Posts

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New Improved Google Analytics on Its Way

Click the post title to watch the summary video from Google of what the new Google Analytics provides. At first glance it seemed like it was being dumbed down for the average person and no longer a professional tool, but watch the video and then you’ll know that assessment is wrong.

It appears that Analytics has added some easier ways to access your information without having to endlessly drill down to find reports. Analytics has not necessarily been an intuitive tool. Now at least it will focus on being more visual on main control panels.

I think that it is a good change see if you agree!

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Blogs Bring a Website More Traffic

Okay don’t give me grief, the link in our post title is to a PowerPoint show that gives the real site statistics showing that a blog will bring a site between 20 to 35% more traffic and I mean unique visitors not hits. I know that PowerPoint is not browser friendly, but this is a great show that I created for a conference on blogging.

In the presentation are the real world statistics of a number of website that we tracked for a several month period. You’ll see screen shots of their Urchin stats proving the traffic increase. The show contains no viruses or malware. There is no refuting the traffic increases that you can see for yourself! Of note also is a comparison of two sites on the same topic with the same content one that blogged and one that didn’t. The traffic difference between the two is striking.

You can get the free PowerPoint viewer from Microsoft here if you do not have PowerPoint installed.

So if you even thought that blogging was just about yakking and a personal diary, I’m here to tell you that its about the increased traffic results!

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Thoughts on Blogspot Blog Hosting

From some very preliminary research I am starting to believe that when you archive your posts at Blogspot versus using FTP blogging you do not appreciate the full search engine benefits that you do when you archive them back on your own domain.

I am doing a full blown two month test on this topic and so far just in the first week when comparing traffic results between my two blogs I am finding that hosting your blogs at Blogspot is second best.

One of my big concerns so far is that I can not see some of my posts on my Blog-World Watch where from the same day I can see my posts from Web-World Watch appear in the SERPs. Plus I do a weekly Google Sitemap for my Web-World Watch blog, but can not do one for Blog-World Watch as it is hosted at Blogspot and have no server access.

So my hypothesis is “You will not appreciate any significant search engine benefits from hosting your blog files at Blogspot and will when you use FTP blogging and archive posts back on your own web server.”

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AdWords Preferred Cost Bidding Analysis

You’ve probably seen this new type of bidding in your account by now – preferred cost bidding versus maximum cost per click bidding. But should you use it?

I tried the settings on my own account for a week and this is what I found. I got:

25% less clicks
16% less impressions
8% less click throughs
a 4% higher overall average cost per click
I spent 5% more overall

For me preferred cost bidding increased my costs and decreased my performance.

When would I even consider using preferred cost bidding?
If you have a product that you are selling online that is a set price and you want to have a set advertising cost to hard code in for your ROI equation, then I feel preferred cost bidding would be right for you. Would I recommend other advertisers change to preferred cost bidding. You may want to try it like I did, but Google did not make a billion dollars in profit last quarter for nothing. I just don’t think that this new option will replace the maximum Cost per Click bidding that is used more frequently. I think that in the long run to have a set average bid will cost you more and not deliver the clicks and impressions that you want when tested over time.