This year for Halloween I tried to do a see-through hole in your body costume : It worked okay, but not great. The biggest problem was that I didn’t have a gadget lying around the house that could output live composite video. Both my normal video camera and my digital camera had exhausted batteries that wouldn’t recharge, which is a gadget fail on my part. And while my Flip video camera is tiny and it can output pre-recorded video through a composite cable, it can’t output live video (?!). Lame. I didn’t care enough to buy a new battery-operated gadget that could send out out live video. I settled for projecting scary Halloween images and video, but it wasn’t the same as a hole going right through your body. I found a plastic “Roman centurion” breastplate for $10, but that led to the second problem: the breastplate was too bulky. I trimmed the breastplate down a lot, but it still was too substantial: Next time, I’d go with just cardboard and duct tape. On the bright side, the costume was comfortable and quick to take on and off. It wasn’t that hard to make, either. Just a little bit of cutting and duct tape did the trick: I might circle back to this idea down the road, but I think it’s safe to call Halloween 2009 a mixed bag.

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Gaping hole costume for Halloween 2009

by Manoj Jasra SES Chicago is a little over a month away and will feature a very well respected online marketing veteran, Rand Fishkin. Rand is the CEO of SEO Moz and is a regular speaker in the international conference circuit. Earlier this week I caught up with Rand to get his insight on his sessions at Search Engine Strategies Chicago, read our chat below: [Manoj]: Tell our audience a little bit about the sessions you’ll be participating in at SES Chicago and why attendees should drop by. [Rand Fishkin]: I’ll be involved in two sessions - PPC or SEO? The Ultimate Search Marketing Battle and Black Hat, White Hat: Does it Really Matter Anymore? I think both of these touch on relatively sensitive issues in the field of search marketing and the exchanges will contain a lot of substance and style between the panelists. The value of the debate should come in the form of the data presented and the arguments employed. I suspect that many practitioners face these same challenges in their day-to-day roles with clients and internal management, and can find a handful of good takeaways to help support their perspectives. [Manoj]: Is SEO vs. PPC a cut and dry decision? - it’s really about your business and what your analytics tells you, correct? [Rand Fishkin]: Yeah - definitely. PPC is so easy to get started with and simple to track that if you’re earning a positive ROI, there’s no reason not to make the investment. The only drawback is when PPC optimization takes up a great deal of time and attention that could be focused elsewhere. I’ve seen organizations that have multiple people devoted to PPC management on a full time basis, and if they could just take a couple weeks of their time and put them towards SEO, they’d likely generate massive amounts more traffic with an even higher positive return. SEO is an investment, but it’s almost always worthwhile. [Manoj]: Are black hat tactics still employed by individuals/organizations. If so, can you give us some examples? [Rand Fishkin]: Certainly it is, but no I can’t share examples There’s a small but vocal minority in the SEO field who feels it is far more immoral to reveal those employing black hat tactics than to perform spam, so let’s talk in generalities instead. There are plenty of firms, large and small, who engage in link buying, cloaking, keyword stuffing, link injection, etc. In my opinion, the vast majority of these are doing nothing illegal, immoral, unethical or wrong, they’re simply operating outside the boundaries of what the search engines recommend. Although we don’t use these tactics at SEOmoz and don’t recommend them to our clients, I see no problem with those who choose a different path, so long as they’re honest with themselves about the risks and open with their clients/mangagers. Personally, I just feel that there’s (almost) always a better white hat solution to any problem you’re trying to solve with black hat SEO (exceptions might be in highly aggressive fields like gaming, porn & pharmaceuticals). [Manoj]: If you were to pinpont a couple SEO tactics which are more important to consider now vs. a few years ago - what would they be? [Rand Fishkin]: There’s quite a number of tactics that have gained in prominence and value over the last few years, some of which hardly existed in the early days of Google SEO. A few that fit that category include creation and optimization of XML sitemaps, canonicalization of duplicate URLs, social media marketing via social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), viral content creation and promotion via social media, social media profile adoption/linkbuilding and optimization for popular search verticals like Google Local/Maps and Google News. A few of these have been around as long as 5-6 years, but many are new (or gaining prominence) even in the last 2-3. [Manoj]: In a scenario where you are given 25K to spend for a client who has a brand new business/website, how would you spend it (in regards to Online Marketing)? [Rand Fishkin]: I’d probably recommend they engage with a talented in-house marketer for 4-6 months (depending on their rate). Getting someone internal working full time on projects, having responsibility to the bottom line and being able to see the company metrics with a incented stake is, in my opinion, the best way to go. As for their tasks, I’d go in this order:   Content quality and value on the website (this could include things like a blog or UGC, but may just means top notch editorial content) Web analytics - ensure that a good system for recording progress and traffic is installed on every page of the site Conversion rate optimization and setup of a testing platform (assuming it’s a transactional-focused site) SEO - confirm that all content is crawlable, that important keywords are targeted properly and that all best practices are followed (XML Sitemaps, good internal linking, page structure, etc.) Viral Marketing - look at opportunities to help draw large quantities of traffic for branding/awareness of the site as well as attract links Email Marketing - engage with the audience through at least an email newsletter and possibly more personalized/direct kinds of email marketing After those, I might look into link building, paid search, display ads and other channels in tests, but those would be the first steps I’d recommend.   Check out our small business news site.

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SEO Sessions from SES Chicago

It’s Friday, time for some fun! Advanced API analytics fun Here is a captivating way to look at your Google Analytics data in a Treemap visualization. You can visualize your own data with our live demo. (Note: IE currently not supported for visualization part.) click to enlarge And, here is a video explaining how to look at the Treemap visualization and how to use it. The goal of this example was to teach people how to use the Google Analytics API on App Engine in Java, as well as to demonstrate how to use both OAuth and AuthSub along with the App Engine’s various services. The code looked great, but the output was a boring HTML table. So we used some open source tools to transform the table into a pretty tree map visualization, which is also useful in noticing interesting metrics. All the code has been open sourced on Google Project hosting. Also, here’s an article describing how this application works making it easy for developers to use this example as a starting point for new data visualizations and other Google Data projects. For the data retrieval part, we used the App Engine Java SDK and the Google Analytics Data Export API Java Client Library to retrieve data from Google Analytics. The example code implements both unsigned AuthSub and registered OAuth authorization methods allowing developers to get up and running quickly in their dev environment and later switch to a secure authorization method in production environments. The application also uses the Model-View-Controller pattern, making it flexible and allowing developers to extend the code for new applications (e.g. adding support for other Google Data APIs). And lastly, for the visualization part, we used the open-sourced Protovis SVG Visualization Library to create the Treemap. This JavaScript library is maintained by the Stanford Visualization Group and excels at creating brand new visualizations from a data set (in this case a boring HTML table). To handle all of the interactions, including rollover, tooltips and slider controls, we used JQuery . Here is the JavaScript source for the visualization part of the sample. Enjoy! Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics API Team p.s. If you have created any cool new visualizations using the Google Analytics Data Export API, email us so we can highlight them as well.

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Google Analytics API on App Engine Treemap Visualization

It’s Friday, time for some fun! Advanced API analytics fun Here is a captivating way to look at your Google Analytics data in a Treemap visualization. You can visualize your own data with our live demo. (Note: IE currently not supported for visualization part.) click to enlarge And, here is a video explaining how to look at the Treemap visualization and how to use it. The goal of this example was to teach people how to use the Google Analytics API on App Engine in Java, as well as to demonstrate how to use both OAuth and AuthSub along with the App Engine’s various services. The code looked great, but the output was a boring HTML table. So we used some open source tools to transform the table into a pretty tree map visualization, which is also useful in noticing interesting metrics. All the code has been open sourced on Google Project hosting. Also, here’s an article describing how this application works making it easy for developers to use this example as a starting point for new data visualizations and other Google Data projects. For the data retrieval part, we used the App Engine Java SDK and the Google Analytics Data Export API Java Client Library to retrieve data from Google Analytics. The example code implements both unsigned AuthSub and registered OAuth authorization methods allowing developers to get up and running quickly in their dev environment and later switch to a secure authorization method in production environments. The application also uses the Model-View-Controller pattern, making it flexible and allowing developers to extend the code for new applications (e.g. adding support for other Google Data APIs). And lastly, for the visualization part, we used the open-sourced Protovis SVG Visualization Library to create the Treemap. This JavaScript library is maintained by the Stanford Visualization Group and excels at creating brand new visualizations from a data set (in this case a boring HTML table). To handle all of the interactions, including rollover, tooltips and slider controls, we used JQuery . Here is the JavaScript source for the visualization part of the sample. Enjoy! Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics API Team p.s. If you have created any cool new visualizations using the Google Analytics Data Export API, email us so we can highlight them as well.

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Google Analytics API on App Engine Treemap Visualization

When it comes to holidays, Halloween is one of our favorites. You get candy corn, creepy crawlies, ghosts and goblins, blustery weather and the goopy joys of pumpkin carving all crammed into one glorious fall fun-fest. It’s also the one holiday where you can dress up as whatever you want — your favorite celebrity , your favorite animal or even, like one Googler last year , your favorite gadget. As usual , we’re in the process of devising brilliant last-minute costumes, and we got curious about what others around the globe have been searching for in preparation for Halloween. We used Insights for Search to track the fastest-rising searches related to [costume] in the U.S. in 2009 . The query at the top of the charts is [ lady gaga costume ] — no surprise, as the star wears quite a few costumes on a regular basis herself: And many people seem to be planning a tribute to the late pop star Michael Jackson — searches for [ michael jackson costume ] started spiking in June of this year and have increased steadily since then: Since Halloween is most popular in the U.S., we focused on queries there — but we did investigate searches in Canada and the U.K. for good measure. In Canada, people are overwhelmingly searching for costumes for two — variations on [ couples costumes ] dominate the top 10. Both in Canada and across the pond, searchers are looking for costumes based on Lewis Carroll’s classic story Alice in Wonderland , with [ mad hatter costume ] in the top 10 in the U.K. and [ alice in wonderland ] in Canada. Since [ vampire costume ] was one of the top 10 searches this year, we figured we’d check in with the various vampire TV shows and movies to see which is, um, making a killing in the costume race. The query [ twilight costume ] has the most search volume, with [ true blood costume ] not far behind. (Pointy teeth and body glitter — done!) Thinking of dressing up your little ones? Popular queries in the U.S. related to [ kids costume ] include [ ladybug ], [ minnie mouse ] and [ tinkerbell ]. We also did some digging to see if people were taking inspiration from the movie Where the Wild Things Are and wearing a [ max costume ] this year. Based on the fastest-rising related terms [ footie pajamas ], [ footed pajamas ] and [ max costume pattern ], it seems like at least a few folks are choosing to make [ max wolf suit ] costumes at home: As a dog-friendly company, we share the country-wide impulse to dress up our dogs for the holiday. Related searches for [ taco dog costume ], [ dog shark costume ] and [ banana costume ] (so cute!) all rank high. At Google, we’ve been gearing up for tomorrow’s real deal with festivities on our Mountain View campus, complete with Halloween crafts for visiting kids and a haunted house. Googlers are also pulling out all the stops for the costume contest: We hope you have a happy Googleween! Posted by Jordan Newman and Emily Wood, Editors, Google Blog team

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A ghooooulish Googleween

When it comes to holidays, Halloween is one of our favorites. You get candy corn, creepy crawlies, ghosts and goblins, blustery weather and the goopy joys of pumpkin carving all crammed into one glorious fall fun-fest. It’s also the one holiday where you can dress up as whatever you want — your favorite celebrity , your favorite animal or even, like one Googler last year , your favorite gadget. As usual , we’re in the process of devising brilliant last-minute costumes, and we got curious about what others around the globe have been searching for in preparation for Halloween. We used Insights for Search to track the fastest-rising searches related to [costume] in the U.S. in 2009 . The query at the top of the charts is [ lady gaga costume ] — no surprise, as the star wears quite a few costumes on a regular basis herself: And many people seem to be planning a tribute to the late pop star Michael Jackson — searches for [ michael jackson costume ] started spiking in June of this year and have increased steadily since then: Since Halloween is most popular in the U.S., we focused on queries there — but we did investigate searches in Canada and the U.K. for good measure. In Canada, people are overwhelmingly searching for costumes for two — variations on [ couples costumes ] dominate the top 10. Both in Canada and across the pond, searchers are looking for costumes based on Lewis Carroll’s classic story Alice in Wonderland , with [ mad hatter costume ] in the top 10 in the U.K. and [ alice in wonderland ] in Canada. Since [ vampire costume ] was one of the top 10 searches this year, we figured we’d check in with the various vampire TV shows and movies to see which is, um, making a killing in the costume race. The query [ twilight costume ] has the most search volume, with [ true blood costume ] not far behind. (Pointy teeth and body glitter — done!) Thinking of dressing up your little ones? Popular queries in the U.S. related to [ kids costume ] include [ ladybug ], [ minnie mouse ] and [ tinkerbell ]. We also did some digging to see if people were taking inspiration from the movie Where the Wild Things Are and wearing a [ max costume ] this year. Based on the fastest-rising related terms [ footie pajamas ], [ footed pajamas ] and [ max costume pattern ], it seems like at least a few folks are choosing to make [ max wolf suit ] costumes at home: As a dog-friendly company, we share the country-wide impulse to dress up our dogs for the holiday. Related searches for [ taco dog costume ], [ dog shark costume ] and [ banana costume ] (so cute!) all rank high. At Google, we’ve been gearing up for tomorrow’s real deal with festivities on our Mountain View campus, complete with Halloween crafts for visiting kids and a haunted house. Googlers are also pulling out all the stops for the costume contest: We hope you have a happy Googleween! Posted by Jordan Newman and Emily Wood, Editors, Google Blog team

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A ghooooulish Googleween

(Cross-posted from the Google TV Ads Blog ) Small businesses often think that television advertising is too expensive and cumbersome for them to use. They assume that they need a fancy, expensive commercial to use in their TV campaign. But Google TV Ads changes all of that — we make it easy and affordable for you to make a TV ad, plan a campaign and reach your customers through the power of television. We launched the TV for All contest two months ago to prove just that. More than 200 companies submitted commercials for the opportunity to win $25,000 worth of free national advertising on cable channels such as CNBC, Hallmark and Bloomberg using Google TV Ads. Today, we’re happy to announce the three winners of the TV for All contest based on votes from the YouTube community. Amazing Gates , Owners.com and ZAGG.com received the largest number of votes among the 10 finalists. Each of these businesses will receive $25,000 in free national advertising through Google TV Ads advertising. Check out the three winners and all entries at www.youtube.com/tvforallcontest . For more information on Google TV Ads and how it can help your small business succeed, visit our website at google.com/tvads . Posted by Deeksha Hebbar, Associate Marketing Manager, Google TV Ads

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Three contest winners making their way to television

by Paul Jahn A few days ago in the Twittersphere, it’s been mentioned that Google Analytics is now starting to add the number of “goals” to 20 (four groups of five), up from four only . For some, this may not be a big deal. For others, it’s just fantastic and the possibilities are almost endless. For many companies, a couple goals fit just fine. If you’re generating leads, you may have goals set up for both a long and short form for people to fill out, giving you information about their needs. That’s it. What if you want to get more granular? Maybe you have a new service or product and want to set goals on how many users get to these pages. You can test these goals for the number of pages you want people to visit or even how long you want users on your site. Or, if you’re an e-commerce site 20 goals still may not be enough. That’s probably a different discussion. Let’s take a look. Here’s how part of your goals page may look now. As noted above, the 20 goals are for four groups of five. This still allows you to get creative. Here’s a small addition. It’s not just about a URL destination. Time on Site and Pages/Visit are just a couple tools you may want to play around with for measuring different site engagement goals. If you want to measure engagement by “time on site”, you can easily do so down to the second. Same goes for the number of pages per visit. As always, Google provides an easy-to-understand YouTube video. Any of you test these new possibilities yet? More robust tools out there that already have this and more, but the popularity of Google Analytics along with its price (free) makes this new for many. Check out our small business news site.

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More "Goals" for Google Analytics

Webmaster Level: Intermediate Google uses numerous sources to find new webpages, from links we find on the web to submitted URLs . We aim to discover new pages quickly so that users can find new content in Google search results soon after they go live. We recently launched a feature that uses RSS and Atom feeds for the discovery of new webpages. RSS/Atom feeds have been very popular in recent years as a mechanism for content publication. They allow readers to check for new content from publishers. Using feeds for discovery allows us to get these new pages into our index more quickly than traditional crawling methods. We may use many potential sources to access updates from feeds including Reader, notification services, or direct crawls of feeds. Going forward, we might also explore mechanisms such as PubSubHubbub to identify updated items. In order for us to use your RSS/Atom feeds for discovery, it’s important that crawling these files is not disallowed by your robots.txt . To find out if Googlebot can crawl your feeds and find your pages as fast as possible, test your feed URLs with the robots.txt tester in Google Webmaster Tools . Written by Raymond Lo, Guhan Viswanathan, and Dave Weissman, Crawl and Indexing Team

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Using RSS/Atom feeds to discover new URLs

One of the things our publishers have always asked for are ways to make it even easer to configure their blogs to work with FeedBurner and AdSense for Feeds. We’re happy to announce that Blogger users, with just a few clicks, are able to do both at the same time. Yes, this year for Halloween, AdSense for feeds is putting on a Blogger costume and allowing all Blogger publishers to easily monetize your RSS and Atom feeds directly from the Blogger interface, in the same way you set up AdsSense on your blog beforehand. To set this up, go to Blogger and select the blog you wish to monetize on your Blogger Dashboard, and select “Monetize.” This will give you some basic options for configuring ads, and if you already have connected your Blogger feed to FeedBurner, will confirm that the proper feed is being configured. AdSense for feeds will automatically pick the right ad sizes for your users, content, and end medium. After setup, you will be able to view your AdSense reports (including feed revenue) directly from the Blogger Dashboard, as well as from your AdSense account. Additional feed management options for your feed and feed analytics will be available from http://feedburner.google.com. Posted by Steve Olechowski on behalf of the AdSense for feeds and Blogger teams

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AdSense for feeds now available directly in Blogger