That’s revenue Google gets by focusing on the effectiveness of its advertising engine. “The Human Hands Behind the Google Money Machine” in today’s New York Times, shows the importance of analytics and how it is used by Google to drive revenue. The story reviews the genesis of the Googles AdWords program, five years ago when GoTo.com was acquired by Yahoo. GoTo was the first to pioneer advertising, but Google made a critical advance improving the system by actually looking at the click-throughs, not just what people were willing to bid for ads, that pushed Google ahead to stay. On the web it’s all based on metrics and analytics. At Duo we keep harping about analytics and how clients should benefit from studying what really go goes on with their sites – but few take advantage of that recommendation. The advantage there is there for those that do – and they are going to reap the rewards.
Robert Cringely has a great post this week, “The Truth About IT Consultants”. He talks about the general state of IT consulting, but I think it applies nicely to the web content management system world. As I read the article I grew concerned that this was just another trash the IT consultants rant until I came to this paragraph:
“The best consultants are the ones who come with a portfolio of products and tools. Their trick is to have a really good portfolio of stuff that really works, is really good, and can be sold and implemented quickly in a very cost-effective way. So it isn’t necessarily a bad thing at all when a consultant offers to sell you tools, as long as they are the right tools and the consultant really knows how to use them.”
Exactly what we are all about!
“We are outraged at the exemption BP has received from state environmental laws by Indiana state regulators threatening the efforts of the last 30 years to preserve and protect the Great Lakes, our region’s greatest natural resource.”
In a strongly worded letter, Timothy J. Mitchell, General Superintendent & CEO, Chicago Park District (CPD) used the power of email to rapidly and cost effectively galvanize the attention of tens of thousands of Chicagoans who live, work and play on the world’s largest body of fresh water. His urgent initiative on July 19, 2007 calling for a petition drive on July 21, 2007 to “Save our Lake,” came just a few days after Indiana’s actions.The incident is noteworthy not only for the rapid and decisive action in the face of an imminent environmental threat but that a massive public solicitation was enabled by email, permitting instant personal appeals to targeted Chicago citizenry.
Since the launch of its website, CPD has invited site visitors to subscribe to its newsletter. And they do by the scores everyday, resulting in a healthy and growing permission-based email list of residents interested in their city’s parks, recreational activities and environmental quality. It was this list that Tim Mitchell turned to mobilize action quite literally for taxpayer’s fractional pennies per contact.
When decisive government officials use technology effectively, the results can be, well, maybe we can Save Our Lake.
Are you a Chicago area resident? To start getting signatures in your neighborhood, click here to download a copy of the petition.
The day is finally upon us: Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 7 to the world. To put this in perspective, this is the first major browser update from Microsoft since August of 2001. In Internet time, that’s like a billion years. Currently available only via download, IE7 will be installed on all PCs running Windows as an automatic update on November 1.
The good news
Microsoft has added lots of new features including tabbed browsing, RSS detection, Shrink-to-Fit printing (finally) and some others which you can read about here. More importantly, IE7 does a much better job supporting web standards. Kudos to the IE7 team for working hard to improve a notoriously buggy browser.
The not-so-good news
Despite progress, IE’s support for standards has a ways to go. The rendering engine – that’s the bit that displays web sites in all their glory – is still lacking. In short, aspects of some sites across the Internet will appear ‘broken’ in IE7 until the new kinks have been worked out of the system.
At Duo, we’ve built standards-based sites since 2002, and have been following the development of IE 7 for some time. Since the final spec of what would and wouldn’t be fixed changed many times throughout the development of IE’s new browser, we took the approach of blocking our IE specific layout “hacks” from IE 7. We are now able to test against the public version of the browser, and will quickly find the issues that will require further “hacking.”
The better news
Most of the problems we’ve seen so far are fairly easily remedied. However, every site is a little different, which means we have a lot of testing to do.
Initial impressions: thumbs (cautiously) up
New browsers (most notably Firefox) have raised the level of standards support to new heights. IE is catching up, but as we’ve mentioned, they’ve still got ground to cover. Fortunately, they’re moving down the right path. We’re looking forward to coding fewer IE-specific styles, and to more uniform browser support for standards.
Duo will present
the next seminar in our Content Matters series, Building Functional
Websites, on October
17 at the Catalyst Ranch in Chicago. This time, we’re changing things to include
an afternoon of interactive breakouts covering our most popular and highly-requested topics:
Information Architecture and Online Marketing. The
breakouts will be lead by our team of experts consulting on your specific issues. This is your opportunity to ask those questions that have been
lingering in your mind, and possibly hindering you from taking that first step to getting your online project off the
ground. You will walk away with a plan that you can start to implement immediately.
We’re offering the full-day for $250 ($295 after
October 6). A great deal if you consider the fact that you’re getting specific
assistance and feedback with your specific issues! We have limited space available
for these sessions - so please register today.
I’ll be presenting with a panel of experts for Crain’s Small
Business Forum on Wed., Sept. 6. The topic, Doing the Web Smartly: Online Marketing, is obviously close to my
heart, as is the audience: small businesses. It’s important for all businesses,
big and small, to be proactive about their online marketing strategy. If you
are a small business and are interested in creating a site or incorporating
some new innovations into your online toolkit, this would be a great session to
attend.The panel also includes small business owners William Furlong of Search Channel, Brian Hand or ShopLocal and Melissa Giovagnoli of Networlding.
Topics include:
- Email best practices
- Lead generation
- Web-based marketing
- Timely, effective search engine keywords
- Webinars, blogs, e-newsletters – what works?
For more information or to register online, visit Crain’s website: http://www.ChicagoBusiness.com/Events.
Hope to see you there!
If you’re currently part of Google’s AdWords program, you should, well, check out Google Checkout.
An online wallet similar to Paypal, Google Checkout is designed to speed the process whereby an online shopper clicks on a Google ad and buys the product advertised.
Google is offering significantly discounted transaction fees for advertisers — upwards of 20% of advertising dollars spent. That translates into a low-cost shopping cart, easily integrated into your site if you’re already running Adwords. And if you’re not — well it’s just one more reason to consider joining the program.
Read more about Google Checkout here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/29/technology/29google.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
I wanted to point you to two quick reads in the area of Internet Marketing – specifically how businesses are using content to drive traffic to their site.
In TheirSpace.com, Allison Fass reviews how Fortune 500 companies such as Carnival and Coke have created online “hubs” for their users. MyCoke.com has 8 million registered users and 9,000 visitors a day, but shuts down between 2 a.m. and 10 a.m. to lock out users “not appropriate to their brand.” I believe these “community” sites need to provide real value to the users, like online support groups for those trying to lose weight offered by Kellogg’s and Jenny Craig. Read the whole Forbes article here.
I also enjoyed “Rise of the Lowly Search Ad” by Jon Fine in the latest Business Week (April 24 issue, not online yet). He reminds us that search ads rank “slightly above poorly Xeroxed Herbalife flyers stapled to a telephone pole.” Then he goes on to show how Honda is using low-cost keywords creatively to support the Element campaign. Using keyword terms like “platypus” which link to custom landing pages, this is a cost effective way to build your brand in the new digital world order. Read the whole Business Week article here (soon).
In my last post I gave some of the reasons for the buzz of Web 2.0. But what does it mean for you? It could save you a lot of money.
The Chicago Park District has been our client for many years. When we first started working with them they primarily needed help with site architecture and content management, and online registration was one of their requirements. After 5 years of growing over 40% annually, online registration for programs had become a major component of the functionality of the site – stretching our hosting capabilities and justifying the need for (considerable) additional equipment. So how could we increase throughput without increasing the size of the pipe (bandwidth)?
Web 2.0 gave us the answer through the development of an Ajax application for online registration. We also introduced a new layout and user flow, adding a “wish list” function to allow the user to select programs in advance. The wish list offers increased functionality and decreased server load on registration day.
So what were the results?
- 50% increase in throughput over last year. Thousands of classes were successfully purchased through the system – at the initial rate of nearly 500 registrations per minute!
- 10% decrease in bandwidth over last year.
- Decreased cart abandonment by 80%.
Because we were able to increase throughput without additional bandwidth, we saved tens of thousands of dollars in additional hosting costs – while creating a better experience for the user. That is just one example of how Web 2.0 can make a difference.
A number of our clients have recently discovered the power of web analytics. One company used a tool to track the number of downloads to a product on the day it launched. Another was able to determine whether or not use of a link on their site increased based on a small change they made to its appearance.
Everyone with a website should be setting goals for that site that are directly related to their business objectives. With the tools that are available today, this is relatively easy to develop a web analytics plan – the only challenge is actually putting this plan into action.
If you are one of the millions who are still learning about web analytics, our new whitepaper by Fred Salchli is a great primer. The paper provides specific definitions, examples and sites reference materials that are useful to anyone vested in your organization’s website. Click here to download the whitepaper, and look for more information on web analytics and the various tools available for measuring your website from Duo Consulting.
That’s revenue Google gets by focusing on the effectiveness of its advertising engine. “The Human Hands Behind the Google Money Machine” in today’s New York Times, shows the importance of analytics and how it is used by Google to drive revenue. The story reviews the genesis of the Googles AdWords program, five years ago when GoTo.com was acquired by Yahoo. GoTo was the first to pioneer advertising, but Google made a critical advance improving the system by actually looking at the click-throughs, not just what people were willing to bid for ads, that pushed Google ahead to stay. On the web it’s all based on metrics and analytics. At Duo we keep harping about analytics and how clients should benefit from studying what really go goes on with their sites – but few take advantage of that recommendation. The advantage there is there for those that do – and they are going to reap the rewards.
