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I just read through this report and feel that it is a good read and was worth my time. Truth is always subjective, but when the numbers don't lie, then there is something universal about it as well.
Take your time to download it and read through it. You might be glad you did.
http://www.theinternetmarketingcure.com/go.php/95784
Dear Friends,
I'm delighted that they decided to share this with us. So without further ado, here is the second video in the banner traffic series.
I wrote about traffic titans Carlos and Lupe Garcia a couple of weeks ago.
And I'm sure by now you've heard the buzz on the forums and the blogs
About how they were able to get millions of visitors WITHOUT search engines, Adwords or JV Partners.
And from the stories I've heard, they were absolutely MOBBED after they spoke at Yanik's Underground seminar.
Well there have been a few questions that have come up, and I contacted them to get some answers:
Did you work on the optimization of the product offer online before exposing them to banner ads?Well, in response to the many questions that they were receiving, not only from me, but from lots of people contacting them, they've decided to stream live video from their $25,000 conference for their inner circle coaching clients tomorrow, Friday, June 29th!
They're teaching them EVERYTHING they know about how to get millions of visitors to their sites.
Now, the thing about Carlos and Lupe that makes them stand out from the crowd of other so-called "gurus" is that they're EXTREMELY genuine people.
And you can get in on it without dropping a dime.
Of course, you won't get to watch the entire weekend, but I'm sure it'll be well worth your time.
You can sign up for this LIVE VIDEO stream and watch the full presentation they did at Yanik's underground seminar that everyone
is talking about here: Spaces are extremely limited, only 500 people will be allowed to attend, so sign up fast!
traffictactics.com/traffic.asp?a=4&affid=612220
Warm Regards,
Angela Wickenberg
In June, Google updated Google Trends with numbers and the ability to download results to a spreadsheet. They received a lot of great feedback from agencies and advertisers on how they're using the new version; from identifying new growth markets to optimizing their Google AdWords campaigns.
Today, Google launched Google Insights for Search, a new product designed with the advertiser in mind. It provides more flexibility and functionality for advertisers and marketers to understand search behavior, and adds some cool new features like a world heat map to graphically display search volume and regional interest.
Like Google Trends, you can just type in a search term to see search volume patterns over time, as well as the top related and rising searches. You’ll also have the ability to compare search volume trends across multiple search terms, categories (commonly referred to as verticals), geographic regions, or specific time ranges.
Let's take the example of entering the term apple. You'll notice that the majority of top related and rising searches are associated with the brand Apple.
Google Insights for Search allows you to filter this query by the Food & Drink category, resulting in a dramatically different view of search volume trends and related searches of apple, the fruit. You can also use this filter to compare search terms with the category (for example, apple compared to the Food & Drink category).
Read the entire post here:
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/08/announcing-google-insights-for-search.html
Tags: Google_Trends Google_Insights_For_Search Adwords Google_Adwords
http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/search-marketing/39752.html
The above link leads to the article below:
Why is it that we never truly appreciate something’s value until it is gone? For years the public Yahoo inventory tool was frequently shot down for its inaccuracy. Today, as it is dying a slow death, the industry realizes just how significant the tool was in shaping our industry.
Launched as the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool, the Web-based application allows users to determine the number of times a word is searched across the Yahoo network during the previous month. Perhaps more interestingly, up to 100 derivatives of this keyword are provided along with search volume. Clicking on a derivative generates yet another list of derivatives, displaying a powerful visual of the long tail in just a few minutes.
In discussing this topic with industry experts, Kevin Lee of Did-It said, “Nothing beat the Overture inventory tool for illustrating the long tail of keyword queries to marketers. Letting them pick the keyword was so powerful.” So while John Battelle’s concept of “the database of intentions” might be based on what is under Google’s hood, it was Yahoo that first put this data in the hands of everyday people.
Clearly, the tool has been a primary source of research for many a search marketer for pitches, proposals or actual campaigns. For those with dedication, tracking queries over an extended period of time informed seasonality, changing consumer tastes or even the search effect of offline media campaigns.
During my SEM agency days, I frequently pulled up the tool in meetings and shot from the hip. In just a few minutes, I could not only describe the target market’s behavior, but quantify it as well. It never ceased to amaze those on the other side of the table. Exclamations such as “But why are people searching for that product? We discontinued it two years ago!” quickly materialized into minor consumer behavior revelations.
Over the years, other tools came into vogue as industry leaders criticized accuracy of the tool’s estimated volume as well as the editorial aspect.
Today, pragmatists such as Andrew Wagner of Trafficbuyer Digital agree that the tool is both directional and helpful. Andy Beal of MarketingPilgrim said, “The numbers were never accurate, despite our many years of trying to apply a multiplier that would lead to a fair representation of actual search frequencies.” Mr. Lee also agreed: “The data was always taken with a grain of salt, but having counts presented, even when they were obviously inaccurate, brought the data to life.”
It wasn’t until I held a recent Search 101 seminar that I realized just how much the tool had aged. Like an elder relative, the tool fell asleep frequently at the table. Sometimes it just didn’t make any sense at all. On a call with some Yahoo employees, my greatest fears were confirmed: The tool would not longer be supported in the near future.
So where to turn now that the tool’s days are numbered? Hugh Burnham of RareMethod suggested that the Trellian Keyword Discovery tool, coupled with MSN adCenter research, helps him gain insight as to how and where to advertise most effectively.
For Mr. Lee, his team long since turned to internal tools, though he is pleased to see keyword research functionality incorporated in some APIs, allowing technologists to combine data from multiple sources.
Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand.com said that the Google AdWords tool is now his first stop. This, of course, was not without a heartfelt expression of sorrow: “I’ll absolutely miss that little bugger.”
Gmail has a bunch of lesser-known feature that can end up being very useful once you get to know them. The product manager at Gmail put together last year a list of his top 10 favorite features that you may or may not be familiar with. Here's his list, which was very helpful to me in becoming more productive with Gmail and learning to use it's many features.
10. Custom "from" Most people end up managing more than one email account — some are personal, others might be for work or school. When I graduated from college, I wanted to keep my .edu address for alumni-related things, but made Gmail my primary personal address. My university made it easy to forward my .edu mail to my Gmail address, so I could read all my mail from my within my Gmail account. I was happy to find out that Gmail would actually let me send mail "as" my .edu address, so I could continue to keep that identity, while managing all my email from one place. Here's how to set that up.
9. Open attachments in Google Docs & Spreadsheets, or view as slideshow If you are sending a Word document or Excel file as an attachment, Gmail lets you easily open it in Google Docs & Spreadsheets. (In case you're not familiar with Google Docs & Spreadsheets, it's our online word processor and spreadsheet application, which lets you store and access documents online and collaborate on them with anyone.) Since other people are working on many of the docs I receive as attachments collaboratively, it's really easy to just open them in Docs & Spreadsheets and create a single document to work from, rather than constantly sending versions of documents back and forth. If the attachment is a PowerPoint presentation, Gmail will recognize this and give you a link to"View as a slideshow." This will open a window with a Flash preview of the slides. This is great for quickly reviewing slides in the browser. 
8. Gmail gadget for iGoogle I use iGoogle to bring together a lot of the information I care about on the web (feeds, my Google Calendar, YouTube videos, etc). I use it as a dashboard at the start of my day to get an overview of what's going on in the world. I've added the Gmail gadget to my page to get a preview of my Inbox, which is great because it's one of the first things I'm interested in seeing.
7. Reply by chat Most people know that you can chat with your contacts in Gmail if they're using Gmail too. But there are some subtle features that make chat particularly useful in the context of using your email, like replying by chat. If you've received an email and notice that the sender is online (by seeing the little green dot next to his or her name in the conversation), you can click the button "reply by chat." What's particularly convenient about this is that the chat will be archived as part of the email thread to which you replied. I like this most because it means when I search for anything related to that thread, I find the chat transcript alongside all the relevant email messages. 
6. Gmail for mobile application It wasn't that long ago that my cellphone could barely handle sending text messages. I didn't used to think of it as being an efficient place to access my email. That's changed — big time. Email has become one of my primary forms of communication when on the go. Unfortunately, on a lot of phones, dealing with email can still be a pretty annoying experience, especially if you're not using a device like a PDA. Enter Gmail for mobile. It's fast, it syncs with your online account, and it gives you virtually all of the same Gmail functionality like search, filters, and access to your whole archive of mail.
5. Smart links on the right When you get an email that references an address, look to the right and you'll probably see a link from Gmail pointing you to a map of the address on Google Maps. Gmail also recognizes email text that refers to an event (e.g., 'dinner tomorrow at 8pm'), and will give you a link to add it to your calendar. It'll even pick up on package tracking numbers from UPS and link you directly to the tracking page, so you don't have to copy and paste the number. I really like this last one when I order stuff online and want the instant gratification of knowing a package is on its way.
4. Conversation update notification It can be really annoying to write up a whole response to an email and click send — only to discover that someone else has already responded. Gmail has a little feature that helps solve this problem. When you're replying to (or reading) a conversation, and someone else replies, a small notification window pops up to let you know. I sometimes think of it as the "prevent embarrassment" notification. Plus, it can save a lot of time by avoiding the series of follow-up emails needed to clear up the confusion. 
3. Advanced search Most people know that searching your archive is a huge part of what makes Gmail useful. But there are a few search features that you may not know about, which can be really handy. For instance, if I want to narrow down my search to only messages sent from Kevin, I can just add "from: Kevin" to the query. You can even search only for messages with attachments by including "has: attachments," or narrow by date with "after:" and "before:" Check out this whole list of advanced search operators.
2. Offline chat Offline chat is another feature which makes chatting in the context of your email particularly useful. When you're chatting with a friend and they suddenly go offline, you can keep sending IMs and your friends will receive your messages the next time they open Gmail. The chat will show up as a new item in their inbox. And, of course, if you're still online, your friend can go ahead and reply by chat.
1. Create event Since I use Gmail and Google Calendar at work (through Google Apps), I'm constantly emailing people about meetings, and scheduling them on everyone's calendars. When I'm writing an email to set up an event, I can actually do it all from within Gmail by clicking the "Add event info" link below the subject line. Then choose the time and location for the meeting or party. When you send the email, the event details will be added to to your Google Calendar, and Gmail will send an invitation to the email recipients to add it to their calendars as well. 
Here are some little-known ways to use your Gmail address that can give you greater control over your inbox and save you some time and headache. When you choose a Gmail address, you actually get more than just "yourusername@gmail.com." Here are two different ways you can modify your Gmail address and still get your mail:
For me, the real value in being able to manipulate your email address is that it makes it really easy to filter on those variants. For example you could use hikingfan+bank@gmail.com when you sign up for online banking and then set up a filter to automatically star, archive or label emails addressed to hikingfan+bank. You can also use this when you register for a service and think they might share your information. For example, I added "+donation" when I gave money to a political organization once, and now when I see emails from other groups to that address, I know how they got it. Solution: filtered to auto-delete. ive it)."
When people speak about driving traffic through social networks, the first site that comes to mind is usually Digg. Digg’s popularity is obvious: as the numbers increase above the “digg it” button, the likelihood for increased traffic goes up as well. There is a plefora of information on the Internet on how an extremely popular link on Digg can bring you traffic and links.
A lot of people want to get their page on the Digg main page, but in terms of popularity of other online social mediums, it stops there. There are other means of getting good — perhaps better, when considering that it’s targeted — traffic, such as StumbleUpon.
StumbleUpon is highly personalized traffic based on your interests that is served to you when you are actively looking for new sites to discover. The service requires a download of a very easily-integrated toolbar that sits right under the Address bar on your browser. To begin using the service, you click on the “Stumble!” button on your toolbar, and you can rate a site with a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down sign. As sites are continually rated with a “thumbs up,” the page is served to more and more SU users.
The toolbar, which was recently updated with more eye-grabbing icons due to StumbleUpon’s continuous desire to improve the user experience, is shown below:
StumbleUpon also allows you to “discover” new sites. In your regular browsing experience, you might find a site that you think would interest other people. The “thumbs up” icon works for all sites, and that is how new sites get into the database of StumbleUpon pages that are served to the end user during their stumbling session. When you “thumbs up” your site and it hasn’t yet been submitted, you’ll see this window:
The URL is inherited by default, but you can personalize your initial submission with a title and the brief description of the page. You can then categorize this into any one of the categories listed and you can tag it with whatever appropriate tags would benefit your visitors. Once the site is in the system, people will begin stumbling and learning more about the site you submitted.
How can you leverage your StumbleUpon influence to get your submissions noticed?
Why should you look at into directing StumbleUpon traffic to your site? Beyond the obvious benefits of extremely targeted traffic, the traffic doesn’t come all at once compared to a site like Digg. There’s the inherent benefit of having that “15 minutes of fame” on Digg until it crashes your server. StumbleUpon traffic is generally much more gradual. In one particular example,