Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Post Insights Now Available on All Facebook Pages

Monday, November 29th, 2010

Want to know just how many people are viewing your Facebook posts every day? Facebook has released Post Insights, which reveal basic data such as impressions and amount of feedback about each individual Facebook page post to page administrators. First released to only a few select pages back in January, Post Insights are now available on all Facebook pages for posts published on or later than June 25, 2010.

Page administrators can view Post Insights in two places: underneath each post as it appears on the Facebook Page wall and in the Interactions section of their Insights pages. Here’s an example of how Post Insights, which have been highlighted, are displayed at the bottom of each post:

Facebook page post insights image

Impressions is the cumulative number of times the post has been viewed by users on the Facebook page wall and in page fans’ news feeds. Feedback % indicates how many of those impressed-upon users responded to the post, either by liking it or commenting on it.

The Post Insights in the Interactions section of the Insights page can give administrators a better idea of which posts are the most successful in attracting attention. Here’s an example of an Interactions page with Post Insights:

Facebook Page Post Insights Interactions Image

We’ll keep you up to speed on more ways of measuring the success of your Facebook page.

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Posted in Facebook, Social Media, Web Analytics | No Comments »

Twitter Alpha Testing Official Analytics Tool

Friday, November 19th, 2010

In coming months, gauging the performance of your Twitter account will be much easier. Currently, Twitter is alpha-testing Twitter Analytics, an official analysis tool. Twitter Analytics will allow users to view a variety of data about their Twitter accounts, including which tweets were replied to and retweeted the most and how many users are viewing tweets. For any business that uses Twitter as part of its social media marketing, this is an exciting development.

A spokesperson for Twitter said that Twitter Analytics was developed in response to “a strong demand for better monitoring and analytics tools.”

Currently, Twitter Analytics is available to only a few select followers. Yesterday, Mashable shared these screenshots:

Twitter Analytics Screenshot

Source: Mashable

Twitter Analytics screenshots

Source: Mashable

There’s been no official word on when Twitter Analytics will be available to the public. However, a Twitter official did say earlier this year that Twitter Analytics would be released around the end of 2010. We’ll keep you posted on any further developments with Twitter Analytics.

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Posted in Social Media, Twitter, Web Analytics | No Comments »

Google Analytics Replaces Site Overlay Features with In-Page Analytics

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Google Analytics announced Friday that it is replacing data superimposition tool Site Overlay, which Google admits “hasn’t worked as well as it could,” with In-Page Analytics. Both tools are designed to display data within a given webpage to help website owners better visualize how users navigate their site. Currently in beta testing, In-Page Analytics offers an improved user interface and more advanced features than Site Overlay. Here’s a video overview of In-Page Analytics:

Check out this Google Analytics Help Center guide for more information on using In-Page Analytics.

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Posted in Google Analytics, Web Analytics | No Comments »

A Quick Guide to Google Analytics

Friday, October 8th, 2010

Google Analytics imageWith any search marketing campaign, it is important to track your progress in some way, whether its website traffic, lead generation or clicks from pay-per-click ads. By monitoring these metrics, you can more easily judge the success of your tactics. In the same vein, you can also identify tactics that haven’t been so successful. Google Analytics is an excellent tool for measuring the effectiveness of your Internet marketing efforts. A free web analytics service, Google Analytics displays all sorts of website data, in an easy-to-understand format no less. Here’s a quick rundown of the things you do with Google Analytics:

Monitor Data

Google Analytics displays a wealth of site metrics such as page views, referrers conversions, top content and bounce rate. Moreover, you can view data in several ways. Choose from a simple overview or a detailed report.

Create Custom Reports

With Google Analytics, you can create, edit, view and save reports that with site metrics and parameters you have selected. These reports are downloadable in several formats.

Geo-Targeting

With advanced geo-targeting tools such as a map overlay and heat map, you can find out where you’re getting the most traffic as well as identify areas to target with a stronger Internet marketing campaign.

Measure Up

Google Analytics allows you to compare your key performance indicators with the combined data of other websites in your industry so that you can determine whether or not you’re keeping up with the competition.

Link with Other Google Products

Connect Google Analytics with your Google AdWords accounts to view data and gain insights on your pay-per-click accounts. Link your Google Analytics and Google Checkout accounts to keep tabs on the performance of your online store.

If you need assistance setting up or using your Google Analytics account, we at CyberMark would be happy to help. We can also help you with any other web analytics tools you would like to use to track the growth of your site.  Just contact us with any questions you have.

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Posted in Google Analytics, Internet marketing, Web Analytics | 1 Comment »

Will Google Instant Change SEO?

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

In September, Google launched Google Instant,  an AJAX-powered search enhancement that displays search results as users type their queries rather than after pressing enter. A new search predictor of sorts, Google Instant is designed to help save web surfers valuable searching time to the tune of about 2 to 5 seconds per search. However, many in the search marketing industry are speculating about what effects Google Instant will have on SEO.

Some think that it will change the SEO game entirely. For example, in a blog post reacting to the launch of Google Instant, PR executive Steve Rubel said that the new feature will “kill SEO.” Rubel says:

“No two people will see the same web. Once a single search would do the trick – and everyone saw the same results. That’s what made search engine optimization work. Now, with this, everyone is going to start tweaking their searches in real-time. The reason this is a game changer is feedback. When you get feedback, you change your behaviors.”

Others, like search marketing software company SEOmoz, see Google Instant as a relatively minor change in the scheme of things. As SEOmoz founder Rand Fishkin said in this blog post, Google Instant “changes less than your average algorithmic rankings update.” To exemplify his point, Fishkin shared a chart from MEC that compares 12 days’ worth of referring keyword phrases of varying length from five different sites before and after the launch of Google Instant:

google instant referring keyword analysis graph image

As the chart demonstrates, Google Instant hardly had a dramatic impact.

To illustrate his point further, Fishkin also shared SEOmoz’ Google Analytics data from before and after the launch:

SEOmoz Google Instant image

Like the MEC chart, these graphs indicate little to no change.

So what does CyberMark think of Google Instant? We believe that, although Google Instant will probably slightly modify search behavior over time, it’s certainly won’t kill SEO. With near-constant technological advances and search engine algorithms updates, what it means to be “optimized” is constantly changing and will continue to change. Google Instant is just one small change. As SEO experts, we promise to keep you updated on the latest in SEO techniques to keep your website competitive on the Internet.

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Posted in Google, Search Round-Up, SEO, Technology | No Comments »

Search Round-Up: September 10, 2010

Friday, September 10th, 2010

Search engine news imageEvery week, our search news round-up brings you the latest web marketing developments in everything from search engine optimization to pay-per-click advertising. Here are the biggest stories this week:

According to Study, Users Spend More Time on Facebook than Google and Yahoo

A new study from comScore reveals that web users in the U.S. devote more time online to Facebook than Google and Yahoo.

In August, the average U.S. web user spent 41.1 minutes on Facebook, about 9.9 percent of all Internet usage. In comparison, the average U.S. web user spent a total of  39.9 minutes (9.6 percent) on Google sites such as Gmail, Google news and YouTube, and 37.7 minutes (9.1 percent) on Yahoo.

At the same time last year, time on Facebook and Google only accounted for 5 percent each, while users spent 12 percent of their time on Yahoo on average. And in 2007, users spent less than 2 percent of their total Internet time on Facebook, 4 percent on Google and more than 12 percent on Yahoo.

Mozilla Firefox 4 Beta Offers Audio Interpretation Feature

Mozilla released a new audio feature in Firefox 4 Beta that will help users “visualize sound.”

“With this new API,” reads a post on the Mozilla blog “developers can read and write raw audio data within the browser, presenting audio information in completely new ways that could allow, for example, for people to visually experience a speech or a song through Firefox.”

Powered by HTML 5, Firefox 4 Beta can interpret audio into waves, abstract animation, streams of numbers and various other visual interpretations.

Firefox 4 Beta developer David Humphrey has prepared this video to give users a better demo of the browser’s new audio feature.

To check out just what Firefox 4 Beta can offer, download it for free here.

Google Instant Displays Search Results as Users Type

Wednesday Google unveiled Google Instant, a search enhancement that predicts, then displays results as users type. The new AJAX-powered search feature is intended to make searches faster and more intuitive. Watch this video from Google to find out more about how Google Instant works.

Currently, Google Instant is available on Google domains in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia to users with the following browsers: Chrome 5, Chrome 6, Firefox 3, Safari 5 (for Mac) and Internet Explorer 8. Google Instant will be rolled out to new domains and languages over the next several months.

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Posted in Facebook, Google, Search Engines, Technology, Yahoo | 2 Comments »