Click for the full size and enjoy!

I haven’t actually tried it but from reports it can be a bit awkward, as you still have to banish your android keyboard before initiating the search. Doesn’t sound so bad to me . Anyway here’s the official video:

A fair amount of thought went into choosing the name before we started, and we concluded that Site Optimizer is a great company name and potentially a very good brand. One big factor in this was the fact that Google spells the name of its A/B Multivariate testing tool “Google Website Optimizer.”

Now a while ago I commented on an article by Patrick Altoft that says Google is trying to change the English language, and mentioned our company name. Someone called “Starstruck” replied thus:

“This is only my opinion, but I think you’ve made an extremely poor decision. If I say to someone on the phone “I was thinking of using site optimiser dot co dot uk” whoever on the other end is going to type in the UK spelling and you’ve just spent brand building money sending traffic to a domain you don’t even own…

I also own a UK spelling site (searchengineoptimisation.org) without owning the Z, but given I own the correct spelling I am more than willing to give up the dyslexics and stupid, to ensure I rank well for “search engine optimisation” 

I don’t think a wrongly spelled word in your business name gives off a good impression at all. There is only a downside, with very little to gain from doing it. Not like there is going to be much search traffic for “site optimizer” in UK I’m guessing…”

Now our friend Starstruck obviously has a very strong view on the issue.  I would be naturally inclined to disagree, as we do get UK traffic from search terms spelled in the US fashion, and the people we have come into contact with as a result have not been stupid at all. However, two questions remain:

1. Is the eminent Patrick right? Does Google have so much influence that we will all end up spelling like our cousins over the pond?

2. Should we have gone with a different spelling for the company name?

What do you think?

You can also filter these results using advanced segments, so you can check clik through rates by different traffic type, say natural search traffic versus PPC. Check Google’s Vid below to see more.

I’m not sure whether this will replace traditional heatmap tools like Clicktale for some things, but a good start.

You can also check their original blog on In-page Analytics here.

Now, when you target mobile devices you can set this up. At the moment the system will only show two lines of links, as you can see below from Google’s example:

However, with the limited ad space allowed for the firstspots on mobile ads, these could potentially make a huge difference to click through rates on these ads. Some careful thinking on what these links should be could really pay off.

If you are going to set these up, some intelligence on what search kewords mobile users are entering, plus analysis on what mobile users’ needs from your site are will mean the difference between an ok ad, and one that performs exceptionally well.

Read more on the Adwords Blog here.

The UI was simple, it was easy and quick to get groups of nice juicy keywords out of it, and although I do use paid keyword tools like Wordtracker et al, I used the old free tool from Adwords a lot to start off keyword research. When the new version beta came in, I still clicked on the “old interface” link and used it. (I wonder whether the Adwords team ever tracked clicks on this link or usage of teh old tool in comparison).

Now that the new interface is out of beta, Google have scrapped the old version, and I’m not the only one who isn’t happy by the looks of things.

For the moment we don’t have much choice but to go with the new interface or move to some other tool. I’ll be sticking with it for the moment, as I do like the fact that the search results are now Google search only, rather than including search partners. this seems more logical.

Time will tell whether this update is superior, but hopefully the Adwords team will keep developing and maybe give access back to the old interface as well… Pretty please?

The tool shows useful stuff like whether data is actually being currently collected, whether the API is working and so forth. You can even sign up for an RSS Feed of the info.

Go check out the page here: http://www.google.com/analytics/status#hl=en_GB

This report covers 100 of their products and is ostensibly a report for their internal teams to prove the products’ pages with a whole bunch of best practise optimizations. In the course of this, what they are in fact doing is giving the reader a nice guide in basic SEO.

For those of you who are familiar with SEO, I doubt much of it will be new, but this is a move on Google’s part to acknowledge the fact that it is in their interests to have quality sites presented to their algorythm properly.

There are also some good reminders about various Google features such as being able to use Webmaster Tools to geotarget certain domains, subdomains and directories.

Check out the report card here:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/03/googles-seo-report-card.html

http://www.slideshare.net/insightr/insightr-insite-comparing-free-analytics-visual

Interestingly, insightr rates Yahoo 78.8% to Google’s 52.7%, with the rating being on features and support.

As someone who at the mooment uses Google Analytics on a daily basis, the points that really stood out to me are:

• Google Analytics only integrates with Adwords and Adsense, whereas Yahoo API integrates with Adwords, MSN Adcenter (Bing) and of course Yahoo Ads.
• Yahoo allows 10 definable campaign parameters to Google’s 5.
• Yahoo offers basket and cart abandonment stats whereas Google doesn’t.
• It looks like Yahoo provides some basic user metrics info which is fed from their user registration database, which could be interesting.

There are a whole load of other differences, but the above have prompted me to apply for a Yahoo Web Analytics account, which I’ll test on one of my own affiliate sites.

I foresee Yahoo being a possible alternative option for agencies and companies currently using Google Analytics, or a paid analytics application, so this could be an option we offer to relevant agency clients who would benefit from the differing features.

If anybody has experience of the two different systems and can offer a comparison, please do comment.