Depending on who you speak to, some people will entice you with the ‘dark art’ of obtaining quality visitors through Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Others will say that paid search in the right hands is like watching a skilled surgeon at work. Others may say that getting a life should be a high priority for the first two groups. 

Fortunately, I get paid for doing both so I have no axe to grind! In my opinion, both are useful and complementary: paid search is quick and precise, SEO takes longer but you are building inherent value into your website. Here’s my extended list :
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Google AdWords quality score is not the most exciting subject but it’s important to understand. Why? Because if a keyword you’re bidding on has a high quality score, you’ll be paying less for clicks on your adverts and it is likely to get a better advert position or Ad Rank. The formula for Ad Rank that Google uses should make this clear:
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Nobody likes to receive a begging email, so my apologies to my Google Account manager: within minutes of hearing about the new ‘must have’ features being rolled out in Google Analytics, he got one from me. Surely it was just an oversight that I hadn’t been personally invited onto the beta programme? Fortunately he took pity…

Anyway, what’s new? Well, Google is clearly gunning after the big guys with lots of ‘enterprise-class’ messaging being slung around.  To be fair, they have added some very nice (and some would say, overdue) features that you would expect from a top-end analytics package. Fingers crossed they get around to adding more than 4 goals per profile soon!

I’ll do some future posts on the ‘how’ but for now, read on for a summary of the ‘what’.
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Well, about time. Somebody with a degree of sense (or a Degree in sense?) has decided that enough is enough: those nasty, hard-plastic cases (clamshells to those in manufacturing/retail) that encase your flash cards with carbonite-like security are on the way out. So too are the plastic-coated wire ties that restrain inanimate toys and waste so much of your kids’ Birthdays and Christmas mornings. Reduced anger levels and good eco-karma all in one. So who is the packaging white knight?
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