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Archive for July, 2009

Google – Want to See My Wonder Wheel?

posted by Jason McElweenie
Friday, July 31, 2009

Google has recently rolled out some changes to their search results pages. If you are an avid Google News user most of these changes wont seem that new but to others its a whole new ball game.

Below is a screen shot of a search for the term Schipul. Much like the Google News search results you are now given a link to ‘Show options’

schipulsearchresult

Clicking on that link opens up a few options on the left side of the screen

 

schipulsearchresultMORE

This will allow you to see recent content related to that term based on the time criteria. You can even sort by date or even related searches.

Ok, this is really cool BUT I want to check to the Wonder Wheel option.

Google Wonder Wheel

Oh sure its been out since May but it hasn’t shown up on the regular search page until this week. So what is Google Wonder Wheel? It is visual wheel image that shows you related search terms based on your term. Below is a screenshot of Schipul again.

schipulwonderwheel

Click on another term and you get another wheel

schipulwonderwheeltendenci

Google Wonder Wheel, Well So What?

I know you’re probably thinking to yourself ‘Well, Jason I really have no need for more graphs in my life so why is this important?’ Well I’m glad you didn’t really ask. If you’ve ever wondered what Google thinks about your site and its content this will give you a quick idea on that.

If you’ve built your site and you haven’t optimized your content you might be telling the search engines something completely different than you want. Run a simple search on your company and or keyterms and see what Google thinks is related to that. If you don’t show up your web presence might not be big enough or your site isn’t optimized. One way or the other you need to get that fixed.

 

 

Jason McElweenie

For more information please contact the Search Engine Marketing Team at Schipul – jason@schipul.com

Social Media Monitoring Tools – See What Others Are Saying About You

posted by Jason McElweenie
Friday, July 17, 2009

2945559128_53078d246b_m Let’s face it, we are in a renaissance period for the internet. Things are going great, more and more people are hoping on board and more and more businesses are realizing the value of having an online presence. Frankly this reminds me of the period shortly before the dotcom bust where everyone threw logic out the window and built insanely expensive websites that made neat techno noises. This time, instead of having $200,000 websites that had spaceships flying around logos that did nothing more than that, everyone and their Grandmothers are jumping on board by joining Social Media sites for free.

What does this mean to you?

Well for one thing each person in your audience now has the ability to easily connect with each other. That means that every person that uses your product or service now has the tools to easily influence other people about you and your brand. This is a good thing and also a bad thing. If your brand is well received you are in a position to help your raving fans turn other users into raving fans. If your brand isn’t then you’re going to need to monitor your online PR.

Neilsen reports that ’90% of consumers surveyed noted that they trust recommendations from people they know, while 70 percent trusted consumer opinions posted online.’

In the past you needed to engage a PR firm to see what people were saying about you and/or your brand. You’ll still need to do that but now with some cool online tools you can do it yourself, to some degree, if you have the time. There’s a lot of data out there so you might still want to engage a PR firm.

Monitoring Your Brand Online – Websites

No matter what the scenario you fall into above you’re going to want to know what people are saying about you and below are some great tools to get started

Google Alerts

logo_beta Google Alerts is a great tool that allows you to receive alerts whenever your brand is mentioned in a search result. From Google ‘Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

Twitter Search

twitter-logo-large http://search.twitter.com If you don’t know what Twitter is you are doing it wrong. Run a search on Twitter to see what people are talking about. Plug in your name, your brand name or your keywords and see what people are saying right now.

Social Mention

logo This is a go-to site for me. If I need to track terms or brand names I run a search on Social Mention and I can see recent activity around the web. Much like Technorati’s search engine it gives you an overview of recent content on the web.

BlogPulse

home_topnav3_logoBlogPulse is another tool you need in your arsenal. Brought to you by the folks at Nielsen BlogPulse ‘is a blog search engine that also analyzes and reports on daily activity in the blogosphere.’ It allows you to search trends and track conversations amongst other things. You need to bookmark this site, become friends with it.

Monitoring Your Brand Online – Desktop Applications

With advent of tools like Adobe’s Air you can now use desktop applications to monitor your brand or yourself online

Social Seek

socialseek-logo This brand new app that lets you see, much like Social Mention, what is happening around the web without having to open a browser. Type in a term and a location and Social Seek will give you results from Blogs, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Eventful.

Just download SocialSeek and search for various terms and locations to see what people are saying about you around the world. A great tool indeed!

PeopleBrowsr

pb_logo_selector This is a very robust platform so make sure you put on your big boy pants when you jump into this one. PeopleBrowsr offers a host of tools for you to use that include Live Search, Marketers, My PB, Industry Billboard, News and even a Conference tracker.

It’s a little overwhelming the amount of information you have at your finger tips with PeopleBroswer but quite frankly these kinds of things put a big smile on my face. Jump and give it a try. Sign up and click on the ‘PBAir Download’ link at the bottom of your browser. I know, I know very vague instructions but I cannot find any clear link to give you. Maybe the good folks at PeopleBrowser will read this and comment on how to easily find the desktop AIR app. Hint hint.

image

What Are Some Tools You Are Using?

Obviously this isn’t a complete list, there are literally tons and tons of tools to use, what are some cool ones that you have been using to monitor your site?

Drop us a comment and let us know how you are monitoring you and/or your brand online

Jason McElweenie

For more information please contact the Search Engine Marketing Team at Schipul – jason@schipul.com

Web Analytics Training Class

posted by Jonti Bolles
Thursday, July 16, 2009

Are you frustrated with your Web site ranking in the Search Engines? Installed Web Analytics but don’t know what to do next?

Know you need to measure traffic on your site, but not sure what you can do about it?We'll have answers to all these questions and more at the Houston Introduction to Web Analytics Training Class on Friday July 24 at 1:30 PM.

After this Analytics Training you will be able to:

  1. Create and install a Google Analytics account on your website
  2. Access reports and understand what they mean
  3. Set up measurable goals
  4. Measure top content and keywords
  5. Use analytics to determine how to improve your website or blog for your visitors
  6. Use metrics to capture more traffic to your web presence
  7. Print beautiful graphs and charts for your office wall! oops… that one was just for the analytical geeks.

Those are just a few things you'll be able to do, there's a lot more so come join us and get ahead of your competitors.

Seats are going quick so save your seat for the Introduction to Web Analytics Training Class today!

Our office is located at:

11757 Katy Freeway
Suite 930
Houston, TX 77079
(281) 497-6567

Jonti Bolles

For more information please contact the Search Engine Marketing Team at Schipul – sem@schipul.com