Feb 5, 2010 - Comments: 0
Do more with mobile
Google is updating the features on mobile ads again - this time introducing click-to-call phone numbers in mobile ads. I can see this as a definitely helpful feature instead of trying to remember a number and dial.
Like Post-its for Analytics
Google Analytics has now made their annotations feature available to everyone. If you run a special promotion or your site is featured somewhere, you can create an annotation to note the event and help track traffic, conversions, etc. or just remember that it happened six months later when someone asks about the spike in traffic.
Social Sharing
Delicious changes the way you can view links which gives it a more StumbleUpon feel. You can see Google's take called Fast Flip in the Google Labs.
Checking in
The Frugal Traveler gives us an interesting approach to the benefits of Foursquare. Being mayor can be more than ceremonial when it leads to discounts or inside info on a venue. I finally broke down and installed Foursquare on my phone.
A tale of two social media sites
The New York Times reviews The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal and Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America. Sounds like a soap opera.
Jan 29, 2010 - Comments: 0
Iron Chef - Bing vs. Google edition
I haven't found much that Bing is better for - or maybe Google is just a habit. But this feature could be seriously helpful. Bing has added a recipe search that might help you decide what's for dinner.
Assigning authority to the Twitterati
In indexing Tweets, are re-tweets more important? Does it depend on who said it initially? Or who passed it on? Apparently so, according to Technology Review. Google is working to identify "reputed followers" which will presumably work like inbound links and PageRank to give higher authority to certain information on Twitter.
No RSS feed? No problem!
You can now use Google Reader to keep up with changes on any webpage. So if there's a product you've been keeping an eye on and want to know if the price or description has changes, Google Reader can now create a feed for that page and let you know when content on the page has updated. I tried it out and it's incredibly easy to use.
Content is King
The Online Marketing Blog offers 10 Tips for Content Marketing Success, and they have some thought provoking statistics. 900,000 blog posts are published every 24 hours and 20 hours of video are uploaded every minute to YouTube, so creating compelling content is essential.
Facebook Privacy Changes
We've written extensively about Facebook privacy settings in the past, but some new changes were made recently and it's important that you understand the changes and why you shouldn't automatically accept the Facebook defaults. Here are 3 Facebook Settings you should check now, from the New York Times. (More to come on this topic.)
Jan 26, 2010 - Comments: 0
Once you've written a blog post and hit "Publish," and garnered some initial readership and attention, you tend to move on to the next post, leaving the last one to the Archives.
(And by "you," I mean "me.")
But as blog authors, we need to continually remind ourselves that old content is just as valuable as new content, if not more so, due to our good friend, the long tail of search. Over time, it's your older content that keeps driving repeat visitors.
(And by "we," I mean "we.")
Our favorite Google Analytics guru, Avinash Kaushik, underscored this point in a recent post that explained how to use analytics data to identify existing posts that serve as search engine landing pages and make them more effective.
So I'm going to put his advice into action and optimize a post I wrote last year on the Google Analytics Individual Qualification test. I'll write up the results as a case study for our benefit, and yours.
Continue reading "Case Study: Using Keyword Analytics to Optimize Blog Post Content" »
Jan 22, 2010 - Comments: 0
Jan 19, 2010 - Comments: 0

I recently received a marketing email from a respected source for marketing news and information. They send out messages periodically to members of their news list with additional offers from their sponsors.
Usually, I glance at these sponsor emails quickly before deleting them. Occasionally, I may sign up for a webinar or download a white paper if the offer seems relevant.
This time, the subject line caught my eye immediately.
But it was for entirely the wrong reasons.
Instead, I paused for a moment and read the subject line in slight disbelief. I could see instantly that it contained not just one, but three mistakes. When I opened the message and saw what was inside, I realized that it contained a fourth error, too.
What's worse, each error was a different kind of mistake.
I won't be responding to the call to action in this particular message, but it was a valuable email nonetheless, because it reminded me to avoid making these four email subject line mistakes.
Continue reading "A Tale of Email Subject Line FAIL and How To Avoid It" »
Jan 8, 2010 - Comments: 0
Jan 5, 2010 - Comments: 0
Or: CDG's Greatest Hits, 2009 Edition
One of the best ways to find out what your blog's readers are interested in, and the kinds of topics you should continue to focus on, is to simply see which posts were most popular in the past year.
Fire up your analytics program -- in our case, we're using Google Analytics -- and change the date range to Jan. 1, 2009 through Dec. 31, 2009 and drill down into the Top Content.
This list can be sorted in several ways; it'll probably default to pageviews. It's up to you to decide what makes a post "popular." Is it pageviews? Bounce rate? Time on page?
Once you've sorted your list according to your priorities, some interesting nuggets will probably be revealed.
We've applied this method to our own blog, using unique pageviews. Since these pages also track well with a higher time on site, it means you liked them, you really really liked them.
Continue reading "Our Top 5 Blog Posts of 2009" »
Dec 23, 2009 - Comments: 0
As the year comes to a close -- and CDG Interactive's offices close for the Christmas/New Year's week break (thanks, Scott!) -- the CDG bloggers take a moment to look back at the Top 9 things we learned in 2009.
(For those of you keeping track at home, that's 3 lessons each.)
What we learned ranges from how to continue to stay inspired when writing to why cute animals will always drive blog traffic.
Continue reading "Top 9 Lessons We Learned in 2009" »
Dec 15, 2009 - Comments: 0
Dec 8, 2009 - Comments: 0
With the right people, topics, schedule and strategy for your company blog, you’re ready to start, right?
Now you move on to the technical part of the process, actually setting up the blog, from choosing your blogging software to incorporating your blog into your overall web site.
(We’re not writing a software how-to manual, though, so we’ll cover this topic at a high level. You’ll need to consult your own friendly neighborhood IT guy or gal for the actual implementation.)
Continue reading "How to Start a Company Blog: Setting It Up" »
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