I certainly understood my grandfather’s reaction to the news. I was instantly ingrained to dislike the football team in Indianapolis (hate is a little too strong of a word), and as an aside also dislike John Elway (which is fun living in Denver).

I remember watching the great 49ers teams and Elways drive and the Icky Shuffle. I would play football every chance I got with the neighborhood kids. I loved football and still do. I watch the NFL draft; I read up on internet forums on team trades, I watch the 4th quarter of the last preseason game to see if there are any gems at the bottom of the depth chart. One could call it an addiction (my wife does).

So after the Ravens laid an egg against the team from Indianapolis and the seconds were ticking away (tuck the darn ball away ED REED) I felt it coming on. It’s the feeling I get every year when the football season ends, and I decided to give it a name. Post Football Depression Syndrome.

I wanted to see if I was the only one like this and a quick virtual poll of friends determined that I certainly am not. No real interest in the current season and a feeling of emptiness. Apathy. Lethargy. General ennui. And the data (kinda sorta) backs it up. Google Insights allows you to track trending data, and compare trends across terms, regions, etc. One issue I had is that I had to wait for today to get Monday’s data. That isn’t quite as real time as I thought Google Insights data should be.

Interest in the teams spike on game day and continue through the weekend, while depression interest takes a slight nose dive. Come Monday interest in the losing team has significantly dropped below that of interest in depression. So I’m pretty sure I just empirically proved that when your team loses (especially to its most disliked rival) you become depressed. Anyone know of the proper therapy?

As a company, we have been experiencing exponential growth across all of our departments over the past year. With that growth comes a need to effectively manage projects, resources, and of course, people’s time. Regardless of where your company falls on the size spectrum, the need to allocate time and budgets to projects are a necessity.  We tried a few time tracking solutions before finally landing on Harvest.

Harvest is definitely one of the nicest packages we found in terms of usability, interface, and integration with other applications. Businesses can track time, expenses and revenue, invoice clients, and more. There were a few key selling points on our end. First, the integration with Basecamp was much easier than other software we had tried. Being able to import projects and users made the companies move to a different tracking software much less painful.

Second, the desktop widget is simply amazing. Sleek and easy to use, employees just choose their client and project from a drop-down menu. Users only see projects they are assigned to and simply click the Start/Stop button to record time. Once they save, time sheets in Harvest are automatically updated.

Harvest does have a 30-day free trial but paying for the upgrade is well worth the cost if you are managing a large team with many clients. There are other solutions on the market that offer free versions such as Toggl or  Tick. Both of these solutions track time but do not come equipped with some of the more advanced features offered by Harvest. Of course, Harvest is not the end-all solution for every company either. You should review your companies needs, test drive a few solutions, and determine which one best fits your needs.

I’m facing the upcoming renewal test for my Google AdWords Professional (GAP) certification along with a new campaign with aggressive performance goals. Both are reminding me of the importance of staying up to date on my knowledge of the platforms I use to do my job – the search engines. Quite simply, knowing them better helps me do my job better.

Different levels of reporting and transparency affect the granularity of bidding and optimization on each engine. Each one uses a different matching algorithm so that keyword lists, including negatives, must be tailored accordingly. Google Conversion Tracking records conversions on the date of the click, but Yahoo! and Bing record conversions on the date the conversions occur. And the list goes on…

A deeper understanding of each platform can help you take advantage of every opportunity to maximize your paid search marketing campaigns potential. And, more importantly, what you know today might probably will change tomorrow. So it’s important to do continuous research and stay up to date.

How do you accomplish this? Here are three ways to get you started:

1. READ. From the Inside AdWords blog to Search Engine Land to a Twitter search for what people are saying about PPC.
2. Talk to you engine reps – educate them about your campaigns and then ask them questions!
3. Get into your campaign and poke around. Click on something and see what it shows you.

What helps you stay up to date? Share your ideas in the comments!

With the growth of Twitter, fancy URL’s for your Facebook profiles, and new social networking opportunities appearing daily, it is clear that social media is all the rage. However, don’t let Twitter and Facebook cloud your judgment. The other white meat of marketing is on the rise – and now is the perfect time to jump on the mobile bandwagon. SMS  (short-message-service) campaigns allow you to take all your marketing efforts to a new level and to a device that is constantly at the consumers side.

Let’s consider the numbers.

According to Neilson Mobile, U.S. mobile subscribers now send and receive more text messages than cell phone calls. In its research, Neilson  states, “As of Q2 2008, a typical U.S. mobile subscriber sends or receives 357 text messages per month, compared to placing or receiving 204 phone calls.  Though the number of calls has remained relatively steady, the number of text messages is up 450% from just two years prior. ”

Internet Retailer recently released some research completed by the Yankee Group detailing the potential growth expected of smart phones. Forty-one percent of cell phone users who do not currently own smart phones are likely to make a smart phone their next mobile purchase. According to the report “by 2013, 38 percent of all mobile phones in the U.S. will be smartphones.”

Mobile Statistics

When people think of mobile, people automatically associate the use of smart phones. This turns a lot of businesses away because the adoption rates of smart phones are not that of PC’s. Let’s take one step back and consider the use of SMS as a campaign strategy.

Why SMS works.

Mobile is just once piece of the marketing pie. When combined with your other marketing and advertising efforts, you create a well-rounded campaign that can easily target specific demographics like never before. Once these users have opted into your SMS campaign, you have a dedicated demographic that is ready to listen, ready to learn, and (more importantly) ready to interact with your brand.

You are also able to reach younger generations that are only tied to a cell phone instead of email or television. According to a more recent Harris Interactive study, teens say a mobile phone (second only to clothing) reveals more about a person’s social status and popularity than other factors such as jewelry, watches or shoes. The study also revealed that 57 percent of teens view their mobile phone as a necessary component of their social lives.

Forget about the need for smartphones! There are an estimated 240 million phones in the U.S. that are text message enabled. That means the reach is far greater if you consider SMS over a mobile optimized site. The power to deliver messages directly to people who are interested in your brand is an amazing thing and SMS offers just that.

Still Not Convinced?

My tip of the week this week is: Get organized! It may be back to basics, but in auditing some existing campaigns and launching my own new ones recently, I’m reminded of the importance of organization to the success of a PPC campaign.

Smart organizational techniques should apply to many aspects of a paid search campaign, starting with the fundamental structure. A more highly organized campaign will contain themed groups of keywords with highly relevant ad copy and drive traffic to a specific landing page. Be clear and specific in your campaign and ad group naming conventions so that you’ll know later on what’s inside. For example, use “Brand Term misspellings” instead of “Brand Terms 2.” Not only will it be easier to track, but a well-organized campaign will have a high relevance factor to gain you a better quality score and thereby lower your costs. Be organized about your targeting, too. Create mirror campaigns with different geo-targeting, for example, so that you can more easily evaluate what works where.

Once a campaign is set up, plan and organize your optimization and testing strategy as well. Test one thing at at time, not 5 at once, and allow your changes enough time to provide you with enough data to make intelligent performance decisions.

Have more ideas for how to organize a PPC campaign? What’s your best tip? Please share in the comments!

Anyone involved in search engine optimization knows that the key is in the keywords. Unlike pay per click, SEO doesn’t allow for optimization of an endless list of terms, but rather a concentrated list of high impact keywords that will drive large volumes of traffic to your site. This is why it is of the utmost importance to select just the right words for just the right pages. And how might one accomplish such a feat? Research, research, research. A successful campaign will be most possible when you consider each keyword from various angles and metrics. There are a myriad of online tools available that pull various pieces of keyword data, so spend some intimate time with each keyword possibility and consider the following questions:

What is the average monthly search volume?
Probably the most obvious metric. If one keyword gets 500,000 monthly searches and another gets 20,000…I think you get the picture.

What is the current ranking position, and which page is it indexed on?
If the site is ranking on page 3 for a keyword, then it’s already been acknowledged by the engine as being relevant. However page 3 does not get the traffic, so it will need that additional SEO push to get it to the front. Also, make sure that the page you optimize the keyword for is the page it’s already ranking on, otherwise your efforts will be lost.

What keywords is the competition using?
It is not necessary to go after the same keywords as your competitors, but seeing what terms they are pursuing could give you ideas not thought of before.  Besides, it’s always a good idea to be knowledgeable about your competitors marketing efforts.

Who is already ranking on the potential keywords?
If you search a keyword and the top ranking sites are irrelevant to your vertical, then it may well be that the engines will find their content more appropriate than yours and prevent you from decent ranking.

Also, this is a good way to see if you are even in the running to rank on the phrase. If only the big fish are ranking on a keyword and you’re company is not in the same league, then maybe you’d be better swimming in a slightly smaller pool (or using a slightly less broad term).

Are the keywords already showing up within the content of the page?
On-page content plays a big role in whether or not it will rank for the given keyword, so making sure that the keyword exists somewhere on the page, or can at least be added in, is very important.

What keywords are in the H1 titles on the page?
Not a make it or break it rule, but it certainly helps if the keyword is in the H1 title of the page.

Are there any geo modifiers that need to be considered?
As Google becomes more concerned with geo targeting search results, it’s important to consider whether a geo modifier is significant  to your campaign. For instance, a hospital located in Denver will not only have a much higher chance of ranking on a term like “Denver Hospital” rather than “Hospital”, but the traffic coming to the site will be much more likely to convert.

So as you can see, picking keywords for an SEO campaign is not a simple process, or at least not if you want the campaign to be a success. Put in the time and give it the proper analysis, and if you’re lucky, you’ll start seeing keywords in your sleep, just like I do.

Are you wondering what happened this week in social media? Well wonder no more. Here’s a little summary of the topics I’ll cover in this weeks vlog: YouTube is testing out real time updates, Polar Rose has added facial recognition to Flickr, Facebook Terms of Service gets put to a vote, Google gives you the Get Answers gadget, MySpace Executives are stepping down and finally, some provocative stastics from Neilson and Comscore.

YouTube RealTime

Polar Rose Facial Recognition

Facebook Terms of Service Vote

Google’s Get Answers Gadget

MySpace Executive Shifts

Neilson Stats

Comscore Stats

check out the article on Search Engine Land on the FDA’s crackdown on Pharma SEM

A era in research is coming to a close later this year. Microsoft announced that it would be discontinuing its CD-based encyclopedia, Encarta, on October 31, 2009. It will also cease to sell the student and premium software by June 2009. While no specific reasoning was eluded to, in the release Microsoft states:

Encarta has been a popular product around the world for many years. However, the category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past. As part of Microsoft’s goal to deliver the most effective and engaging resources for today’s consumer, it has made the decision to exit the Encarta business.

While there is no direct mention to new social media, one can only infer that Wikipedia and other online resources played a key role in this decision.

The availability of online information that is continually updated by peers has both its appeal and drawbacks. The cost of information through online resources is far less demanding than the creation and constant updating needed for a CD-based encyclopedia. The instant availability is unparalleled. However, Encarta offered something Wikipedia and other peer-edited content can not – accuracy and information based on fact.

This marks a new era I think we have all seen coming. With encyclopedias falling to the likes of wikis and peer-edited content and universities turning to YouTube, the future of education and information is going to be very different.

Will you embrace the new learning patterns emerging or are you slightly skeptical of the value social media can have on our education?