Statistics for Facebook Ads have improved recently, but it’s useful to know what happens with visits once they visit your site.  Tracking Facebook Ads in Google Anaytics is a great way to do just that.  Did visitors purchase?  Did they browse around? Did they complete the intended action?

Steps to Track Facebook Ads in Google Anaytics

1. When designing your Facebook Ad, include a reference parameter at the end of the Destination URL, such as http://www.myurl.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=test

You can generate this URL at the Google Analytics URL Builder.

2. In Google Analytics set up an Advanced Segment

3. Create a new advanced segment

4. Customize the segment info

5. Select your Segment from the Dashboard to only see traffic stats from Facebook Ad traffic

What do you think?  Will this help you get more insight into Facebook Ad performance?

Related posts:

1. Facebook is More Like Google and Why Your Business Needs a FaceBook Page
2. 2009 Internet Marketing Trend #9 – Behavioral Analytics
3. Why Would I Want My Business on Facebook? Facebook Ads

Google PageRank Checker – Check Google page rank of any web pages.

How to increase your PageRank?  Well, that’s one of the great mysteries.  Here’s how Google explains it:

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important”.

Related posts:

1. Deep Links for Search Engine Optimization
2. Deep Links for Search Engine Optimization
3. How Search Engines Rank Web Pages

Listen or Download

Four advantages of Google Reader

1. Ability to track your industry by subscribing to popular blogs or RSS feeds that contain the latest news, trends and product information
2. Ability to share information with your social network via share button, shared custom Google Reader RSS feed or email link
3. Ability to save searches from Twitter to easily identify opportunity to engage with people asking for help on topics you understand
4. Ability to track mentions of you, your company, your brand or your products and service so you can jump in the conversation early and often.

How do you use Google Reader?  What other online tools do you use to accomplish these or similar tasks?

Related posts:

1. How Google Reader Can Simplify Your Life
2. 5 ways to leverage social media to better engage customers
3. Finding your Rhythm for Blogging, Social Media and Engaging Customers Online

By 2013, mobile phones could easily surpass PCs as the way most people hop onto the Web. Gartner’s statistics show that the total number of PCs will reach 1.78 billion in three years, while the number of smartphones and Web-enabled phones will shoot past 1.82 billion units and continue to climb after that. This trend will force more Web sites to revamp their pages to make them easier to surf on a mobile gadget.

via Smartphones to dominate PCs in Gartner forecast | Business Tech – CNET News.

Consider the following tactics to make your site mobile friendly:

• Create a mobile version of your website or if you’re using WordPress, install a mobile theme such as WP-Touch.
• Use mobile friendly video, not flash.  YouTube is a great choice and now supports high-definition.  Some services, such as Vimeo, don’t play nice on many devices, including the iPhone.
• Understand the bandwidth and screen size limitations (and opportunities) of mobile devices.  Large images, files and other on-page elements create a barrier for users.
• Consider more new media – audio and video – instead of just text.  Text is difficult to read in some cases if not properly formatted, whereas optimized audio and video can potentially get your message across faster and with greater impact.
• Use a website statistics analysis tool, such as Google Analytics to track visitor devices and navigation.  You can learn a great deal about their behavior and tweak your content appropriately.

What are your plans to meet the needs of mobile users?  What’s working for you?

Related posts:

1. Safari User Agent iPhone Simulator – See How Your Site Looks to Mobile Users (Video)
2. 2009 Internet Marketing Trend #7 – Mobile Marketing
3. New Mobile WordPress Theme Activated with WpTouch

Traditionally, we’ve compared Facebook to Twitter and MySpace, but with its mammoth size, Facebook looks more like Google …

… any comparison between Facebook and Twitter is meaningless and Facebook should actually be compared with Google.

via Facebook’s U.S. Traffic Reaches 132 Million Visitors.

If you have a business how are you leveraging Facebook?  Do you have a Facebook Page, Application, or Ads?  How’s that working?

Related posts:

1. Why Would I Want a Facebook Page for my Business?
2. Tracking Facebook Ads in Google Analytics
3. 6 Ways to Improve Your Business Facebook Page

Setting SMART goals is a proven approach to achieving success more quickly.  As 2009 winds down, this is the perfect opportunity to examine your goals for 2010 and apply the SMART mnemonic or acronym to increase the likelihood your goals are met.

SMART stands for:

S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Attainable
R – Realistic
T – Timely

Free Template Downloads:

• Apple Numbers Goal Setting Template
• Microsoft Excel Goal Setting Template

Specific

You want to clearly define your goals to articulate specifically what you are trying to achieve.  The question is what, how and why are you striving toward this goal?

• What are you going to do?  Use action words, such as create, sell, manage, or grow, etc. to bring a sense of energy to your goals.
• Why are you doing this?  What is the ultimate outcome?  Why is this important and what impact will this have on you, your business, or your customers?
• How are you going to do this?  What are the sub-goals or action steps that will enable you to achieve your goal

The more specific you are, the greater your ability to identify success when it occurs.  For example, “I will write and publish 21 blog posts (250-400 words) about skydiving equipment by March 1, 2010.“  In this example I used action words “write and publish”, specified the number, length, and topic of the blog posts and put a date on it.  As we’ll discuss next, this goal is also measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.

Measurable

If you cannot measure your goals then you cannot manage your progress.  Furthermore, it is far more difficult to achieve your objectives if a) you do not measure your progress or b) you do not measure the appropriate metrics.  In some cases a progress chart, table or simple checklist might help.

For example, you might be trying to improve visitor conversion rates.  Using a web statistics tool, such as Google Analytics, can help track vital statistics but make sure you understand and pick the right metric that defines success.  You can get 1,000 visitors a day, but if no one buys, that metric is meaningless.  Don’t get caught up trying to move the wrong target.

Attainable

Is your goal possible?  Is it limited by your resources or require more time to achieve?  I encourage you to set stretch goals for yourself to push your limits, but keep them within reach.  The benefit is that you’ll see real progress toward success.  The risk is that you do not achieve your goals and lose momentum or hope.

For example, you may have just launched a new blog and you want 20% of your visitors to sign up for your newsletter out of the gate.  While this is a realistic rate that you could eventually achieve, it is unlikely to happen right away.  A more attainable goal would be to grow your newsletter list by 5% each month.

Realistic

Is your goal realistic?  You might want 5,000 newsletter subscribers, which is attainable, but is it realistic to achieve this goal by within 2 weeks?  Maybe not.  Be honest with yourself and your business when setting goals by keeping them realistic or you risk disappointment.

Timely

When is the deadline to achieve your goal?  Next week, 3 months, by year end?  Setting a specific date will help you identify your tactical sub-goals and action steps to achieve your goal within a given deadline.  Map out these deadlines or milestones on a calendar.  Plan rewards for yourself when you cross each line.

A common mistake is to generalize about timing.  For example, avoid using descriptions such as “this year, next quarter, in the next two weeks.”  Without a specific date, these deadlines will slip away.

In my experience, SMART goals help you reach your objectives more quickly with a defined path for success.  I recommend writing them down and revisiting them frequently to check progress and adapt to changing circumstances.  In most cases, you will over-achieve — either beating a deadline or delivering something of greater value.

What’s your experience setting goals for the new year?  Do you use the SMART mnemonic?

Related posts:

1. Don't Stop, Don't Think, Don't Edit
2. Create a Blogging Editorial Calendar for Consistent Content Creation (template included)
3. Autoresponders: Questions to consider before building your community and asking customers to opt-in

With WordPress 2.9, you just simply drop in the url and publish.  WordPress does the rest!

Here’s a quick video showing you how to embed video in WordPress 2.9:

The following picture says it all …

And here’s the video I embedded video with some good suggestions on podcasting.

Easier video embeds that allow you to just paste a URL on its own line and have it magically turn it into the proper embed code, with Oembed support for YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revision3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy, and WordPress.tv (and more in the next release).

Related posts:

1. My favorite WordPress plugins when setting up a new blog
2. Audio and Video: How to podcast from your iPad and publish on WordPress with AudioBoo App
3. WordPress and IDX

Upcoming events are a great opportunity for you to leverage keywords related to that event and drive SEO traffic to your blog.

If you can, research an event within your niche and identify 2-3 long-tail keyword phrases that a potential reader might use to search for information on Google.  Write a few blog posts about the event and use these keywords in your title, post text, meta keywords, and meta description.  Follow up your post with a link in Twitter, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and your other favorite social media and bookmarking sites.

In my experience, if there is little competition for the event I can usually score a top 3 position in Google if I choose my keywords correctly.  There are several tools to conduct keyword research, but I suggest starting with Google Keyword Tool to familiarize yourself on the topic.

Although events come and go, the benefit of optimizing for them is the ability to attract new followers within your niche.  Give it a try – it’s actually a bit fun.

What’s your experience leveraging events to drive SEO traffic to your blog?  Any success or other tips to share?

Related posts:

1. Drive More Traffic to Your Blog and Engage Readers (Audio)
2. Tactics to Drive More Targeted Search Engine Traffic to Your Blog
3. 13 Steps to Make Every Blog Post More SEO Friendly

Facebook Ads are very simple to set up and basically include an image and some text with a link to any website you choose. There is a Facebook review team that approves each ad within 72 hours, so plan accordingly.

The real power of Facebook Ads is that you can laser target your audience to a degree unlike other PPC networks such as Google Adwords. When users initially sign up for Facebook they answer a series of questions about themselves. This might include location, age, gender, marital status, education, and interests.

All of this data can be used to target your ads. For example, you could launch an ad to single men, 35-40 in zip code 22911 who graduated from UVA. As you can imagine, this provides you with the ability to target different market segments and A/B test various ads quite easily.

A new feature allows for Facebook Ads on Facebook Pages and the ability to target friends of your fans! The stars are aligning!

Are you using Facebook Ads?  How are the results?  If not, when do you intend to try it out?

Related posts:

1. Why Would I Want a Facebook Page for my Business?
2. Facebook is More Like Google and Why Your Business Needs a FaceBook Page
3. Facebook | New Site Media Group

First, set up a capture system to catch ideas when they happen.

• MindMap – I use http://bubbl.us/ which is a great free online tool for collaborative mind maps.
• Notebook – I use my Pulse Livescribe, which also captures audio. Voted one of the best new products in 2009.
• Mobile Recorder – I use my iPhone Recorder app to either capture ideas or create podcasts on the fly
• Google Docs – this is great especially if you are working with a team.   I use Apple Works (Pages, KeyNote, or Numbers).
• or whatever other system works for you

Categorize your ideas.  For me these include video, audio, stories, blog post, etc.  Don’t get stuck trying to figure out what to write when it’s actually time to sit down and type it out.

9 Ways to Find New Content Ideas for Your Blog …

1. 5 x 5 – what are the 5 questions people always ask me within my niche? What are the 5 questions people should ask me? Create content that answers these ten questions.  Better yet, make this 10×10 or more …
2. Keyword research tools - goal is to create content that people want, especially when searching on search engines.  A good tool, for example, is the Google search-based keyword tool.  Find out which terms are being searched most often, but have little competition.
3. Fill your feed reader – sign up for a free Google Reader account and start subscribing to popular bloggers or podcasters in your niche.  Use the information you find to generate new ideas and create new content either in response to or in addition to relevant discussions you run across.
4. Ethically borrow – see what content is popular on other blogs and adapt that approach to your niche.  Do not copy their content, but seek to understand what it is about that content that’s engaging and borrow what works. If you can, give credit to the author with a link back to their site.
5. Technorati – this is a great RSS aggregator that has a vast collection of blog posts in one place – all categorized and searchable.
6. Google Alerts - this allows you to save a search from Google and receive an email whenever your search returns new results.  The frequency can be as it happens, daily, weeekly basis.  Check out Google Alerts.
7. Pre-filtered content - find what’s hot, what is most popular.  Check delicious for example.  If something has been bookmarked frequently then it might be content to consider. What’s trending in your niche and what do you have to say about it?  Another choice might be Digg.
8. Re-purpose content – do you have old content that can be reformatted or repackaged and redistributed?  Maybe an old blog post you can turn into a podcast episode or a few slides for a video on Youtube?  Find your oldest, most popular content and post an update or reflection on what’s changed since the original post.
9. Ask your audience – ask on Twitter, Linkedin Answers, etc.  Put together a quick survey on Survey Monkey and ask customers what they want.  Send a simple email – “hey, I’m thinking about such and such … please reply and let me know your thoughts.”

Based on my experience this looks like a very good list.  Pick one or two and see if you can come up with a list of 20 content ideas right now.  I bet it’s easier than you think.

What do you think?  Are these ideas you can use?  How do you come up with ideas for new content?

Related posts:

1. Leveraging events to drive SEO traffic to your blog (Audio)
2. Does Audio or Video Really Engage Blog Readers? (Audio)
3. Get Over It and Start Blogging (Audio)