Visiture Blog

Google AdWords: Cross-channel conversion tracking is no more.

adam — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:39:46 +0000

Although part of Google’s current documentation, Cross Channel conversion tracking will not be supported for new campaigns. This means Google will only be reporting their own conversion data in the AdWords interface. Probably not a bad idea, the reasoning for this is to push tracking towards Google Analytics where it should live anyway.

For more information on setting up conversion tracking in Google Analytics, you can refer to their setup guide : Google Conversion Tracking Setup Guide

Though not as GUI as the Cross Channel tracking in AdWords, it should be a snap to setup and will be less cumbersome for adding new tracking variables in the future.

Yahoo! acquires Web Analytics service, IndexTools

adam — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:51:54 +0000

If you were not already confused enough about which Analytics applications you might implement for your organization, now there is another option that will most likely be FREE!

Yahoo! has announced the acquisition of IndexTools, a robust web anlaytics platform, which may prove to out-do Google Analytics and probably most of the paid Analytics applications on the market. Currently there are two levels of paid service in the offering, which will most likely convert to a free add-on from Yahoo!

If only they would release their version of Google Adwords Editor…..but maybe there is an acquisition in store in this arena as well.

Yahoo New Ad Sales System

brian — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:11:28 +0000

I ran across an article the other day in the New York Times which states that Yahoo is months away from launching their new advertising system that ”would help it and its partners drive sales of graphical and other premium ads.”

Yahoo already dominates the graphical ad display space. Is this to combat Google’s acquisition of Double Click? Comments…

Google Algorithm Update March 2008

brian — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:45:17 +0000

There’s been a buzz in the SEO community regarding a possible algorithm update by Google last month. Nothing official yet, but there does appear to be truth to the rumor. I ran across a posting at Webmaster World discussing the update and have been contacted by multiple webmasters and business owners shopping for SEO services. Each situation has been unique, but the theme has been the same: A massive ranking drop (almost overnight).

After some research, here is what we found:

First, the majority of our client’s keywords have actually increased their natural search engine rankings. Across the board, overall traffic is up. We attribute this to our best practices approach to internet marketing.

Secondly, after a preliminary review of the quality/quantity of back-links for the prospective sites, we found an alarming number of blog and other paid listings. Most of which were NOT from quality industry themed websites.

Q: Why did our rankings go up while there’s were drastically penalized?

A: Same answer as it’s always been. Focus on relevant, quality link partners and your rankings will stabilize. It costs more (in tme and money) to acquire quality links, but worth it. As I mentioned above, the sites were focusing many of their inbound linking efforts on irrelevant blog links (many of which were blog farms) and other spammy rented text links.

Here’s a suggestion: Outsource your search engine optimization or make sure you spend your time on quality not quantity. For example, if you choose to pay a blogger to write a review of your site, find a blogger that is relevant to your site (if your a real estate brokerage firm located in Atlanta, GA then find a Atlanta based real estate blog). Next, make sure that the blog has true readership (do most of his/her posts have educated comments?). Finally, review the blog. Is it a true web destination with resources for web visitors, or is it blog written by a non-native speaker whose sole mission is to get paid a nominal fee for a post?