A few weeks ago, Shawn wrote an article on true time on site and how you can calculate it. You may also know that for a while, Google Analytics actually calculated time on site using this method before reverting back to the calculation method used now.Several weeks ago I came out with an article on a GreaseMonkey script I'd written which added several segments to the usual segment drop down.

I'm about to tie all of these together.

Introducing, the Google Analytics Report Enhancer!

UPDATES:
1. The script should now work for Firefox 3. Just re-download the script and you should be all set. Thanks for pointing this out, Alex!
2. Showing 100 profiles now works for filters and users. This matches the functionality of John's script. Thanks again, Alex! (Note: There are situations where this portion of the script does not work. You should download John's script and have it running as a back-up)
3. Fixed several issues with column sorting. Thanks, Shawn!

Continue reading "Google Analytics Report Enhancer" »

If you have ever wanted to pull your hair out over Yahoo's Search Marketing interface--I definitely have--than you know that the interface is not nearly as user-friendly as Google's. For those of you looking for a quick, go-to guide, I have just the one for you: Yahoo Smart Start.

Although Yahoo's blog claims that Yahoo Smart Start is a guide for beginners, I would say that the guide is definitely geared more to those who have some experience with pay-per-click advertising but are not experts. However, the guide would be extremely helpful to show to clients who were curious about the yahoo interface and wanted to understand what they were really getting into with advertising on Yahoo.

The book walks you through the ten helpful chapters below.

• Building a Foundation with Strong Keywords
• Organizing Ad Groups for Success
• Writing Effective Ads
• Making Sure Your Ads are High Quality
• Matching Your Keywords to Your Customer's Searches
• Determining Effective Bids
• Targeting Your Ads Geographically
• Advertising on Content Sites
• Tracking Your Results

Each chapter begins with an opening question from Sharon Goodsense, a character PPC advertiser, such as, "I'm lost on the match type thing. I see there are two options, but I don't understand why I would ever want to use the Standard match type, when the Advanced match type shows my ad for more searches on my keywords. Shouldn't I just always use that option (Yahoo Smart Start 41)?"

Continue reading "Yahoo Smart Start - A Handy Guide For Yahoo Advertisers" »

ROI Revolution is making "Module #1: Introduction To Google Analytics" from the Google Analytics Training Course available completely for free!

"Module #1: Introduction To Google Analytics" is 65 minutes long and chock-full of really great information, such as:

• General Web Analytics Strategies


• Introduction to Web Analytics


• Case Study: Carolina Rustica


• Introduction to the Google Analytics Interface


• Interface Features


• The Dashboard


• Date Range Manipulation


• Sharing Data

Why Are We Offering The First Training Module for FREE?

For several reasons....

1.) All of our Google Analytics Training Courses come with Online Course Recordings, and this is a great way to show people exactly how convenient the course format is. It's hard to picture if you haven't experienced it for yourself!

2.) We think our Google Analytics Training Course is chock full of great, practical information and we decided the best way to convince you was to just let you see for yourself how valuable the information in this course is.

Sign up today in order to get "Module #1: Introduction To Google Analytics".

Once you have a chance to watch "Module #1: Introduction To Google Analytics" please let us know what you think!

Do you pay enough attention to the AdWords Editor Updates? If your answer is no, I recommend that you start. There is usually some really good stuff, that unless you take the time to read the Editor release notes, you probably would not know about.

Each new version of AdWords Editor is accompanied by release notes, which I highly recommend reading. I will save you some time by highlighting the best, most beneficial updates from the latest version(AdWords Editor 6.0.)

Append Keywords : This tool allows you to add a word/phrase to the beginning or end of any text within the account. I have found this VERY useful in creating local campaigns. Simply take a general campaign and append the city name to all keywords (then tweak the ad text of course.) It is also useful for adding offers to headlines, or changing display URLs.

Get Recent Changes: There is a new option to include minimum bid changes. Before you had to re-download the entire account to get this data. This is very useful in accounts that have keywords that often go inactive. Also when you download this, the changes are highlighted so it is easy to spot the keywords that have recently gone inactive.

Duplicate Keywords: Finding duplicate keywords is now easier! You can now quickly select all the duplicates that meet certain criteria. For example, you can choose to select all the duplicates with the lowest CTR, then delete them. This tool was always handy, but you had to delete the duplicates manually in order to keep keywords with the highest CTR.

Drum roll please!

Continue reading "AdWords Editor Updates - Pay Attention!" »

Is your current website a couch potato and not exactly pulling its weight? Do you secretly wish there was some way to whip it into shape?

Well, you are in luck!

At the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle, Google announced the Website Workout contest to help businesses pump up their websites.

Any U.S. business can enter to have a webpage optimized for free by Google's team of consultants to boost sales, sign-ups or leads.

Interested businesses can enter the contest by visiting the Website Workout contest site, http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer/workout.

In the coming weeks, Google will select four of the businesses that enter. Using Google Website Optimizer, Google's free website-testing tool, the consultants will then work with the winners to test which combination of text, images, graphics and other content drives the most business.

Of course you don't have to enter the contest to get started with Google Website Optimizer - ROI Revolution offers a free 6-Episode Video Course Guide to Google Website Optimizer!

Are you sure that the conversions you see tracked in the Google AdWords Campaign Summary page are really the conversions you're hoping for? How do you know what types of conversions your AdWords campaigns are generating if you have the AdWords Conversion Tracking script on many of your site's success pages?

It's best practice to send a searcher to a landing page that has one clearly defined action that you would like them to take, say filling out a Contact Us form. But what happens when that Contact Us page links to another page on your site with a completely different desired action, say a newsletter sign up? If the searcher clicks on an ad that takes them to the Contact Us landing page but somehow moves over to the newsletter page and signs up there, you've still got a conversion reported for your Contact Us campaign. The problem is that it's the wrong type!

Now, when you look in your Contact Us campaign, you think you're only generating leads for people raising their hands to be contacted, but you've actually got people who are just interested in reading your newsletter lumped in there as well. It can be very misleading.

Google AdWords has created a way to track your conversions by type.

Continue reading "New and Improved: Google AdWords Conversion Tracking by Type" »