Did you know that your web analytics system can be applied to your search engine optimization strategy? The keywords your visitors used to get to your site are prime candidates for optimization. But don't just look at visit counts for each keyword, because that's only a small part of the story.

To take advantage of this process, you will need three things in place:

1. You must reveal the goal of your site to your web analytics tool. For example, your "Thank you" page, or your email-sign-up-page might be a goal. If you have an e-commerce site, your order confirmation page is usually

Most of the Market Motive Faculty attended and/or spoke at the recent Search Engine Strategies New York. I believe this is the first full SES conference without Danny Sullivan. Though he is missed, the Incisive management team put on an excellent conference attended by over 8,000 folks looking to learn about online marketing. Market Motive did a co-promotion with Incisive, so while I try to avoid shipping booths & staff cross country, we took a space on the show floor. Honestly, I'm glad we did. I jot down notes on each day's experiences at these events, so here… Continue reading

Or: Three ways to get around misleading paid search reporting:

Most of us feel good when we see a positive ROI on our paid search campaigns. And most analytics tools give us plenty of opportunity to feel good about our campaigns.

But there is an inherent lie in the majority of PPC reporting tools, and that lie is based on the assumption that you have zero cost of goods. With few exceptions your products DO cost you something and thus any ROI analysis should be influenced by profit which in turn requires knowledge of margins.

When your campaign performance is measured by… Continue reading

I just returned from Pubcon 2007 Las Vegas. After every conference, a few events stand out as particularly good.. or particularly bad. Here are mine: To the speakers who still reveal how it really works. Neil, Rand, Aaron, Todd, and others kept the spirit of Pubcon by sharing some raw, unfiltered truths of how things really work in SEO, social media and SEM. To Joe Morin for arranging for us to see… Continue reading

You've decided you need consulting help, but don't want to lock in a contract until you know more about the consultant's work. It's a Catch-22. Solution: Get an initial audit. It's a great way to get a glimpse of the quality of intuition and delivery from your prospective consultant. An initial audit should contain observations and recommendations in each significant service area that may be provided by your consultant. For example, we cover Web Analytics, SEO, Paid Search/PPC, Email Marketing, Conversion and Online Publicity in most audits. But the weighting varies according to the need of the client. It's a sampling… Continue reading

Here we have SES Chicago and Pubcon in the same week. It's like asking a kid to choose which parent to live with. So the Market Motive faculty will be speaking at both events. This Tuesday, John Marshall will be speaking at WebMasterWorld PubCon Vegas Analytics, Tracking Performance - Beyond the Page View The same day I'll be sharing my favorite four ways to game AdWords Quality Score at Quality Score Management At the same conference, Todd Malicoat will be covering Link Baiting - 96 Different Strategies Interactive Site Reviews - Focus - Social Media SEO Tools of

How many of us have gone to a search marketing conference, listened to a big name speaker, and thought, "What if I could get that guru to spend 15 minutes on my campaign?" For me, the big-name speakers included Bryan Eisenberg and Alan Rimm-Kaufman and I'm pleased to announce that they both have joined the Market Motive faculty.

Bryan Eisenberg      Alan Rimm-Kaufman Bryan and Alan fulfill the vision of the "Internet Marketing Dream Team" whose purpose is to teach our members how to be successful in online… Continue reading

Matt Bailey of SiteLogic has agreed to join us as Market Motive faculty covering social media marketing. And we couldn't be happier. There were a handful of other worthy candidates and I'm convinced that Matt is the best choice for our subscribers.

Matt Bailey: Fast Rising Star At a dinner after Search Engine Strategies An Jose, Matt described himself the "Scrooge of social media". That might confuse folks who have heard Matt present. He's an authority on the tactics and still eschews the sensationalist "flavor of the month hype" that drives folks to… Continue reading

Search Engine Strategies sent me a Client Newsle... today. What's wrong with this email? Here's my short list. Do you see anything else?

#1. No use of preview text. Solution: Use your preview text. Your email software has the ability to set the preview text either in an explicit value or, at minimum, in the "alternative text" email content.

#2. The sender text is duplicated in the From text. Solution: Use unique content in both the Subject and From lines. While it is good to name your company in either the From line or the Subject line, it's a waste of space… Continue reading

It seems that every “first” email blast for a new company goes out with some embarrassing glitch. My initial announcement for Market Motive was no exception.  But, this time the error wasn’t in the email.  It was in the press release.  You see, we launched Thursday before last - in 2007.  Not in 2006 as the press release said.  So after  seven days of wonderful press coverage, Brett Tabke kindly pointed out that it seemed we had launched seven days ago rather than seven days and one year.   The rest of you who did notice were probably… Continue reading