Are you credible? Do you have the knowledge and expertise on the topic for which you are trying to be influential? TSN Hockey analyst Bob McKenzie has an enormous influence on hockey fans through his Twitter account (with over 209,000 followers), blog and TV programs. Why? Because for the last 25 years, MacKenzie has lived and breathed hockey at every level in all corners of the earth. He is extremely credible on his topic of influence, hockey.

Trust

How much will you trust someone you’ve never met in person? Would you ever buy a product because someone online told you to? Gary Vaynerchuk is a great example of someone who has used a transparency and honesty to develop a strong level of trust among his followers. Vaynerchuk is well known for his video podcast “Wine Library TV” which featured weekly episodes in which he would sit behind a table and reviews wines. Vaynerchuk’s honest and laid back style during these episodes gained him a large following and turned him into one of the most influential wine reviewers in the world.

Relevance

Are you giving your audience what they are looking for? A lot of people fail to achieve a great deal of influence becuase they miss the target here – their audience is misaligned and their message is all over the map. I am a reader Avinash Kaushik‘s blog – he is influential on me. Why? Becuase he blogs about analytics. That’s it. That’s why I follow him, and that’s what I expect to read when he writes a new post. If one day he decided to blog about horse racing, I would be confused and I would leave. Relevance is huge.

Timing

Timing is key. Can you deliver your message to your audience in a timely fashion? Sometimes being timely can make or break your influence with a certain audience. I rarely use the same example twice in one blog post, but this is an exeption. I’m going to use Bob MacKenzie again for this one. He is always the first one to report anything hockey – a trade, suspension, a healthy scratch, what Daniel Alfredsson is having for lunch…okay maybe not that much, but his ability to report detailed hockey news in an extremely timely fashion is staggering – and one of the main reasons I follow him religiously on Twitter.

Alignment

Are you in the right place? Aligning your message with your target audience is one of the most overlooked aspects of building influence.  Should you be using Twitter? LinkedIn? Google +? Take Justin Bieber for example. He went from a simple teenager in a small Canadian town to one of the World’s most famous and influential pop stars by using YouTube. His target audience (probably 95% teenage girls) are heavy users of the video sharing site. He is the perfect example of gaining influence through strategic alignment.

Measuring your Influence

So how much influence do you actually have? Who do you influence? What topics are you influencial on? Well there are a few free tools out there that help you determine your online influence. The most well known is probably Klout. If you haven’t heard of Klout, here is how they describe themselves:

The Klout Score measures influence based on your ability to drive action. Every time you create content or engage you influence others. The Klout Score uses data from social networks in order to measure: True Reach (how many people you influence), Amplification (how much you influence them) and Network Impact (the influence of your network). 

So first of all, Klout will give you an overall score – mine is 54. Secondly, they provide you with a Klout Style – I am a specialist – meaning that I am “not necessarily a celebrity, but within my area of expertise my opinion is second to none. My content is likely focused around a specific topic or industry with a focused, highly-engaged audience.”

Klout then breaks down individual scores for the three aforementioned elements: True Reach, Amplification and Network Impact. They also provide a list of topics for which you are influential. Apparently, within my network, I am influential about Small Business, Media, Beer, Ottawa, Facebook and SmartPhones. I can then break it down even further. I can see which specific people I influence the most, and on which topics. Similarly, I can see who influences me the most, and on which topics. For example, my biggest influencer is Chris Brogan, and he influences me on Blogging, Social Media and Marketing.

Understanding your influence is key to Social Media success. Are you in the right place? Are you influencing who you want to be? Are you missing the mark? Tracking my Klout score has personally helped me fill in the gaps where I am missing out, and realign my Social Media strategy.

How will you become influential using Social Media?

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The Importance of Social Media Influence is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Simply looking at your Google Analytics data is akin to sailing a a boat without an effective rudder. You’ll end up somewhere. But probably not where you want to be. KPIs are the rudder of your website and a solid Google Analytics strategy .

Is this you?

The tough part is translating business objectives (which we are all familiar with) to KPIs (which are somewhat foreign to most people).

How do I establish my website’s KPIs? One needs to start with the goal of the website. Why is it there?
What do you want web surfers to do when they have arrived on your website?

• Contact you?
• Buy something?
• Request a quote?
• Read all of the content and subsequently tell you that you are amazing (tongue in cheek)!

How do we measure the above utilizing Key Performance Indicators?
IE: How does your website articulate your company’s mission and objectives? And then how do we narrow these broad objectives into something more finite and measurable?
KPI need to be:

• specific (you have to be granular)
• measurable (linked to a number)
• actionable (you have to be able to do something with the results you attain)
• useful (no use measuring something you can do nothing about)
• within a finite period of time (a slice in time)

Without the above criteria being met, you are wasting your time with KPIs. Why bother?

Digging down….. KPIs need to be directly related to the bottom line of your business. If you sell Widgets, then your KPIs need to be related to the sale of those Widgets. Case in point. You have spent a chunk of change ensuring that your organic and/or paid search strategy has driven good and qualified traffic to your website. A Visitor arrives on a pre-defined landing page (a targeted page in the case of a paid (AdWords) strategy). Now what? You want them to go somewhere once they have arrived.

1. Targeted Landing Page
2. Product (Widget) Overview Page (Click “Buy Now Link”)
3. Checkout
4. Thank You (for spending your hard-earned cash with us) message

Presto! $$$$

So measure this interaction via a KPI. Perhaps you have traffic landing on the Targeted Landing Page. They then go on to the Product Overview Page. Then a subset leaves the site! Aren’t you glad that you have implemented a KPI that helps you determine that you have an “abandonment” issue on your Product Overview Page? This is an example of a KPI not being met. That’s okay. At least you have placed yourself in a position to know that you have a problem versus being “fat dumb & happy”.

What about a non-revenue generating website? In other words, the website’s existence is part of a broader marketing initiative whose goal is to help generate revenue for the corporate entity.

A KPI may be measuring something as simple as how many people (linked to a number) downloaded the corporate brochure during the first quarter (a finite period of time). You have spent a great deal of money creating some wonderfully branded marketing material that extols the virtues of your Widget-eliminating software. Isn’t it nice to be able to go to the head of Marketing and let her know that her money was well-spent (hopefully!).

These were simple of KPIs based on fictitious websites. The question for you to answer is what are you doing to measure your web property’s success? Have you implemented a Google Analytics strategy that includes a clear set of KPIs that help you get the most of your website investment? If not, we can help you establish clear, meaningful & measurable KPIs!

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KPIs – Key Performance Indicators is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Our Social Media Strategist Jason focuses in on Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn. The new player on the block is Google+ (Google Plus). Jason wrote an interesting post on Google’s newest child just last week. Google+ offers the possibility of being a game changer. Why you ask? Simply because it will have the ability to be deeply integrated into Google Analytics & Webmaster Tools. Probably more than any of its competitors will ever be.

I implemented Google+ buttons on our website last week (and StumbleUpon). At first I was undecided on whether to do it or not.

Probably because Google has only recently rolled out Google+ to Google.ca. So far interaction has been minimal as compared to the likes of Twitter & Facebook. I am hoping that this will change as more people sign up for and use Google+.

Note: Every indexed page of your website should now have a Google+ button beside it. Have a look.

A really cool thing about Google+ is that a web property owner can receive instant feedback on any page of their website that has been crawled by Google.

This is truly amazing as Twitter et al will never be able to do this as they do not have their very own Search Engine. Rather they depend heavily on the likes of Google (okay Bing, Yahoo, etc…) for visibility.

Back to Analytics. As it stands now, one can track user interaction with one’s Social Media profiles via Google Analytics’ Campaign Tracking tools. Very nifty. But a bit time consuming to implement.

Note: At WebFuel, we track every one of our Social Media profiles and associated interactions via Google Analytics.

Google+ promise more – much more. As of this writing, data on Google+ interaction with one’s web property can be viewed in Google Webmaster Tools.

And… Google Analytics! This is just the tip of the iceberg. Google is also adding some cool tools to measure Social Engagement across all of your Social Media properties. The “Social Engagement” reports allow you to see how people shared content on your site via social actions. Examples of social actions on your site that can be tracked include Google +1 button clicks, Facebook “Like” and “Send” interactions, and Del.icio.us bookmarks. You can compare the number of Facebook Like’s versus Facebook Send’s on your site, or compare the total number of Facebook interactions with the total number of Twitter interactions. And on and on.

All this to say that Social Media is hot. Very hot. Google is sinking big bucks into the Google Plus play. I like it. I hope others do as well as a great tool is only as good as the volume of people who use it.

Have you implemented Google+ on your website? Are you measuring your successes?

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Google Plus Measuring Social Media Success is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Stick around and I’ll tell you why you should be thinking about this very important SEO tactic. Even more, it is a smart business move to implement on your web presence.

Page Load Speed

In the early days of the Internet, people threw up a website and watched visitors arrive in droves. They just figured web surfers would find them, and buy their stuff. So the quality and load speed of a web presence really wasn’t all that important. In fact it was a matter of “what you don’t know won’t hurt you.”.

The Internet world has come a long way over a very short period of time. Things are going so fast, and technology is developing so quickly, it is hard to keep up. These days, one has to be all over their website in so many ways. Competition is fierce. So it is obvious that a website owner needs to be constantly tweaking all aspects of their web presence.

Enter Google. The good folks in Mountain View (Google’s Global HQ) are constantly tweaking their Search algorithms with the goal of providing high quality and meaningful results to web surfers. It’s not simply a matter of putting up a web page or blog post and having people find it. You need to work at it (At WebFuel, we do – every single day!). Ranking high in Search is a moving target. Site speed is playing an increasingly larger role in how a website ranks in a Google Search.

You may recall that Google announced their intentions of including site speed as a ranking factor as far back as the Fall of 2009. Things have progressed since then – to the point of Google putting in place a tool that will help Webmasters actually see how well they are doing in Google’s eyes.

The experimental tool is straightforward to use. Simply type in a website URL and Google will come back with suggestions for how to improve that web page’s speed (You could run the test on every URL of your website). The suggestions are ranked as either High, Medium or Low. You simply work your way through their optimization tips – and watch your score increase as you progress. In addition, Google displays which best practices a website is already following (and those you are not). I like this approach as I can now go into Google Analytics, see which pages are the most popular and start tweaking at the individual page level – if need be.

Serious stuff!

Google has also upped their game by making a nifty addition to Google Analytics – the ability to measure page load times across your entire website. That is right, you can now measure the performance of each and every page on your website!

You must be wondering how the WebFuel website fares in all of this. We rate a healthy 91 out of 100 in Google’s Page Speed Test.

This is better than most websites I have tested. The aforementioned aside, am I happy? No! I will only be happy when we rate 100/100.

User Experience

Pop quiz. How long do you hang around a website if the site’s pages load slowly? A rhetorical question. You don’t. Site abandonment is often times the end result of a website with pages that load slowly. Studies show that surfers start to twitch after about 3 seconds. Then they leave… And will often tell others about their negative experience.

The following graphic from Strangeloopnetworks outlines things very well.

A curious aside on this topic. I see the same problems on almost every website I have tested. This is un-nerving inasmuch as some of the sites I have tested are relatively new. I guess page load times, user experience, and high Search Engine rankings are more important to we “WebFuelers” (Should it say “us WebFuelers” instead of “we WebFuelers”? No) then they are to some web designers (tongue in cheek).

Should one be worried about Page load times to the point of obsession (Like I am)? Probably not as it is one of over 200 factors Google takes into consideration in their ever-changing and and ever-evolving algorithms. That being said, a website owner would be remiss in not remedying anything that could negatively affect Search Engine rankings and user experience.

At WebFuel, we specialize in helping you get found on the web. Our areas of expertise span SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Social Media Marketing & Measurement. How does your website rank in terms of (SEO) page speed performance? If you think there is room for improvement, please contact us. We’ll be able to help you improve your website’s speed – and hence, your end-user’s experience & SEO.

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The Need for Speed – Slow Page Load Times Will Have a Negative Effect on Website SEO and Conversions is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Here are five good SEO reasons to use Google Analytics:

1. Search Engine Traffic
Google Analytics tracks search engine traffic to your site. This captured data tells you how many of your site visitors arrived via engines as well as the how your search traffic ranks compared to your other traffic sources (direct traffic / referring sites). It also identifies the engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo! Bing) and who sent the most traffic. By default, GA tracks more than 20 different search engines. There is also a breakdown available between paid and non-paid keyword driven traffic.

2. Keywords
In addition to automatically tracking search engine sources, Google Analytics tracks keywords that send search traffic to your site. This data tells you which keywords / keyword phrases were used by your site’s visitors and ranks them according to popularity. You can drill down further to determine more details for each keyword including statistics on organic and paid search.

3. Content Performance
Since optimizing content for search is the basics of search engine optimization, tracking page performance is essential. Google Analytics tracks data on which web pages attract site visitors and displays them in order of which are performing the best (listed by URL). You can also view this data by Page Title. The Content Drilldown report provides a list of top pages based on content sections within your website. Top Landing Pages, sent by search engines traffic can also be identified, as well as data on how well they perform.

4. Campaign Tracking
This is a more advanced feature than the above three, as it needs to be set up. Google Analytics can do campaign tracking. This includes Google AdWords by default. However you can also track any search marketing (as well as offline) campaigns. Campaign tracking is implemented by using link tagging (a unique URL to identify each marketing source).

5. Site Search
Likely the most overlooked – yet a real valuable source of SEO data. This is only for those sites that have a search box and allow web visitors to do an internal search to find information. Google Analytics can track these search terms as well a search term refinements at the site level. This requires set up as well.

Accessing the data, of course, is only the first step in the web analytics process. You need to measure, analyze, test and modify – always working towards your desired outcomes.

If you do not have Google Analytics installed on your website or if you are not monitoring your site outcomes, it is time to get started.

Recent Post: Google Analytics Qualified Professional Helen Faber

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Why use Google Analytics for SEO? is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

• SEO can’t save a sinking ship
• SEO recommendations don’t implement themselves

Jill

Jill Whalen, CEO  of High Rankings and co-founder of SEMNE, has been performing SEO services since 1995. Jill is the host of the HRA SEO newsletter and the High Rankings SEO forum. Original article published on Talent Zoo.

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SEO: You’re Bound to Lose Website Traffic If… is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

WebFuel’s 2011 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Checklist:

1. Domain Name Ownership
Review your domain name registration and ensure that it does not expire. This is likely the most important item on the checklist. No rights to use your domain name equals no live website. Just imagine what that would do to your Search Engine rankings. While you are checking your domain status, register the other related extensions (if applicable). This is known as Google insurance.

2. Reliable Hosting
It likely goes without saying, but a site that is down due to hosting issues does not help your Internet visibility. Even worse, Search Engines cannot crawl a site they cannot access. Ensure that you have engaged a reliable company to provide you with hosting services. There is software (some free) that can track uptime as well as alert you if your site goes down. Being live 24/7 is a must.

3. Crawl & Index Friendly Website
Making certain that your site stays live is the foundation of the SEO process. The next step is to ensure that your website design, including the navigation system, is “spiderable”. This will allow Search Engines to crawl and index your web pages – and other online digital assets (such as slideshows, podcasts and videos).

4. Website Content Review
Yes – content is still King. After all, this is what generates the possibility of your web page to appear in the search results. Content review should include checking for content starved pages, outdated and / or non relevent information, as well as building new content pages – if required. Copywriting revisions should also include integrating keywords and addressing internal lingo (generally not what people search for).

5. Robots.txt
Review and update your robots.txt file. This is usually the most overlooked item on the checklist. We see this almost every time we perform a SEO Website Audit. The robots.txt file tells Search Engine crawlers what content you do / don’t want crawled. Not everything on your site should get found in a Search.

6. Website Download Speed
One of the more recent Google ranking factors is based on the download speed of your website. In other words, the faster the web page downloads, compared to your keyword competitors, the better. Google is rewarding websites that are / or have been optimized based on speed performance. Do a test. Again, there are several free tools on the Internet that can be used.

7. Search Engine Submissions
If you haven’t already done so, submit your XML sitemap to Google, Bing & Yahoo. You can do this via your various Webmaster Tools accounts. While there is no need to submit to the major Search Engines (they find you), you should take this opportunity to review what industry-related engines exist (always new ones). And… of course, submit your URL (if relevant).

8. Social Media / Social Search
Now think beyond just your website and explore Social Media / Social Networking sites such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn – and of course Twitter. If you are already using them, ensure that you can get found in a social search for at least your company name. If you haven’t embraced Social Media yet – and even if you are unsure if these sites are a good fit for your particular business, create / claim a company profile (just in case). Once again, this is also known as Google insurance. This likely goes without saying but inactive profiles should be hidden from web visitors as well as blocked from the Search Engine crawls (if possible).

9. Online Reputation Management (ORM)
Don’t just pay attention to your company brand based on your site and/or social media profiles. Manage your reputation on the Internet as well. To get started, simply Google your company name, products and/or services, key people in your organization etc… and review the search results. Again, there is lots of software available to track what is being “said” on the web about your brand – some are fee-based and others are free (Google Alerts). And… of course you can hire a company that specializes in monitoring your brand and keeping your online reputation clean.

10. Web Analytics and Measurement
Review your filters, goals and conversions to ensure that they are in place as well as a system to analyze the data. Make sure that you are tracking everything on your website that should be measured. If you don’t have a application installed to track your web visitors, and what search engines are doing, put this on the top of your “to do” list. Google Analytics is a powerful tool – and it is free!

11. Search Engine Ranking Reports
If you haven’t already done so, invest in ongoing Search Engine ranking monitoring and reporting. In a nutshell, this type of report lets you know which web pages from your site are showing up in a SERP (Search Engine Results Page), your keyword positions – and in which search engines. This data will help you understand which SEO strategies are working – and which ones are not. It also documents and tracks keywords and search engine performance over time (good to have if you hired a Search Engine Optimizer). This is likely the best investment you can make when it comes to search.

Our SEO prediction for 2011 is that Search will continue to remain strong – with another year of enormous growth expected in Social Media. Ensure that this year you manage and improve your online visibility.

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SEO Checklist: Top Eleven for 2011 is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

The Art of Marketing is a conference that features 6 World renowned best-selling authors – Mitch Joel, Seth Godin, Avinash Kaushik, Max Lenderman, Andy Nulman and Jeffrey Gitomer – who shared a blend of inspirational, forward thinking, real-world marketing stories, tips, ideas and issues. The day on a whole was exhausting – in a good way. Hundreds of eager marketers filled a large conference room at the Palais des Congrès in downtown Montreal. Ron Tite, the host of the day’s event hops up on stage, full of energy and humor. After he welcomes the crowd, he introduces the first of six speakers – Mitch Joel.

Mitch Joel

Author of the best-selling book Six Pixels of Separation, Mitch Joel is a marketing genius and a member of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40. Joel addressed several new marketing issues faced by organizations and how digital marketing and Social Media are changing the game. Joel shared numerous mind-blowing stats with the crowd, who “ooh-ed” and “aah-ed”. The one that stood out the most to me was that 20% of searches made daily on Google have never been made before. He went on to discuss the demographics of major Social Networks. Joel says that there are more grandparents than High School students on Facebook, and half of YouTube‘s audience is over 34 years old. He stressed that understanding your audience is key. Know who they are, and target them in the right places. “Stop marketing, start publishing” he preaches. People get hung up on the little things and over-complicate their marketing efforts. He explains how a negative review online more often than not leads to sales. Why? People appreciate transparency and authenticity.  “So, what’s the secret?” Joel asks. “Just word hard and be nice to people.” It’s as simple as that.

Seth Godin

After a short networking break, the day continues with super-marketer Seth Godin. Author of numerous best-sellers including The Dip and Purple Cow, Godin is a truly inspirational marketing genius. Like Joel, Godin has an uncanny ability to make things simple. “Don’t worry about what’s next, worry about what’s now” says Godin. “Go ahead, make mistakes – and learn from them!” Godin goes on to explain that we need to stop shouting our messages at people. Old marketing was all about shout – interrupting people with our message. “Don’t interrupt people who don’t like you, organize people who you’re connected with” he says. And as for these people – your customers – they all just want to fit in. Fitting in is being the most average. Godin uses the iPod as an example. Yes Apple make amazing products – he doesn’t deny that. But the reason that they sell so many iPods is not the technology behind it – it’s the marketing. “Apple doesn’t make an MP3 player. They make jewelery with a function!” People just want to be seen with those white ear buds – to fit in, to be the most average. After a short Q&A with the audience, Godin leaves the crowd satisfied and inspired as we head off to lunch.

Avinash Kaushik

Next up – brand monitoring and web analytics expert Avinash Kaushik. As Avinash takes the stage, the guy beside me sarcastically mutters to himself  “Great, an hour of listening to some guy talk about Web Analytics. This should be fun.” Well, was he ever wrong. Avinash took the stage by storm. His surprising enthusiasm and energy was enjoyed by all. His message was comprised of entertaining quotes, educational information and the occasional yelling of “Suck!” and “Puke!” As crazy as he was, in my opinion Avinash was the best presenter of the day. Referring to his books and his blog Avinash says that “People like to pay for things that are free.” His ability to make analytics the most entertaining topic of the day is beyond me. He explained how most people monitoring their brand are doing it wrong. He presents the crowd with a clever acronym – HITS: How Idiots Track Success. Like Godin, Avinash explains that people make things too hard for themselves by over complicating things. “You can’t improve 1 thing by 1000%” he explains, “But you can improve 1000 things by 1%” Great advice. He finishes by declaring that “revenue is good…but economic value is GOD!” Engaging, educational, and a little bit crazy. I guess that’s the recipe for a great marketer.

Max Lenderman

I think most of us in the crowd felt bad for Max. I mean, how do you follow Avinash? That’s a tough gig. But, all in all, he pulled it off. Casually drinking a Molson Export on stage, Lenderman discussed branding and experiential marketing using a variety of real-life examples from around the globe. He explains that people of the world are very brand atheistic and price conscious. That’s how people continue to sell counterfeit products. But piracy and counterfeiting isn’t all that bad. It keeps the big brands on their toes – makes them compete on “the experience”. This is exactly what Apple has done with the Apple Store. They have created an experience for customers that goes up and above the product itself. In closing, Lenderman reminded the crowd to just “Be Authentic”. Simple and effective. After a short networking break we were back for Andy Nulman.

Andy Nulman

Another best selling author and marketing pioneer, Andy Nulman, was next. He shared his theories, ideas and stories about strategy and innovation. With over 35 years of experience in the field, that included a 15 year stint as the CEO of the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival, Andy sure had a lot to say. He opened with a favourite quote of his, by Tom Peters: “Value added in today’s economy is created by the weirdo’s and the freaks.” He encouraged everybody in the room to stop trying to be normal. Normal is blah. You want to be Abnormal! As Nulman continued, he preached to the crowd that the Impossible is possible. It might have been a long day, but the crowd became restless during Nulman’s talk. There was an overall feeling in the area in which I was sitting that he was being more self-promotional, and less educational. I over heard a woman in front of me say to a friend “Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!” referring to Nulman’s constant stories about his own successes. Give him credit he stuck it out to the end, full of energy and enthusiasm.

Jeffrey Gitomer

Last, but surely not least, Jeffrey Gitomer. The 60-something, hard nosed, no nonsense – yet hilarious, Gitomer took the stage. He immediately won the Montreal crowd over by showing a photo of the Stanley Cup on his first slide, and saying “If you’re from Toronto, this is what the Stanley Cup looks like.” Then he hopped off the stage, got down to business. A true salesman, Gitomer exclaims “I put people in front of me that will say yes to me, and then I deliver!” Walking through the crowd as he spoke, Gitomer made a real connection with the audience. “Are you still wasting money on print ads?” he asks with a tone of frustration and anger in his voice. “Good for you. Your full page ad in the Gazette is getting pissed on by some puppy the next day!” He went to explain that “the future is Social. It’s free you idiots!”

He continued by discussing marketing and selling yourself. He told the crowd to reach into their pockets and hand their business card to someone near them who they didn’t know. “If it looks like crap, rip it up and throw it back at them” he yells. The crowd didn’t quite know what to do. Surely some people thought the business cards they were handed were worthy of such destruction, but didn’t want to insult others. “Why does your business card suck? It’s your first impression – make it a good one!” He went on the explain the importance of blogging, and getting youname.com or .ca – and a quick poll of the crowd showed that only about 5% of us had done so. He was disgusted. But Gitomer’s on the edge attitude didn’t come across as cocky, or annoying. It acted as an eye opener to the crowd of seemingly clueless sales people and marketers. “Oh my god,” said one guy beside me “I gotta get my .ca tomorrow!” Gitomer’s message was heard loud and clear. He finished by encourage the crowd to use Twitter – but use it right. Don’t worry about how many followers you have. Worry about being Retweeted. That’s what gets you noticed on Twitter. “Twitter isn’t 140 characters,” he says “It’s 120 characters with space left over for a Retweet.” Excellent.

Joel, Godin, Avinash, Lenderman, Nulman and Gitomer. What a star-studded lineup. I felt very fortunate to have gone to Montreal to watch, and listen to this diverse group of marketing geniuses. I would highly encourage you to take the opportunity to listen to any of of these guys speak, or even pick up one of their books. You won’t be disappointed. Until next year Art of Marketing, au revoir!

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The Art of Marketing: From a WebFuel Perspective is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Google Analytics, Eh?
This is the first in a series of posts covering what data to analyze in Google Analytics if you are targeting the Canadian marketplace, starting with Map Overlay.

Featured Report: Map Overlay
The Map Overlay report displays location data. It tells you where your website visitors are coming from – or where they are not coming from.

How to find Map Overlay in GA
You can access Map Overlay via your Google Analytics Dashboard (just click on “view report” link) or select “Map Overlay” found under the “Visitors” section in the navigation bar (left hand side).

Country Level: Canada
By default, Google Analytics gives you an overview of the World map. It displays website traffic from a Country/Territory perspective indicated in green. The greater the percentage of visitors that come from that particular country, the darker the shade of green.

Note: Primary source of web traffic is from Canada

City Level: Canadian Cities
When you drill down from the  country level, you can access the city data. Popular Canada cites and territories include: Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Fredericton, Regina, Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal, Québec City, St. John’s, Halifax, Charlottetown, Yellowknife, Iqaluit and Whitehorse. Traffic from various cities is indicated in orange. Again, the darker the shade of orange, the higher the number of website visitors.

Note: Web Traffic from Canadian Cities

Note: The major cities may not include the entire geographic area. For example, if you are trying to get found in an Ottawa Search (as in Ottawa, Ontario), you will need to take into account Kanata, Nepean, Orleans, Gloucester, Vanier, Manotick, Carleton Place and maybe even Gatineau, Québec.

Province Level: Canadian Provinces
While Map Overlay shows you traffic by country all the way down to the city level, it is missing Canadian province data. If you are targeting getting found in a Canadian Search, province and territory data would be helpful. Especially if you are comparing traffic from Ontario to Québec for example. One option is to create a filter to only include traffic from a selected province. However, this is not ideal when you will need to navigate between profiles to compare each province.

Note: Web traffic from Canadian Provinces

Solution: Custom Report(s)
You can take all the cities in Ontario, and create a custom report. Simply select “country/territory” as dimension, and then “region”. Add the metric “Visits”, save and you’re done! To access this new report, just click on “Canada” and you will have access to Provinces and Territories of Canada. And… yes – if you wish to know all the traffic in the Ottawa area, a report can be created for this as well.

Web analytics is a powerful tool to use in terms of website Search Engine Optimization, especially if your business is targeting specific geographic regions. If you need data based on Canada, Ontario or Ottawa for example, the Map Overlay Report, and customized reports, can be very helpful. It is important to note however that the specific geographic location is based on where the servers are located. So… factor this into the equation when performing your analysis.

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Targeting Canada, Eh? Google Analytics & Map Overlay is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

You may be wondering how does the WebFuel team actually stay up-to-date with search and what is happening on the Internet. Well, first off, we devote at minimum 20 per cent of our time to making sure that we are on top of search. But how do we do this?

We do this in a number of ways:

• Attending industry leading webinars
• Attending Search Engine Marketing and Social Media events
• Attending Google Webcasts
• Attending Google Seminars for Success
• Attending conferences (Search Engine Strategies and PubCon Social Media and Search Marketing Conferences) on an annual basis

As an example of how we “really” do this, this week we are attending the Search Engine Strategies 2010 Conference in Toronto, Canada. This three-day conference is focused entirely on Search Engine Marketing (SEM) strategies. This includes keynote speakers Peter Morville on the topic of the future of search and Maile Ohye from Google. We will also be attending seminars on topics such as SEO, Canadian search, local search, mobile search, pay per click management (also known as paid search), keyword research, social media, link building, duplicate content, multiple site issues, video optimization, site optimization, and usability.

In addition to the professional development component, we also devote time to keeping up with industry search leaders. We do this by:

• Following industry experts on Twitter
• Reading industry-focused blogs
• Online networking through LinkedIn and Facebook

But that’s not all – we also have the following recognized Google credentials: Google Advertising Professional (GAP) and Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GAIQ). And don’t take our word for it, it can all be verified by Google!

All this goes to show that we are passionate about Search. We know the value of a sound and serious search strategy. We do the work on the Internet to ensure that your search strategy is getting you to the top of the search engine results page.

We work with clients like you who are Serious about Search and can clearly understand the value it adds. You’ve learned the value of outsourcing search to the experts – letting us do the work for you. As you know an in-house search strategy doesn’t allow you to stay on top of the industry shifts and trends. Since we devote 20 per cent of our time to search, we know what is coming and how to get you where you need to be.

Working with WebFuel gives you the peace of mind that the latest strategies in SEO, Social Media, and Web Analytics are being used to get you to the top and keep you on the top.

Stay Connected with WebFuel!

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Are you Staying on Top of Search? We are. is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel