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.

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.)

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" »

Google Ads & Mobile

Google is rolling out new functionality for mobile ads that allows advertisers to targetspecific devices or carriers - so if you sell  iPhone or Touch accessories, your ads can appear only on those devices. You can even offer a download option for apps (and they'll appear only on the devices that offer those apps)

Massachusetts Senate Race

Apparently the signs were there. Scott Brown was winning in social media ahead of his victory at the polls. SearchEngine Watch offers an anaylsis of the YouTube statistics. I've heard similar disparaties existed on Facebook as well.

Share your purchases

I've seen people on Twitter starting to use the new social shopping service Blippy and I'm not sure what I think yet. Springwise points out that it offers transparency - allowing users to see what others are paying for the same service, but I'm not sold yet. Anyone using it to good results?

Are we rational?

Two things I read this week made me wonder if people make rational decisions. First, Branding Strategy Insider explains that all those warnings designed to scare us away from smoking actually encourage some people to smoke. And second, the Washington Post Magazine offers Beyond Comprehension: We know that genocide and famine are greater tragedies than a lost dog. At least, we think we do.

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" »

The Washington Post is running a video series called On Leadership. The latest installment is Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak talking about Steve Jobs, managing creative thinkers and creating revolutionary products.

The London Times wonders, If brevity is the soul of wit, does Twitter make comedians funnier?

Distracted driving takes on a whole new meaning with the introduction of new Internet enabled cars at the consumer electronics show.

Not sure what to do with unwanted holiday gifts? 6 ideas from creating performance art to Neighborgoods.

Despite the hype, social media is not the answer to all marketing questions. Read Write Web reminds us when not to use social media.

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" »

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" »

After all of the preparation and planning, creation and implementation, you’ve reached the end of the process to start your corporate blog. You can relax now, right?

But in fact this last step may be the hardest; starting a project is one thing, but continuing it on, consistently, is your true goal.

So what can you do to keep up with blogging and incorporate it into your regular marketing activities?

Continue reading "How To Start a Company Blog: Ready, Set, Go!" »

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" »