The letter I

Here are some useful links to various resources related to PPC /Analytics, HAKAD.

Google Conversion University - videos for getting the most of your site analytics via Google Analytics.

I saw this today and thought it was cool. You can go here and sign up your class to devise an online marketing campaign. From strategy, implementation and measuring results, you can gain some real world experience. Google will give you $200 to “play” with… The challenge starts in February of ‘08.

If you’re a student or professor this is a great way to expose yourself to online marketing.

Happy bidding!

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The old saying “sex (or in this case nudity) sells” seems to be going mainstream for many web 2.0 sites.

Drivl.com for example, uses the word naked twice in its tagline “The naked truth. Written by naked interns.” I’m sure they are ranking well for the term “naked interns”, although I can’t verify at this time since I’m blogging from work (yay for ScribeFire). Although they are not using any of those risqué terms in their meta tags they must be getting good traffic from having that term without optimization.

Then there is swimwatch.net - a blog about international swimming. Their tagline is “read it naked. that’s how we wrote it”. Again they are not optimizing for the “read it naked” term obviously but I’m sure they are benefiting somewhere or they would not be using those words.

And last but not least, as a prime example, there is Vanessa Fox’s blog vanessafoxnude.com - Heck, she even has the word nude as part of her URL and several instances of enticing terms related to being nude, just no pictures. She even had a post recently about how she got quadruple the traffic on a post because of people looking for a different Vanessa that is more famous (Highshool Musical) than her since a story broke about nude pictures of her that were circling the Internet, so Vanessa Fox is definitely capitalizing on the “sex sells” ideology.

But is it all just a ploy to drive traffic from an unrelated field that obviously has the potential to drive traffic even if it is not even closely related to what these blogs are about? I guess it is cheating the system a bit, but who can blame them for trying. So much for relevancy, it’s gone out the window. How ironic coming from a person who used to work for Google, whose algorithm is much tied to relevancy.

Maybe I should rename my blog Read it Nude and Weap…

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This week was rather busy also. Lots of reporting and massaging the PPC campaigns and setting new ones. Site targeted, keyword targeted, a/b testing, etc.

It was very frustrating getting things needed from the UK so I set out to try and do things from here. I was tring to set up new landing pages that were tied to our source codes (tracking purposes). Why we don’t use Google analytics software to do this is beyond me. I understand they want to have as much control as possible but it is difficult to coordinate between the UK, Eindhoven and the US to get things done.

Anyways, we have a URL we set up for our PDA application where you can view lounge information online with, the IT guy  and I set it up. We have FTP access to it so I went to the IT guy and asked him if we could upload new files to that URL. He said we could in theory so I went about setting up a new landing page for our Peru campaigns. I set it all up and uploaded the files to the server. I linked the sign up buttons to the check out form directly with the source code in the referral string. It took a little massaging with our tracking system and the source code setup but in the end it all worked properly.

I showed the whole setup to my boss and a colleague and they seemed very happy that I had found a work around, as they said, it would open up the doors to what we can do and how quickly we can do it. Not just for our PPC efforts but for all our marketing efforts. I guess I will be in charge of setting up all landing pages for the US now, since BoA, Visa and other large institutions have requested custom branded landing pages, now were are able to do it. I have created more work for myself I think, but hey, that’s job security, right? (I hope anyways)

 We are running some old and new PPC campaigns over the long weekend (I’m off on Monday) and we will see the results come Tuesday. I hope we had some conversions. From what I have been able to see so far on Google is that we have trippled our clicks to the landing page, I hope that means conversions also.

Had a busy week at work this week. Didn’t have much time to post. Been busy generating reports for SEO and PPC. Keyword research and all that jazz. I finally got access to some tools (Webtrends, CJ.com, etc.) that are to help with generating some more detailed reports and CJ is an affiliate marketing network management tool. I am also managing the US affiliates now also. I have a list of the US affiliates (about 1700) and will be communicating with them and assisting them in generating more sales and leads.

We also learned that globally, the work we are doing for internal companies may translate into us offering the same services to outside firms as well. I think I will be spearheading those efforts for the US side. Very exciting news I think.

I finally got the funding for a PPC campaign that I set up that is targeting the latin country of Peru. It has generated some traffic to the site, I will have to wait until Monday to find out if we got any sales from it, but I think it’s too soon to tell. It may take a few weeks to see any sales but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I hope to activate some other campaigns that I set up last week soon.

A colleague from the UK will be here in a couple of weeks. He is the head of product development and he is going to visit for a few days so that we get a full picture of our future endeavors and my role in it all. I’ve been talking with several people from the UK and getting very good assistance from them. They seem to be very good group of blokes and they offer / give assistance to all my needs in a timely manner. I have not met my counterpart that is based in Singapore but I hope to meet her or at least talk to her also. I think I will send her an email this week to introduce myself and see how she manages everything from there. She was hired a couple of months before me so I just want to get her feedback on how she is handling everything.

Got a brief hour and a half run down of the co, where we are, how we operate and where we want to go with our marketing efforts, offline and online. Gave me a good idea of where to go with my current efforts. I think, since I am working on SEO and SEM, I will start posting tips and tricks for those starting to get into those fields. I have been doing a lot of research the past few days and there is a lot of info out there, but it’s all scattered among many different sites and while there are some sites with a lot of info, they don’t have all the info needed or they don’t have a step by step on what to do and how to do it. I think people are afraid to give away “trade secrets”. Since most of them charge or make their livelyhood from doing SEO or SEM, they don’t want anyone to know how they do what they do, or they are selling the info that you can find for free online. Look for more info on this soon also.

This Friday I have the conference in Downtown Dallas, looking forward to it. Looks like they are sold out so there should be lots of people there. I’ll be posting pics and info about the event here also, not a big surprise there.

Anyways, got more exciting phone conferences scheduled for tomorrow and this week. I’m keeping busy and it’s a good thing. Hopefully tomorrow I will get access to some software that I need for Analytics and I can put it to good use to get some good info. We’ll see…

Also, one of our co-workers just got his US Citizenship, we had cake and everything, they made him wear a hat with the American Flag. It was a trip. Well he was proud to have accomplished this task and he said eventhough he has been here for 17 years, sometimes we take for granted how easy we have it here and that we have the freedoms we have, etc. I guess it’s somewhat true, or maybe very true for some people. He said there were like 3000 people getting sweared in the same time he was, mostly or about 80% Mexicans(we’re taking over). Haha…

… has the obligation to free men’s minds for a look at new worlds… to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation.” Ellison S. Onizuka

Just got my US Passport today!!! That (quote/first sentance) was one of the quotes on the last page of the passport. Don’t know about new worlds, but hopefully I will be visiting new and far away places soon! I was surprised to receive it today, in all it took 16 days to get it. I had heard and read so many horror stories about it taking 3 months or minimum of 30 days. Even at the post office they said it would take about 4 or 5 weeks. The sooner the better. Definitely not complaining.

I also got a new camera recently as you can see and will be putting it to good (or bad) use. Now I need photo lessons to learn how to use it properly. So many options, I read the manual a couple of times but I think a class or two will help.

Work was good today also. I had another 3 meetings and a phone conference call with the UK office. One of the meetings here was with a VP of one of our sister companies. It was like 2 hours total and I got a lot of good info. I think I will have plenty of work very soon.

I’m sleepy now, later…

Got a few new toys today, better known as CS3 Web Premium Suite, yep it arrived today. I was excited that it got here so fast. The IT guy installed it after lunch and it is working just great. Pic is below, click to enlarge..

Also had promised to include some more images so below are a couple of pics. One of the exterior of the office building I now call work, and the other of the new computer setup I got. That and with the new software I kinda feel like a web designer again, I think I mentioned I will be working on some web apps for mobile devices as well as designing landing pages and banners.

I apologize if the alignment of the pics is not that great, still trying to figure out this WordPress editor. Pretty simple to add images here, I think I might post more.

Well today I had about 3 meetings. One with tha boss lady and one with another lady with client services. Got some pretty good info that will help with our online marketing and optimizing our existing site. Got some other stuff for PPC finalized also but still haven’t activated the campaigns. Next will be a report I’m putting together for organic SEO on our site also. Trying to stay busy.

I have been signed up to go to Webmaster Jam Session conference(www.webjamsession.com) in a couple of weeks here in Dallas. They are having some speakers that will be conductiong sessions on SEO, SEM and Web Design. I went last year courtesy of my previous employer and got some good things from it. Some speakers include Darrin Ward on SEO, Chris Perry on Social Marketing, and others. Hopefully I will get to go to some other conferences, more info on that later.

This morning I was like 2 minutes away from getting to work when I looked at my passenger side and my laptop wasn’t there…  WTF?!?! I forgot it by the door inside my apartment!!! Crap, I had to call my boss and I left her a VM about what had happened, I busted and U-turn and went all the way back home. I’m not used to carrying a laptop to and from work everyday yet!

So when I finally got to work at 9 AM ( I had told my boss that I wanted my schedule to be from 8-5) an hour late, my boss was there and she said jokingly “You’re commute is long enough without having to do it twice a day.” She was totally cool with it, I’m still so not used to that. To top it all off, towards the end of the day she hinted that I should probably cut out early today, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it so I left at 6 PM.

Anyways, after all that debacle, my day went pretty smooth, we had a conference call with a bloke from the UK at 10. Went over some operational stuff and we set up an appointment for next Tuesday to speak with some other blokes about more technical stuff related to PPC and SEM.

After that one of my coworkers brought in some food his mom sells (I had ordered it yesterday, I forgot to say) and I had that for lunch at my desk, food was awesome. Nothing like authentic latin food, and for $5, can’t beat that with a stick!

I was working on some SEO stuff and then our IT guy came around and asked me to help him build a page for customers with PDAs or web enabled phones so that they can search our 500 plus member airport lounges from their devices. I don’t have any web design tools or Photoshop yet so I went old school and used notepad to build a simple layout. If you have a web enabled phone or PDA you can go to http://pda.prioritypassusa.com/mini.htm and check it out. It is just the layout and links right now. The IT guy is working on getting the database backend to a point where we can make it searchable via a simple form.

Anyways, I put in a request to get some software, the Web Premium Suite of Adobe CS3 that includes Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, Fireworks and Contribute. The IT guy got on it right away and before I knew it, it was ordered and he said they were shipping a CD that should be on my desk early next week, WOW, that was fast and easy!

After that I met with a co-worker in Marketing and she gave me an idea of what she does and we went over how it can translate to Online marketing stuff. I have 30 minute meetings scheduled with other coworkers for next week to do the same. I am definitely learning a lot about how they do things.

After that I went back to setting up PPC acounts with Miva, SP.com and Yahoo and then worked on some reports.

Not a bad week after all, in fact I would say it’s the best week I’ve had in a very long time, at work that is! A total change from what I am used to, it’s gonna take a while to adjust, but I think I can handle it :)   …

Alright, so yesterday was my first day and I was not able to post. Darn! Well the reason is we had soccer practice and I didn’t get home til late and I was exhausted. Anyways….

My first day was awesome! My boss is supercool, couldn’t ask for anyone better. Very flexible and accomodating. I got my Laptop and my Desk and access card, E-mail, etc. I’m official now! I took a picture of the outside of the office, I’ll post it here soon. The office is in Plano so it’s about a 40 minute drive each way. Not too bad.

Well our marketing group of about 7 people went to lunch and the company paid, very nice. Got to know everyone, they seem like very cool co-workers. Everyone was genuinely nice, that’s the key word “genuinely”!

After lunch I had a meeting with the boss, she gave me a quick run down of the company and where they are and where they expect to be. After that I got started with some projects for PPC. The boss lady hinted that I could leave around 4, but since I started at 9 I felt bad leaving early, I’m not used to that!  So I left about 5:40, 20 minutes early and I still felt kinda bad.

Fastforward to today… I got in about 8:45, I like this flex start time.. LOL - I told the boss lady that I would be in from 8 to 5, she had told me I could start anywhere from 7 to 9 in the AM as long as I put in my 8 hours. The 8 to 5 thing seemed to be cool with her.

For lunch, the IT guy and I went to Mi Cocina. We talked about IT stuff and what I will be doing for the CO. He wants me to design some buttons and a flash splash page for their software for PDAs for finding Lounges. I told him I would be more that willing to help. He said just put in the request for the software I needed and he would take care of it. So obviously I will be sending in the request to get the Adobe CS3 Web Design Suite. He paid for lunch, so now I’ve had 2 days with free lunch, sweeet.

In the afternoon I had another meeting with the boss lady and got more details about the people in our department and other key people within the company and I will be setting up a 30 minute meeting with each of them so I can get info on what promotions and other things they are doing that can help me in my online marketing efforts. Then I prepared a report on some search engines and directories in the US and Latin America, places like Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Mexico of course.

I also set up an account with Google for the US market, next will be a campaign for Latin America, then other accounts with Yahoo, Miva, SP.com (yes the previous job still lingers - lol) etc.. These are more targeted campaigns that the ones they have currently running for the UK side.

Enough for today. C ya tomorrow.