David Langdon

Amazon and the power of default choices

langdon — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 02:51:26 +0000

Amazon and the power of default choices

Estimates of Amazon’s revenues in the cloud IaaS market vary, but you could put it upwards of $1 billion and not
cause too much controversy. That’s a dominant market share, comprised heavily of early adopters but at this point, also drawing in the mainstream business — particularly the enterprise, which has become increasingly comfortable adopting Amazon services in a tactical manner. Today, Amazon’s weakness is the mid-market — and it’s clear from the revenue patterns, too, that Amazon’s competitors are mostly winning in the mid-market.

There are many, many other providers out there who are offering cloud IaaS, but Amazon is the brand that people know. They created this market; they have remained synonymous with it.

That means that for many organizations that are only now beginning to adopt cloud IaaS (i.e., traditional businesses that already run their own data centers), Amazon is the default choice. It’s the provider that everyone looks at because they’re big — and because they’re #1, they’re increasingly perceived as a safe choice. And because Amazon makes it superbly easy to sign up and get started (and get started for free, if you’re just monkeying around), there’s no reason not to give them a whirl.

Default choices are phenomenally powerful. (You can read any number of scientific papers and books about this.) Many businesses believe that they’ve got a low-risk project that they can toss on cloud IaaS and see what happens next. Or they’ve got an instant need and no time to review all the options, so they simply do something, because it’s better than not doing something (assuming that the organization is one in which people who get things done are not punished for not having filled out a form in triplicate first).

Default choices are often followed by inertia. Yeah, the company put a project on Amazon. It’s running fine, so people figure, why mess with it? They’ve got this larger internal private cloud story they’re working on, or this other larger cloud IaaS deal they’re working on, but… well, they figure, they can migrate stuff later. And it’s absolutely true that people can and do migrate, or in many cases, build a private cloud or add another cloud IaaS provider, but a high enough percentage of the time, whatever they stuck out there remains at Amazon, and possibly begins to accrete other stuff.

This is increasingly leaving the rest of the market trying to pry customers away from a provider they’re already using. It’s absolutely true that Amazon is not the ideal provider for all use cases. Customers who are experienced with Amazon are better educated about the cloud and their needs, and therefore become better consumers of their next cloud provider.

But it does not change the fact that Amazon has been working on conquering the market one developer at a time, and that in turn has become the bean-counters in business saying, hey, shouldn’t we be using these Amazon guys?

This is what every vendor wants: For the dude at the customer to be trying to explain to his boss why he’s not using them.

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David Langdon (905) 483-1100 – about me contact me

Google Algorithm Changes

langdon — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 02:34:49 +0000

Google Algorithm Changes

The past twelve to eighteen months has seen unprecedented change in the search engines but especially Google. We have seen algorithm changes like never before as Google continues to try and serve up the best results to users as possible.

Google has been rolling out additional algorithm updates including the recent Freshness Update whereby as Google states the new freshness algorithm “…better determines when to give you more up-to-date relevant results for these varying degrees of freshness.” The purpose of this update which is to prioritize “recent” & “timely” results. The goal is to surface more recently published content in the results relating to certain types of queries.

Just because you have visibility for in the top spot in Google today does not mean that you will have this visibility tomorrow (even if you have ranked number one for years). Organic search means that we are at the mercy of the algorithms, there are simply some things that are out of our control and we just have to let the algorithms run their course. However there are some things that you as online marketers, webmasters, site owners and SEOs can do to keep on top of the algorithm updates.

So what will you need to effectively drive your online and digital marketing efforts while dealing with search engine algorithm updates? Here are a few items that will help you prepare for current and future algorithm updates

1. Be aware of the algorithm updates – pay attention to when Google releases/announces an algorithm change or update. Google is getting better at communicating these announcements via their Inside Search [http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/] or Official Google Blogs [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/].

2. Create a Year-over-Year (YOY) Google Traffic Comparison – compare your monthly organic traffic in Google between 2010 and 2011. Was your site in fact impacted by Google algorithm changes? Or was this simply a result of your own site errors? Google tends (but not always) to release algorithm updates in the first quarter (Jan-Mar) and in October. Pay attention to your traffic trends in these months.

3. Clean up duplicate content – this is a problem with almost every site. Duplicate content can be caused indirectly where you may not even be aware that you have duplicate content on your site. Take inventory of your content and make intelligent decisions about how to syndicate your content. Look for future Google algorithms to be taking a harder look at duplicate content. Address this now so that you are not impacted in a negative manner later.

4. Work on improving usability and site engagement – create a site that people will not only want to visit, but will want to stay on once they arrive there. Create a site where people will want to share your content, link to your content and return to your content.

5. Create high quality content – forget about pushing out those lame articles just for the sake of adding content to your site. Create content that helps your site become the authority on your subject matter. Content is the secret to your success. More specifically highly engaging, high quality content will serve you well.

Google has been aggressive with their algorithm changes and updates. While we are all at the mercy of the mighty algorithms, we can take solace in the fact that if we produce high quality content and create a highly engaging site experience, regardless of Google algorithm changes, we will experience success in our digital and online efforts.

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When Was The Last Time You Did a Restore?

langdon — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 04:14:51 +0000

When Was The Last Time You Did a Restore?

Many organizations feel adequately secure having any sort of backup solution on hand – then something happens and they try and restore their data.

Many business owners think that they have a great backup and recovery process in place for their organization – that in the event of a data loss, they could easily and seamlessly restore their data. However often when these organizations try to restore they find out that although they did indeed have a backup process in place, the backups were either 1) failing 2) not providing sufficient protection for all their data or 3) they simply couldn’t restore the data they needed.

Despite what these owners thought, their backup and recovery process wasn’t protecting them. Unfortunately, they found out the hard way that it is not about the backup – it’s all about the recovery.

One of the leading mistakes an organization makes is considering recovery as part of their backup plan. This type of thinking is backwards. Backup should actually be treated as part of a bigger disaster recovery plan.

The most granular way to describe data recovery is the process of retrieving lost data from damaged, failed, corrupted or inaccessible secondary storage media when, for some reason, it cannot be accessed in the conventional way. Fortunately, thanks to data recovery technology, in most instances, data loss can be recovered… with the right tools.

Any backup and recovery solution is no good if it isn’t adequately maintained or checked on a regular basis. Organizations change over time, and whether you’re conducting backup and recovery yourself, or relying on an outside resource, the backup and recovery process needs to adapt to meet those changing needs. Data backup is an insurance plan, and with any insurance plan, you are looking to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. But it isn’t enough to just have an insurance plan; you need a recovery plan as well. Unfortunately, many people are not that concerned about the recovery plan until it is too late. The focus has always been on data backup instead of on the reason WHY to backup data – to recover and restore the data when needed.

Without ensuring you can successfully restore your data with your current backup solution, you are essentially ignoring the risks involved with data loss, instead of mitigating it. Organizations that play with fire eventually get burned.

Don’t be one of the ones that can’t recover. To ensure you can recover, ask yourself the following:

- Can you ensure data integrity by checking for corrupt data?
- Can you run a restore simulation to ensure data restorability?
- When was the last time you verified that all aspects of your data protection are in place and being met?

If it has been a while, maybe today would be a good day to try a restore, before you find yourself in a tight spot.

Ensure that you have a data protection strategy with the proven ability to recover. It isn’t about the backup…it’s about the ability to recover that’s vital!

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Understanding the importance of social Media

langdon — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 03:49:02 +0000

Understanding the importance of social Media

In the last 24 hours, over 900,000 new blog posts were written – a majority of them about product or service information, idle chatter, or personal experiences with companies and their employees. In fact, by the time you finish this paragraph, two new blog sites will be created. Blogs (short for web-log) are just one part of the 21st century’s online conversation. This conversation includes an array of networking tools, blogs, bookmarking sites, and other social media resources.

It is part of what’s known as “Web 2.0,” a term that describes new ways people learn and interactively share information through the Internet. These online conversations are fast, expansive, and crucial to be a part of, and if you are like most compliance professionals, you are neither aware nor involved enough.

Compliance professionals need to recognize the importance of social media, learn how employees are involved in the Web 2.0 world, and become authorities in using social media to shape the conversation and live in a new world of communication

Understanding the importance of social media: Every survey and best-practice guideline emphasizes effective communication as central to a successful compliance program. If you are part of a company with a young workforce, you already know that a lot of communication takes place through Web 2.0 resources – and in order to be part of the communication, a successful compliance program has to get involved.

This is especially true in light of the major demographic shift ahead. A large percentage of the Baby Boomers will be eligible for retirement in the next five years, and many will be replaced by some of the 75 million Generation Y “Millennials.”

For many Millennials (people born between 1979 and 1995), technologies like computers and cell phones have been a normal part of growing up. Social media is second nature to this group, and just as the Boomers transformed society, so will the Millennials.

As a result, many companies have started testing the social media waters. Social networking sites similar to FaceBook and LinkedIn, video sharing sites resembling YouTube, and company knowledge resources modeled after Wikipedia are starting to appear within companies, allowing their employees to easily share information. Many of these contain interesting ideas that are useful to compliance professionals.

If these ideas have piqued your interest, start by establishing a presence on a networking site like LinkedIn. Try joining Technorati to get a better sense for what professionals are writing about your company in blogs. Sign up for Google Alerts so you receive e-mail summaries of blog and web updates on any topic. Yahoo! Answers is an Internet reference site where users can ask and answer questions, and the micro-blogging site Twitter can help you connect with other professionals who are experimenting with social media. Armed with a better perspective, you can join the social media conversation.

Look before you leap. You need a strategy before beginning your own social media experiments. Find out how your employees are engaged online. Conduct a survey, or frankly, just ask around, to find out how your employees are communicating in the Web 2.0 world. Their conversations could potentially concern ethics and compliance topics. Once you understand where the conversation is happening, you can get creative about helping make sure employees are finding the right compliance knowledge when they need it.

When you join the social media conversation, you cannot assume your message will be heard simply because of your role in the organization – it is the value of your content that is more important. Employees are increasingly suspicious of company authorities, and the recent Edelman Trust Barometer confirms that people trust their peers more than traditional authorities. Because social media revolves around peer-to-peer conversation, to get your message across, you must listen, communicate as a peer, and be an authority in fact, not just in title.

Some leading organizations such as Deloitte are embracing social media. For example Deloitte has created an internal social networking site, D Street, where all 46,000 employees can share information about themselves, keep up to date with other employees, or search for people based on keywords or interests. Through this online networking resource, Deloitte is trying to make a big company small; to gain more communication, closeness, and comfort in who employees are.

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David Langdon (905) 483-1100 – about me contact me

Amazon – Virtual Private Cloud

langdon — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 04:42:06 +0000

Amazon – Virtual Private Cloud

The issues with cloud computing at this point include security, performance, costs, service and vendor viability. Security will be a leading concern for the foreseeable future, but for users who have adopted the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), the cloud has just gotten a little safer.

Most experts agree that the cloud is poised for considerable growth, but customers worry about how their data is stored. Who might have access to it, and can it be read while it is in transit? As is the case in most data transfer scenarios, encryption is one of the best answers.

Amazon has developed two significant features to ease security concerns, targeting the enterprise market. The first helps to address protecting data to and from the cloud. The Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) allows organizations to establish a private cloud using an industry-accepted standard. Organizations set up a virtual environment using Amazon’s infrastructure and then simply connect to it using a VPN.

The second feature allows organizations to use multi-factor authentication. EC2 cloud customers are being offered a USB device that generates a single-use code to connect to the cloud securely. The device combines something you know, like a password, with something you have, the USB device.

Amazon is setting the bar high by continuing to add features to make the cloud safer.

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David Langdon (905) 483-1100 – about me contact me

Building a Mobile App Is Not a Mobile Strategy

langdon — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 05:11:03 +0000

Building a Mobile App Is Not a Mobile Strategy

Everyone wants their own mobile application. In the last year. In fact, mobile analytics firm Distimo claims 91 of the top 100 brands have their own mobile app (up from 51 just 18 months ago).

On the surface this sounds great, right? I can use my big brand name to get people to install my application, and then I can market to them via the palm of their hand whenever I want. If you’re a big brand, I have no doubt you will get a ton of downloads. But downloads are a vanity metric; they don’t measure success.

Most brands treat their mobile applications as an advertisement. No one wants to download an ad. No one will use or keep form-fitted cookie cutter application’s that do not provide any solution or bring value for users. Do not be tempted to just push your brand and advertising, instead think about what problem you can solve; what value you can add or what solution that you can deliver.

Building a mobile strategy is more than just having your own application. It means working with third-party mobile apps, mobile ad networks, and using offline marketing to drive further use in mobile.

Here are four things to remember as you consider a mobile strategy — and some reasons why you should expand your mobile strategy past just your mobile app.

You don’t launch a television station so you can market your brand on television. Imagine you’re Dr. Pepper. You want to make sure that everyone knows about your new Dr. Pepper 10 soda. Do you launch Dr. Pepper TV? No! You find television networks and more specifically programs that can reach your relevant consumers. Why? Because even if you did launch your own TV network, it doesn’t mean people are going to watch it. Don’t build an app just to get downloads; build something people will actually use.
Building a mediocre app is just as bad as selling a mediocre product. The power of mobile is that you can interact with a consumer at any moment. However, would you want someone buying your new cereal if it tasted bad? No! They would never buy it again. So why would you want them to download a mediocre mobile app? It will not end in the desired result.
In addition to development of your own mobile application, leverage 3^rd party applications to expand your reach. For instance, P&G sponsored a third-party bathroom finder app called ”Sit or Squat” to reach Charmin users. Can a toilet paper brand find anything more targeted than this? There are successful third-party mobile apps that can reach your users better than you can. Embrace them.
Building your own app is not the only way to reach your consumers. Some people are going to use your app, and others are going to want to use third-party ones. It’s like having a website. Just because you have your own destination doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use other channels to build relationships with your customers. United allows Expedia to sell tickets, even though you can book on United.com.

My advice is this: It’s ok to have your own app, but your entire mobile marketing strategy should not stop at building one. But if you are going to invest in your own app, make it something that you would want to use. Remember No one wants to download an ad.

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A Closer Look At Local Search Ranking Factors

langdon — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 04:07:33 +0000

A Closer Look At Local Search Ranking Factors

Does SEO make a difference?

Traditional on-page SEO typically ranks behind a verified Local Business Listing, off-page and off-listing criteria, and reviews.

Think about some of the leading businesses you see ranking in local search results, even in some of the more competitive industries. In many cases, restaurants ranking at the top of the list have poorly-optimized or even all-Flash websites. Large chain hotels frequently rank with location-page URLs that are buried within parent site architecture.

In both of these cases, and countless others, different factors seem to outweigh the strength of an individual website or web page. For instance, restaurants may have powerful profiles on places like YP, Yelp or UrbanSpoon; hotels may have really great reviews on TripAdvisor. Both are likely presenting a very strong signal among the traditional data providers (more on them below).

It remains critical to think about Local as its own entity within a broader SEO framework.

Location, Location, Location

Having a location in the city being searched for was identified as the single most important ranking factor. For moms-and-pops who have been around for years, there’s not a lot to do in “optimizing” a location. New businesses, however, may want to consider this as part of their decision on where to lease or buy space. In a larger metro area, it’s likely that being inside the city limits of a major city will bring you more online traffic.

While distance from city centroid seems to be on the decline as a factor, the dominance of location in the algorithm presents a major problem for service-based businesses such as carpet cleaners, roofers, or even insurance agents who frequently visit their clients, rather than the other way around.

To date, the most popular way around this problem is a gray-hat tactic of reserving a PO Box or UPS Store address in the cities in which you want to rank, but the effectiveness of this technique seems to be on the decline. All of the map spam we’ve seen in the Locksmith industry is closely tied to this facet of the algorithm, though they are taking it one step further by claiming listings of legitimate businesses and changing them to suit their needs.

Going forward, it would seem that Google would need to adjust its algorithm to account for businesses in certain service verticals if it truly wants to address some of these problems. It’s less clear (to me, anyway), what Bing/Yahoo have up their sleeves in this area.

Clean data counts

The second most important ranking factor is that it’s essential to send the local search engines a strong signal about your business’ name, location, and contact information. This means a proactive effort to make sure that this information is consistent and prominent across as many of these portals as possible.

Know who you are

Proper categorization remained one of the most important factors. The interaction of category with search phrase is important!

As we move more and more towards keyword-based directories, categories may matter less. However, this remains one of the key qualitative distinctions between Local search and traditional search. Local is about businesses and locations whereas search is about websites. Categories are still going to have relevance as a meta-indicator of the relevance of a business for quite awhile. Custom categories may start to play more of a role, for those businesses that don’t fit neatly into traditional verticals.

It’s a solidly white hat tactic to place yourself in as many relevant categories as possible. Google explicitly discourages irrelevant categories, however, perhaps because they recognize the contribution of marginal categories to their Locksmith map-jacking problem. These nefarious companies often show up for hotels, restaurants, or other popular searches.

Word-of-mouth

Reviews continue to gain in importance, but are not used as a factor in the Google Maps algorithm.

Google has a long way to go here, and may be one of the reasons they are/were so interested in the technology behind Twitter as a measure of sentiment. Bing Local has incorporated some of this technology in their recent rollout, but only in certain verticals with tons of UGC information, like restaurants. Going forward, we may see trusted sources like BBB and Judy’s Book start to protect their content to remain vital independent players in the Local search space.

The importance of a deep LBC profile seems to be on the rise. Google wants a rich user experience to try to compete with the Yelps, UrbanSpoons, Judys Books, and other vertical portals which could take market share away from them in the future.

To that end, they’ve introduced an explicit percentage complete score within their recent LBC Analytics rollout. I encourage people to click that link and see just what a dominant role photos and videos play in Google’s LBC score (greater than 25%!). Local Search marketers were all over this one, even before the Analytics rollout-videos and photos were both two of the “more helpful than in 2008″ ranking factors.

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Bringing out the best in people

langdon — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 03:01:28 +0000

Bringing out the best in people

Have you ever experienced the feeling, the rush, and the passion of being part of a winning team that is contributing and aligned to the organization’s vision, values and goals? There’s a buzz of enthusiasm, creativity, energy, camaraderie, teamwork and above all a real sense of purpose. How do leading organizations such as Toyota expect their employees to go beyond what they are told and be creative in building quality into the process. At the very core of their philosophy is empowerment; the astounding creativity, productivity and profitability that erupts when leaders are willing to be wholly committed to empowering their employees.

So how do great leaders bring out the best in their people? After all, business is all about making money, right? It’s about speed, bottom line, efficiency, cost, etc. Who can argue with that? However, equally true and vital for long term, sustainable results are direction, vision, principles, purpose and effectiveness. In other words it’s about people and leadership. From my professional experience and from mentoring that I received throughout my career, bringing out the best in people is accomplished through a journey of vision, clarity, transparency, creativity and recognition. mentoring

Creating a vision. The vision connects what customers care about to what the organization is passionate about giving. Great leaders empower people to discover something the organization can be great at, something the organization can be passionate about and something the organization should focus on to maximize profitability. The vision is a view of what can be and what will be. The key is linking the vision to an inspiring, motivating direction and purpose shared by all who are involved. Involving the team to answer the questions … how will we get there? what will we do when we get there? how will we act while we get there? is a great way to gain commitment and it directly affects how organizations secure buy-in to achieve its mission.

Creating organizational clarity. Ensuring that the whole system is working together and supporting the vision. This isn’t about slogans on the wall or flavour of the month vision statements. It is about leadership that fundamentally agrees on the core values, structure, people, processes, goals, metrics, communication, decisions, rewards, and concepts that drive the vision. It is about leaders that walk the talk and constantly model and reinforce what is important to the organization. Organizational clarity provides employees at all levels with a common understanding, vocabulary and more importantly, it empowers teams with a true sense of autonomy and confidence.

Cascading the message. An environment of transparency is critical. Information flows and cascades repeatedly and simplistically throughout the organization so that all employees within every department remain aware, engaged, involved and committed. Goals and metrics that support the vision are communicated throughout the organization in various mediums, from daily departmental meetings to structured Town Hall meetings. Smaller group meetings are held throughout the organization to solve problems or come up with continuous improvement ideas. With this, employees share a common purpose and direction, know where the company is going and more importantly, know how they contribute to the success of the organization.

Unleashing the creativity. No matter the industry, give your teams the leadership they need to get started; a goal, a timetable and let them get to it. The engagement, input and accountability of your teams is invaluable to drive the overall vision and the goals that support it. You will be amazed at the level of talent, ability, creativity and enthusiasm that is inherent in your teams. It is up to leadership to be patient, and to believe in the potential of their people. Different people develop at different rates and the best leaders are always on the lookout for hidden capacities.

Reinforcing and recognizing. Create systems and procedures that reinforce the behavioural model valued by the organization. This includes the hiring process, the succession planning process, the performance appraisal process, the performance management process and the recognition process. Celebrate successes, take time to recognize the achievements and reinforce the vision constantly. The true value of bringing out the best in people is accelerated when the whole system is aligned to the vision. In other words, common purpose, common direction, common values and leadership that walks the talk consistently, everyday.

So how did Toyota rise from humble beginnings to a thriving global giant? . Toyota’s amazing twenty five year run was achieved by respecting their people and by maintaining a focus on a business structure that encourages every employee to be actively engaged to pursue the organization’s vision and goals. This is why Toyota not only produces great cars, but also great leaders. Toyota’s management philosophy is focussed on maximizing the strengths of their employees instead of criticizing their weaknesses. Toyota leadership expect their employees to go beyond what they are told and be creative in building quality into the process.

Bringing out the best in people is, without a doubt, the competitive edge for sustainable long term results of successful organizations.

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To Cloud or not to Cloud

langdon — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 05:29:53 +0000

CLD306 -To Cloud or not to Cloud (aka To Azure or not to Azure)

This is a copy of the presentation made by David Langdon at Microsoft Tech Days

To Cloud or Not to Cloud…that is the question. Are you an IT Administrator, IT Service Provider, or ISV faced with making a strategic decision about cloud adoption? Are you overwhelmed by all the cloud jargon and implementation choices? In this session, we will examine public and private cloud computing solutions across the industry, in the context of the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) definition. We’ll look at the technical and business elements that factor into the private/public/hybrid cloud decision. We’ll discuss the strengths of the Microsoft platform, focusing on Windows Azure and virtualization with Hyper-V. This session will include a case study of a 13-year managed service provider that made the decision to offer a public cloud solution on Windows Azure, and a live demo of the resulting solution.

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10 Must Track Google Analytics Goals

langdon — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 04:29:51 +0000

Top 10 Google Analytics Goals

Visitors per is important provided the analytic tool is accurate – visitors/repeat visitors can also be misleading since a single IP can represent multiple people. Be sure not to focus on the raw hits numbers unless your analytic tool allows you to omit images, js, css etc files from the hit count – if it does, the hits count can actually indicate something, should be similar in number to “visits.” The actual number isn’t as important as trends!

Something to watch for is the correlation between other media/press releases and the number of visitors – e.g., when you use Twitter (tweet) a blog post and see a corresponding increase in visitors — or TV ad which mentions your URL This can be a big indication of ROI on your time and money in your cross promotions, You are doing cross promotions right?

Conversion actions if trackable are real important - A goal of +2% indicates a successful site (ROI and all). If you are not providing ways for user interaction you can not determine ROI – and you have to first determine what kind of return you want, actual sales, customer satisfaction, etc. That would determine the type of user interaction you will want to track, just don’t try to track too many things all at once initially.

A good analytic tool should provide you with data regarding search engine crawls – you want to see frequent crawls and complete crawls, i.e., more than just your home page is being hit by the bots. If you don’t see frequent visits by the bots, you need to work on that seriously.

Time on site can be very misleading, I have seen some very skewed data here.

A good analytic tool will also provide you with data regarding keywords, which ones people are using to find you. It helps especially when one wants to jump into the pool of ad words. It also helps to see what areas you may need to focus on in getting better content on your site that mentions those keywords that aren’t being found. Do not use keywords that were not being used by people looking for them! Think like the end user, not like the site owner.

The definition of Google Analytics goals has always been clear to me – a means to measure business objectives, reports and improve on them. Google Analytics has transformed itself over the years from a ‘nice to have’ analytics software to a ‘must have’ analytics software so providing you agree with my definition of Google analytics goals, you’ll understand that they go way beyond tracking a sales funnel.

Before you start tracking, you’ll notice that Google Analytics allows tracking of up to four goals. Therefore to track more goals, you’ll need to set a duplicate profile and you might also find it useful to add a date next to the goal name.

Top 10 Must Track Google Analytics Goals:

Track Comments – This neat analytics goal is great for websites offering blog functionality and gets more users engaged in the conversation. You’ll need to track two main actions, ‘submit your comment’ and ‘post your comment’. In order to set the goal, you’ll need to track onclick events by setting up a virtual page view (a page that doesn’t actually exist – such as the ‘post your comment’ button) and link this virtual page view to a goal in Analytics.

Track Social Bookmarking Actions – If you’re offering some sort of social bookmarking buttons on your site, wouldn’t be great to know if it’s working and whether users are actually clicking on the widget. Using Google Analytics tracking clicks on outbound links is quite easy to achieve this goal. First you’ll need to tag the link itself by tweaking the GA tracking code and adding /outgoing/ then set the goal page as /outgoing/.* using regex match)

If you’re using Addtoany.com for example, you’ll need to set the goal to head match /addtoany.com/services/(or regex match goal as /addtoany.com/services/.*). If you’re offering an internal email this page’s functionality, simply add the email sent confirmation message URL as the goal.

Track Newsletter Subscriptions – I know, you’re not supposed to have favourites, however this one is one of mine because its easy to place a goal value next to each successful subscription. The first stage is to start tagging your email campaigns using Google URL builder to get a better understanding of how much revenue this channel brings in and what its conversion rate is. Once you have this information (which is optional of course) you can set up the goal together with its value.

Track Catalogue Request – Similar to tracking newsletter subscriptions, catalogue request has been known to convert 10 times better than PPC traffic so you’ll understand why tracking and optimising the catalogue request funnel is imperative for your business.
Track New Account Openings – Use this goal to understand how many users go from opening an account to completing their order and to see how difficult you are making it to open an account. You’ll find by analyzing the account opening funnel that removing some of the requirements fields (i.e. do you really need my phone number now?) will help improve the goal conversion rate. Another classic mistake is having a captcha form which is too difficult to complete.

Track Feed Subscriptions- Using the very handy trackPageview tag again, you’ll need to create a ‘goal’ page and update the feed link on the blog or website. The goal page should look something like onclick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(’/page/rss.html’);” Once the tag is up to date and assigned to the RSS link create a goal using head match.

Track File Downloads – Google Analytics offers an easy way to track clicks on links that lead to file downloads. Great for tracking PDF, MP3 etc using . For more information visit Google help resource for tracking downloads.

Track Call Back Requests – In most call back widgets I’ve seen there are two pages, ‘request a call’ and ‘confirmation’. Using head match it’s straight forward to set a goal. If your business tracks revenue by phone orders, you can add a goal value as well. I like this goal because it really illustrates the link between call centres and website sales and how they are all connected.

Track Leads – If you are selling online or making a living from the online world you simply have to track and improve on your lead tracking.

Track Sales – Despite leaving this goal until the end, it is by far the most important goal for any online retailer. My recommendation when setting this goal is to include every step a user might take to better understand where to improve. If you’re asking what conversion rate you should be looking to achieve, Amazon are converting at 17%+ and some of my clients exceed this however granted the issue is more complicated and would probably need couple of blog posts to explain
Bonus: track website user reviews - I am a big fan of user generated content and reviews in particular. I have seen reviews helping to increase a product conversion and these days online retailers are starting to accept reviews whether negative or positive as helping their business.One of the best features in Google Analytics is the ability to set up goals and analysing the goal funnel understand how to improve the user experience and website offer. The first goal website owners seem to create is a sales conversion goal, though there are many other important website engagements you might want to track, understand and optimise.

Which goals do you track?

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5 Tips to Measure Social Media Performance

langdon — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 23:37:32 +0000

5 Tips to Measure Social Media Marketing Performance

Social Media is becoming one of the most important online marketing tactic. More and more companies jump into social network marketing field to promote their brand or product, and they brought huge amount of marketing dollar in as well. Since all marketing investment need to be evaluated returns, the question comes up: how to measure the performance of social media marketing?

I would like to share some tips about social media marketing performance measuring:

1. Impression. It’s not as easy as banner Ad to figure how many times of your page have been impressed, but you can still consider below points as performance evaluating:

How many Social Networking platform have you registered?
How many connections/followers does you company have?
How many groups has your company joined as a member?
How many discussions has your compant you company participated in ?

2. Traffic. One major purpose of social media marketing is to drive traffic to website, it’s all free and can be tracked clearly. If you are selling advertise on your website as well, use CPM (Cost per Mil) to calculate the ROI of social media performance.

3. Shares. People on social network platform do love to share their ideas and links with friends. They submit website links & content to major platforms, when they think either interesting or informative. It’s been called ‘word of mouth online’. So consider below 2 points on social media marketing shares:

How many of your website / pages have been submit to digg, StumbleUpon, etc..?
How many of your company name or product name has been mentioned over twitter, facebook, Linkedin?

4. Contacts acquisition. Acquire new contacts is one of most important thing for online marketing. The normal way is like: ’subscription box’, ‘ask opt-in in online survey’ or ‘list buy’, and you can also leverage social media marketing to acquire new contacts. People come to social network platform is intend to make friends, so be friends with them, influence them in each update, convert them as your client. How many contacts you acquired from social platform is critical factor to measure social media marketing performance.

5. Revenue contribution. Check how much revenue the social media contribute is the most direct way to evaluate social media marketing performance. Embed tracking code for all the social network post links (hide them by short URL service, like TinyURL if you want). If you sell products online, it’s not hard to track how much social media contribute.

How’s your Social Media Marketing performance so far?

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My Triumph TR7

langdon — Sun, 29 May 2011 20:03:13 +0000

My Triumph TR7

This was my favorite Car that I owned.

1979 Triumph TR7 owned by David Langdon

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EVault for DPM – Virtual Edition / Hyper-V or VMware ESXi

langdon — Fri, 27 May 2011 04:23:24 +0000

EVault for DPM – Virtual Edition / Hyper-V or VMware ESXi

EVault for DPM is an all-in-one backup and recovery solution that combines Microsoft DPM’s unified data protection for Microsoft Windows servers and applications with EVault’s robust protection for Linux, VMware, IBM i, IBM AIX, HP-UX, Sun Solaris, Novell Netware, and Oracle databases. Customers have the option to securely and efficiently transfer all backup data, regardless of platform and application, over the wire to the EVault Cloud for off-site disaster recovery protection.

Two Deployment Options

EVault for DPM is an all-in-one backup and recovery appliance with software pre-installed on a tower or rack-mounted server with built-in storage. Truly simple, truly complete data protection from a single provider.

EVault for DPM Virtual Edition is a virtualized backup and recovery solution. Simply download the software-only product and get best-of-breed protection for your Microsoft and non-Microsoft platforms. EVault for DPM Virtual Edition can be deployed within Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware virtual environments

EVault for DPM Virtual Edition appeals to a broader range of businesses that have pre-existing investments in hardware or virtualized IT systems. To fit easily into an organization’s virtualization infrastructure, EVault for DPM Virtual Edition provides a choice of platforms – the product can be deployed within Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware ESXi virtual environments. Regardless of the host platform, EVault for DPM continues to provide the first and only heterogeneous disk-based data protection solution that allows IT managers to extend Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 across non-Microsoft platforms and into the Cloud, using i365’s EVault data protection software and Cloud-Connected storage solutions infrastructure.

EVault for DPM Unleashes DPM Across Platforms and Into the Cloud

Product Features

All-in-one solution
Intelligent, intuitive protection for Microsoft SharePoint
Windows + non-Windows platform and application support
Hyper-V + VMware support
Optimized cloud connectivity
Simple configuration and deployment
Built-in compression and deduplication

Try it for FREE

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How Ideas Spread

langdon — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 12:36:26 +0000

Social Media: How Ideas Spread

Why do some ideas quickly spread far and wide while others go nowhere at all?

Now that we are in the midst of a communication revolution, the problem of understanding how ideas spread has taken on greater significance. Some serious thinking has been done about it and important insights have been gained. It’s worth some time and effort to take a look.

The most obvious place to start is epidemics.

The SIR Model of Epidemics

The standard for studying epidemics is the SIR model, which has been around since 1927. Elaborations have been made since then, but the basic model is still applied not only to biological epidemics, but to computer viruses and communication as well.

The basics are simple and straightforward. The model has three stages: Susceptible, Infections and Recovery.

Susceptible: A susceptible population contributes to an epidemic. If there is poor nutrition, bad environmental factors or genetic predispositions, people are more likely to get sick. Along the same lines, cultural environment contributes to the spread of ideas. A great idea is one whose time has come.

Vaccines, anti-poverty programs and antivirus software are all examples of steps taken to limit susceptible populations.

Infectious: An infectious population transmits the disease. The degree to which it does so depends on both the nature of the disease and the structure of interactions in the population. For example, the Ebola virus is highly contagious, but has mainly been limited to isolated areas so epidemics have never spread very far.

Isolating the affected population and limiting the contagion through good sanitary conditions or medicine are both good strategies to limit infectiousness.

Recovery: Eventually, people get better or they die. When the recovered population begins to grow, the epidemic starts dying out.

The SIR model assumes that epidemics have a life-cycle. First the conditions for an epidemic set the stage and then people get infected. If the infection rate is above one, meaning that people get infected faster than they recover, a tipping point is reached and the epidemic grows, sometimes explosively.

Eventually, the population starts to recover and the epidemic ends. However, that can take a while. The Black Plague epidemic lasted for decades.

The Tipping Point

Malcom Gladwell popularized the notion of applying the principles of epidemics to the spread of ideas in his book The Tipping Point. Gladwell has his own three rules for epidemics:

The Power of Context: Similar to susceptibility in the SIR model, Gladwell gives some examples how environment plays a role in spreading ideas. For instance, he cites the role of cracking down on smaller crimes as a way to prevent bigger ones.

The Stickiness Factor: Just like some diseases are more contagious than others, some ideas hold greater sway over people.

The Power of the Few: Probably the most memorable part of Gladwell’s book is his taxonomy of influential people. For instance, “Mavens” are masters of information, “Connectors” know a lot of people and “Salespeople” are very powerful communicators.

Although popular, Gladwell’s book has come under some heavy criticism, notably from network theory pioneer, Duncan Watts and economist Steven Levitt.

Epidemics in a Networked World

One of the problems with the SIR model is that it doesn’t take into account the structure of populations. However, we know that the make up of a society is important for individual interactions.

Unlike Ebola, AIDS was concentrated in cities and quickly spread to a global pandemic. In the US, people on the coasts are more likely to share ideas with each other than they are with people in the center of the country. Increasingly the connections which spread ideas are not geographical.

An important facet of the structure of any network is that there are not only hubs and clusters, but ways to go around them. We have shortcuts that let us get from point to point more quickly. It is the fact that clusters mix in unpredictably ways that makes social networks work the way that they do. (See here for more about the forces that drive social networks).

The Power of the Many

Seen in the light of network structure, Gladwell’s “Power of the Few” concept begins to break down. Why focus exclusively on convincing a few influential people when there are so many people around them? After all, influential people are connected to many others that may be more open and easier to convince.

In effect, starting an epidemic is similar to a broadcast search. You are better off casting your net as widely as possible and reaching influential people as well as less influential ones. (See this article for more about broadcast and directed network searches)

Some paths will fail, but the more paths you initiate, the more likely that your idea will infect those who are susceptible to it. Just like delays at any airport can affect large hubs, influence can originate anywhere in social networks.

Ideas That Spread Themselves

It has long been known that people are influenced by others around them. Solomon Asch conducted experiments in the 1950’s that showed that people will give answers that they know to be false if every other person in their group gives the wrong answer. The majority doesn’t just rule, it converts.

Viral ideas are the holy grail of marketing. Why spend money on huge advertising campaigns when you can get people to spread your ideas for free? Unfortunately, it is very hard to get things to go viral and nearly impossible to do so with any predictability or consistency.

So you wouldn’t want to risk a major product launch on the slim chance that you might save your advertising budget; there’s too much at stake. Businesses don’t become successful by saving on marketing, they become successful by selling products.

In order for ideas to spread, you have to not only get people to believe in them, but you need a majority of people to believe in them (or at least a local majority).

That’s the problem with Gladwell’s view. He effectively assumes that the “influentials” that make up the “Power of the Few,” will be easier to convince than the masses. Ideas don’t exist in a vacuum, they spread through interactions. By focusing on just one element he excludes important opportunities.

Three Conditions for a Viral Idea

Susceptibility: Either the idea has to be very powerful or people who are predisposed need to come in contact with it. A great idea is one whose time has come!

This has been my experience in the media business. I’ve seen the same product launched the same way in different markets with much different results. A good product always does well eventually, but sometimes it can be an instant hit, and sometimes it takes a while.

Connectedness: The people who believe in the idea have to be able to interact with others. Even the powerful Ebola virus dies out in the African Jungle. Those infected are too far away from population centers to create a widespread epidemic.

Practically, this means you shouldn’t choose a target that is too broad, but also that demographic targeting can be misleading. For instance a young target group doesn’t mean anything unless they are young people who connect with each other.

Majority: Even healthy people can get sick in an epidemic and even skeptical people can be influenced by an idea that permeates their local environment.

Because clusters in a network are connected, they influence each other. It really isn’t all that important which people are influenced initially. One very active cluster can percolate through the entire network. The cluster doesn’t have to be central, just connected strongly enough to allow for interaction.

A majority doesn’t just rule, it convinces. A campaign must be big enough and sustained enough to build a majority in a local network. Once a local network cluster is self sustaining, they can spread the word.

A good example is Facebook, which was first limited to Harvard, then limited to university students and only then was able to conquer the world. If they started out as a social network for the general public, they probably wouldn’t have gained the momentum they needed.

Practical Marketing Implications

Through combining insights from network theory with the SIR model of epidemics, some practical steps can be taken to improve marketing campaigns.

Mass Media: Reaching a lot of people cheaply is the best way to reach the specific people you need. Which would you rather have, a client meeting or a presentation at a conference? At the conference, you will not only reach your prospect but also be able to influence others who can affect her decision.

Don’t Over-Target: Social Search research shows that combining a few general targeting parameters is enough for a message to reach its intended objective. Laser like focus can be less efficient and you lose the chance to reach people who can influence the target. You should build your target to suit your budget, but there’s no reason to exclude people if you don’t have to.

Encourage Word-of-Mouth: Social Media strategies are a great way to extend a marketing campaign, but not a replacement. To get the maximum effect, integration with Mass Media and other marketing communication is crucial.

The new socially networked world offers great opportunities to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of conventional marketing campaigns. However, the old standards of a powerful idea, efficient buying and good integration live on.

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