So your site is ranking #1 for your industry’s top keyword?  You may be tempted to forget about SEO, but don’t be fooled: there is still plenty of work to be done!  In a few posts to follow I’ll review some activities you can perform on an ongoing basis to make the most of your [...]

Over the past couple of weeks, President Obama has focused much of his administration’s energies on the mortgage foreclosure issue.  With interest rates at a historic low, millions of Americans now have the opportunity to refinance their mortgage and, in many cases, save hundreds of dollars a month.  Part of Obama’s strategy for encouraging more [...]

Google Analytics is a free, very robust web analytics tool that I’d recommend for implementations both large and small.  In my opinion, though, one of GA’s greatest strengths also serves as one of its greatest weaknesses: it’s so easy to use.  A slick, AJAX-y interface can have the dangerous effect of sending our brains into [...]

OK, so it’s not really shocking at all.
Despite the comparably greater amount of press activity surrounding the spinach E. coli poisioning in 2006 (see bottom row of chart for news reference volume), America was much more bent out of shape over the peanut butter outbreak a few months later.  We weren’t any less upset over [...]

Interestingly, AdAge just posted an article today (Who Had the Better Media Strategy? CareerBuilder vs. Monster) evaluating the marketing tactics of Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com.  The author asserts that Career Builder’s efforts have been slightly more successful than Monster’s.
One fact the author states is that Monster’s 2008 advertising budget was larger than Career Builder’s–2.5x larger, to [...]

A surging U.S. unemployment rate is forcing millions of Americans into a new full-time job: job searching.  How are these job seekers using the internet as a tool in their quest for employment?
1. Search Trends for “Jobs”
The internet has been a key resource in job searching for quite some time now, with search volume for [...]

A little PR can go along way in getting your name searched online.  Of course, this rule holds true for positive and negative news alike.  So what feeds our urge to search more, good press or bad press?  Let’s look at three anecdotes from recent history and see what we observe about human nature.
Alex Rodriguez: [...]

A great challenge among web analytics practitioners is establishing credibility. With relatively few standardized industry certifications available to individuals, experience tends to be the mark of expertise. Of course, in order to build a track record, you first need clients. But to get clients, you need a track record. This Catch-22 [...]

200%?!  It doesn’t take a mathematician to reveal the absurdity in that statement.  And yet it’s true: I have seen a 200% goal conversion rate in Google Analytics with my own two eyes.
But fear not, for there is a logical explanation.  Google Analytics uses a flawed mathematical technique in calculating what it labels the “Goal [...]