gShift Labs - Product Review

Last week I had the privilege to visit the offices of gShift Labs in Barrie Ontario (ideally located in the downtown right across the road from the main beach) and was given a guided tour of their optimization tool by Chris Adams. gShift has positioned this tool for (and along the way coined the phrase) “web presence optimization”.

Now I've personally know Chirs and Krista (President of gShift Labs) from their earlier days with a start-up known as CGK which developed the first SEO friendly CMS called "Hot Banana". While their involvement with Hot Banana is behind them, they've taken their understanding of the needs of SEO community and have developed a new tool for the evolving industry.  What makes this optimization tool different than others (such as Rave Tools or SEOmoz tools) is that it is multi-focused.  gShift’s web presence optimizer isn’t just for helping you optimize a site from a SEO (search engine optimization) perspective, while it has components to help you do that. It goes beyond SEO and provides information on how social networking efforts are impacting website traffic (requires integration with Google Analytics). Is your organization heavily invested in Twitter? gShift helps you track the impact of tweets by retweets and includes a component that integrates with your bit.ly account. In essence gShift has (through APIs) integrated their product with most of the popular analytic tools for measuring social media. While their current set of tools for measuring social media may not be as powerful as the single purpose Radian 6 or TrackUr, it does bring together multiple tools to provide one stop reporting.

gShift also provides recommendations on where you need to focus your optimization efforts, be it a new press release or blog post or on site factors (better title tags, h1 tags etc.). You can even use its built in schedule feature to create a list of optimization "To Dos" and then have them appear as an annotation of the various report screens as they are completed.

gShift over the next few weeks will be releasing new features to further help site optimizers. This includes a content submission utility to help submit your blog posts to social bookmarking sites (such as digg) and Twitter. An additional new feature will be a integration into Wordpress.

The one thing that does separate out gShift form other tools is its reporting features. While most optimization tools generate great reports for the technical team, the reports are too technical for senior management forcing people to cut and paste various components into formal senior level reports. gShift’s reports are designed to simplify the complex data used by the technical team into easy to understand management reports that any VP can understand without any hand holding.

Overall this looks like a great product. I was also introduced to a series of planned upgrades roughly scheduled within the next 6-12 months. While I can say WOW and I can’t wait for these, I’m under an NDA not to talk about them at this time.

While I don't have any screen shots at this time, if you're interested in seeing this product for yourself, be sure to visit their site and sign-up for one of there Webinars (http://www.gshiftlabs.com/).

SEO & Stop Words - Writing for Search

Over the years while teaching various Search Engine Optimization (SEO) courses I've been asked many questions about writing SEO copy, or as I prefer it writing for search.

On thing I always stressed is that you first write for your human users (your real audience) and secondly for search engines. This is where an internal battle usually starts about how it should only be for the human users and never for the search engines. To which I reply, fine but without the search engines your human audience is going to be a lot smaller. Once we get over this hurdle, our course conversation usually turns to the issue of duplicate content.

Yes duplicate content and how all work on website/blog has to be original and what that truly means. I try to explain that Google tries strip out all code and just look at the words in the copy. It then compares it to other copy in its index and then has to decided if its original vs. duplicate and if duplicated which one to include in its index. Not a simple task.

While most of us think of duplicated content only occurs when articles are syndicated or if you are incorporating RSS feed content etc there is another and a legitimate reason why you might need duplicate content and why Google should punish you (but they might). This happens for legitimate reasons with big organizations who run country/regional specific websites. For legal reason, marketing or simply management it is very possible for a organization to run multiple unique sites (unique URLs). For example several English language sites target specifically at the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, etc. (same of course is possible for other languages).

The reality is when developing sites in this configuration and to reduce costs, internal documents (white papers, corporate profiles, product pages, etc.) are frequently merely duplicated. So how can you avoid the possible SEO penalties of duplicate content. It's by tweaking the content of these pages. Yes, you can and should adjust the words to reflect the cultural linguistic subtleties of each region, but that usually won't be enough. You should consider at least rewriting the introductory paragraph and a few lines throughout the article. Always take into account the surrounding text on the page (side bars & navigation). Are these unique to each site? Of all the words on the page about 20% should be unique to avoid possible duplication penalties.

One technique, that many people try and fail with, is to merely change some of the connective words. For example changing "also" to "furthermore". These simple changes don't affect the meaning of the content and make life easier. Unfortunately to search engines like Google and Bing their algorithms are programmed to ignore these words along with the basic words "a", "but", "the", etc. (For a detailed list of stop words see: http://www.link-assistant.com/seo-stop-words.html.

 So, if you have to re-purpose content for legitimate reason, the re-purpose it, but budget a little time to make a few reasonable changes that will content reasonably unique.

Prep for the Bing bot

Microsoft last week announced that it is going to unleash a new search engine bot within the next few months (currently scheduled for Oct. 1) called "Bingbot" http://www.lbi.co.uk/blog/bing-to-launch-bingbot/.

For many who use java script based web analytic tracking tools (i.e. Google Analytics, Omniture, Webtrends Ondemand, etc.) this new bot will  go unnoticed and have no impact on your web analytics reports. However those out there who are using traditional server access logs (web logs) its time to prepare.

By now you should have a bot filter that removes most non-human (bot) traffic from your primary analytic reports. Don't wait until the new bot is out there to update your list update it now.

The new bots name is "msnbot/2.0b" and will replace the old "msnbot". Consider this an addition to your list. If Microsoft follows its old pattern of renaming bots or that the behavoir of other search engines, there will be at least a couple of days overlap where you site could be visited by both . This way your reports will remain unaffected when the new bot comes into play.

The Impact of Google SSL Search

Running under the radar of most people was last week's announcement from Google that you can now conduct searches via SSL (secured socket layers). For those not familiar with this protocol it is a secure layer that encrypts the data going between two computers and is most commonly used on ecommerce sites to ensure security during the transaction phase and on some sites when forms are being completed.

You can see Google's secured search at https://www.google.com - once their you won't notice anything different except at the start of URL is https instead of http. You might now be wondering what's the big deal with Google using SSL and why does this post include the word "Impact" in it. So let's get down to it.

Over the past 6 months or so, there has been a lot of talk in the news about privacy when using the web most notably in the spotlight lately has been Facebook. Also, people are getting concerned that Google is gathering too much information about them and this includes what they are searching on. By introducing the secure search option the actual search query you made before clicking on a listed website in the search results will no longer be passed to the site on the other end of the click (commonly referred to as the "referrer"). This referrer information is a staple source of data for every web analytics team everywhere and this is where the impact starts and people's misunderstanding goes astray.

First off, Google still knows what you searched on and which search results you clicked on. It's their software after all. All that you are doing is hiding your search terms from the site you went to visit. This referrer information has been available almost from the beginning of the web. It has allowed people to analyze (web analytics) their website traffic, perfect their search engine optimization project and optimize search ads. While this might seem selfish, its not.

Let's look at it from an SEO perspective. By continually reviewing which terms from organic search drive quality traffic to a site, companies can put more effort into these good terms and less in the terms they thought were appropriate and didn't bring the appropriate traffic. By not focusing on the inappropriate terms, they will start dropping in the search results for these terms and get out of the way from the people searching these terms which clearly are not interested in the companies products or services and thereby not wasting the searcher's time.

The same can be said to paid search ads. By focusing on the right terms, users will only see ads that are appropriate for them. No need to waste your time surfing through inappropriate ads or sites.

While many people believe hiding your search terms from sites is a good thing from a privacy perspective, I beg to differ. The Internet and the web were created in an open framework which has allowed it to grow at incredible rates. Every time someone comes out with a proprietary tool or works in the shadows, growth is slowed. Yes privacy is a good thing, but what are you searching on that you need to hide these terms? Are you scared for example that a company that makes widgets will know you searched on "blue widgets" before coming to their site?

So let's leave it at that. Google is offering secured search to make people who are paranoid more comfortable, so they can keep up their market share of online search. They still have all your data on how, what and when you searched for something. All that secured search is doing is hurting the companies you're visiting financially which in the end may translate into higher prices.

A Different Type of Presentation

Yesterday, I learned how to give a new type of training presentation, as my life in the web-world took another turn, as I completed recording 14 lectures for the University of San Francisco. Before I get into the details of the lectures, I need to take a step back.

Right from the beginning of my web career, the currents of economy have helped me along as I "tripped & stumbled" my way through life. I didn't set out to 20+ years ago for a career in web consulting or search marketing. Frankly they didn't exist yet. I did use one of the ancestor of the Internet (bitnet) back in the mid 1980's while attending the University of Waterloo and fell in love with email and Usenet groups. It was the opportunity that presented itself when the first ISP's starting popping up that drew me back to this evolved/evolving technology. Just after I had immersed myself in all it had to offer in the early 90's, I started telling friends all about it and before long they were recommending me to their bosses as a consultant to help them understand the potential that the Inernet (specifically the web) had to offer them.

It's hard to remember that there was a time when major corporations didn't have email nor websites. Yet there was and to many young web and search marketers it seems like ancient history because they never experienced it. It was during this time, that I expanded my knowledge and started speaking about the Internet at corporate events and conferences.

As the role of the Internet & web evolved so did my career & business. So when I was approached a couple of months back to become one of several lecturers for a new on-line certificate being offered by University of San Fransisco on Search Marketing, I could say know and so my career has evloved again.

I'm a veteran of the conference circuit having spoken and keynoted at more conference than I can count. I've been teaching something to adults for more than 1/2 my life off & on including Webinars, numerous web analytics courses, Webtrends training, SEO coursed etc. through my company, yet yesterday sitting down in a recording studio in front of a teleprompter was revelation. I really didn't think it would so different than teaching a small class or giving a talk at a conference. Well I now have a new respect for TV news anchor people. I really couldn't believe how difficult it was to keep my eyes focused properly, to keep my head straight, to keep my energy up, too pace the lectures perfectly, etc. As such under fire I got to learn a new skill and while not expecting to perfect it at least coming close to something much better than acceptable.

It will be a few weeks until the sessions are edited and I'll get to see the final product. I do hope they are great and that I get more chances to continue to develop yet another skill I've learn as I've tripped & stumbled along the "Internet Super Highway".

2 Weeks 2 Conferences and What I Learned

It's been a crazy couple of weeks for me. First I attended, spoke and moderated sessions at SMX Toronto (Arpril 8 &9) and then with just a weekend to recover I head down to Dallas to Attend PubCon (April 13-15). While I had hope to drop in on the PubCon training sessions on April 13, sadly conference calls and a work hang over from SMX Toronto, kept me away until the evening networking event.

By attending these two conferences back to back I discovered a few things. Here at the Toronto conference which was paired with eMetrics many of the SMX attendees were gravitating to the eMetrics sessions (despite not having the combo pass) and the SMX analytics sessions (I spoke on one and moderated another) which very well attended.

A PubCon, the web analytic focused sessions were not well attended. Perhaps it was the time slots (my session was the last one on day 1) or some of the topics pitted against them. Regardless simply talking to people at the PubCon show there seemed to be only a small interest in web analytics and greater focus on Social Media.

Once thing I also discovered at SMX/eMetrics while most people were using Google Analytics, they were also using one of the other major tools (Omniture, Webtrends, etc.) to get more advanced information. At PubCon most people I spoke to seemed content with their Google Analtyics. Perhaps this explains the minimal interest in the subject matter. People seem to believe that all they really need is Google Analytics and that it will tell them all they need to know.

This concept was stressed at SMX by the keynote speaker Avinash Kaushik when he said "Google Analytics has more in it then any company needs, so you don't need to spend money on the other tools" (I'm paraphrasing of course). Of course most of the people at this conference gasped & groaned at the comment realizing that measurement of specific KPI and paths to conversion are critical in the continual evaluation and improvement life cycle of a web site and are absent from Google Analtyics

The biggest highlight of the two events was the Day 1 keynote at PubCon by Scott Stratten (from Oakville, Ontario) President of Un-Marketing (twitter ID unmarketing). I met Scott for the first time last fall in Las Vegas and despite living 30 miles apart and only catching glimpses of each other at different events where we both speak, we finally managed to hook-up in Dallas. His keynote was simply the best keynote of recent memory at any conference and may very well be the best one I've ever heard. What set this keynote apart was not the content (the content was great), but his style. True to what Scott preaches in his tweets, he didn't talk to us (or shout at us), but he grabbed a chair sat down and proceeded to have a conversation with the entire audience. No one even noticed that they couldn't get a word in until the Q&A portion, because the gems and insights that flowed from Scott's mouth were so captivating. From what Scott told me, it sounds like his upcoming book (due out this fall) will follow the same style. I just can't wait.

As with all conferences, you get out of it what you put in. By speaking, moderating and attending sessions, I picked up lots of new ideas and techniques to apply to clients. Yet the best part of both of these two amazing events was what happened out side of the sessions room at the various networking events. The connections, the exchange of ideas in an unstructured manner - yes in conversation provided even more applicable knowledge and insight. It is this face to face meeting and conversations that can't be replaced by on-line lectures and it is why I always try to find the time and budget to attend as many high quality conferences as I can.

Right, I'm not booked into any events in the short term, but I'm hoping/planning on SES Toronto in June and the main PubCon Las Vegas is November, plus with a little luck perhaps another 1 or 2 before the year is over.

SMX Toronto

Well SMX Toronto is finally here. Sessions start tomorrow and I've got a full slate.

I'll be moderating 2 sessions:
- Organizational Readiness: where we'll look at how you get the whole organization to play nicely
- Post Click Behaviour  & Landing Page Optimization: This title speaks for itself

Both sessions, have expert in the field and I know will be fantastic sessions.

I'm also speaking in 2 sessions
- What is Search Analytics and Why Should I Care?: I'll be talking about tracking off-line conversions
- A site review session with Barbra Coll - get there early for a chance to have your site reviewed.

Even if you don't attend on of the 4 sessions I'm involved in, be sure to get my attention and say hi.

Also, next week I'm heading to Dallas Texas for PubCon spring. This is another 2 days of information packed sessions and I'll be speaking on Off-line conversions once again.

Follow me on Twitter @aknecht for live conference updates and I'll do my best to get a few blog posts done as well.

Upcoming Events

I'll be speaking and moderating a few sessions at various up-coming conferences. Here is the most current list of events where you can here me speak. Yes I'm bragging but all these events are great events and worth attending.

March 31, 2010 I'm in Toronto at Marketing Magazine's - Search Engine Tune Up on a panel discussing the future of search.

http://www.marketingmag.ca/search/

April 8 & 9, 2010 I'm speaking on 2 panels and moderating another at SMX Toronto. I've on this conference's advisory board so I can ensure you that this conference is going to be great. As well I can offer you a 15% discount to the event. Simply use the code knecht15 when you register to receive the discount for SMX Toronto.

http://searchmarketingexpo.com/toronto

April 13 & 14, 2010 I'm heading down to Dallas Texas for PubCon Spring. I'll be on a panel on the second day discussing web analytics and how to leverage all this great info to improve on-line marketing campaigns


http://pubcon.com


So I hope to see you at one of these events and if you are attending any of these events be sure to track me down and say hi.

Twitter Training for Business

My company K'nechtology Inc. has just released two more dates in February for our live interactive twitter for business training program. The reviews from the January sessions were fantastic and several people who couldn't attend the sessions in January ask for some more dates.

We hope these sessions will be just as popular as the January ones, so check the website for the new dates and I encourage you to reserve your spot as soon as possible. If these dates don't meet your requirements please let me know.

Here is just one of the many comments we received about hour Twitter sessions:

I was impressed by a thorough and complete introduction to Twitter and it's applications for business. I feel ready to apply the knowledge I gained through his succinct and practical explanations of Twitter and related topics - all in just one hour! If you think you'd like to Tweet, take this course, you will be glad you did.

Dr. Kyra Gerber
Courtyard Chiropractic Clinic
Toronto, Ontario

WebTrends Engage

This week I'm off to New Orleans to participate in Webtrends Engage. I'll be giving a talk/workshop on Tuesday about the importance of tracking phones calls generated by web traffic and tracking it back to their original marketing source.

This address is in partner ship with Mongoose Metrics. I've been working with them since October and have previously address the importance of integrating the data captured by call tracking software into corporate web analytic reports.

I'm really looking forward to this address as the people at Webtrends have also really stepped up to support this talk and have recognized the importance of this type of integration.

As a user of Webtrends since their original version 1, I can't wait for this conference and the opportunity to gather more information and innovation to continue to support my companies Webtrends clients and update our Webtrends training material with the latest product innovations.

Up Coming Conferences

While the list isn't finalized my list of speaking engagements over the next few months promises to keep me busy. While I've spoken at some of these events in the past it will be the first time for me at the Webtrends engage event and the Fanshawe College's "Turning Clicks Into Customers".

Here's the detailed list with dates. I hope to see you at one of these events and if you're there be sure to introduce yourself.

Webtrends Engage - New Orleans - Feb 1 - 4
Executing Social Media - Toronto - Feb 10
Fanshawe Colledge - London, Ontario - March 1
SMX Toronto - April 8-9

I'm also on the conference board for SMX Toronto. So while the topic of my conference address isn't finalized, I can assure that I'll also be moderating a few sessions as well.

Twitter Training Program

I'm happy to announce here in my blog that my company K'nechtology Inc. has just launched a 1 hour on-line twitter training seminar.

What separates out our training session from most on-line Twitter training programs is that is live and full interactive. Most others are either recorded video podcasts or a PowerPoint presentation. While these are fine for most people, from our experience not all people can take this form of training and apply it immediately without some trial and error.

By having a live sessions, users can ask specific questions relating to their needs and have them answered in real time.

K'nechtology is offering these courses at the inaugural price of $25 per person with a maximum number of 10 people participating per session. No date has been set when the price will be increased, but you can be sure at this price demand will be high.

While you may feel comfortable using Twitter on a personal level or even for your business, think about recommending this program to others. I know I'm constantly being asked "Why should I being using Twitter" or "How do I use Twitter" or anyone of hundred different questions.

• Here is a list of just some of the topics covered:
• Basics of Twitter;
• Choosing the right Twitter Account ID;
• Monitoring your Twitter account
• Twitter terminology;
• How to develop a following of both existing clients, potential clients; and
• More effective Tweats through article linking and the use of "hash tags"

Best of all, I will be personally conducting first few of these session. So I know they'll be information packed and those attending will be able to hit the ground running (tweating). If you have any questions of this training seminar, drop me a line.

Cookie consent law is breathtakingly stupid

For years I've written about why the public shouldn't be afraid of cookies except for the calories in the ones people eat. Despite my efforts, fear has continued to grow in part spurred on my anti-virus software companies that look for tracking cookies.

What most people don't get is that effective ecommerce web sites need cookies to operate. Web analytics software need cookies to create more accurate statistics of user behavior to conintually improve the sites usability and improve marketing campaigns to better convey message to their target audience.

So I'm shocked, but not surprised that the EU is passing a law that will effectively ban the use of cookies on EU based web sites without specific user permissions.

For all the details on this new law and all the stupid impacts please read http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/cookie-consent-law-is-breathtakingly-stupid-648740 from TechRadar.com

Tracking Phone Calls in WebTrends

About 8 weeks ago I was contacted by Mongoose Metrics.

The purpose of this contact was two fold. First they wanted to demonstrate their product. Mongoose Metrics is an web/marketing analytics tool for tracking and attributing on-line phone calls back to the referring on-line marketing campaign.

The product works simply: by adding some java script to you page and a bit tagging. The result is that everyone who comes to your site sees a different toll-free number. This number is recorded in a cookie along with information about the referrer. If they came directly to your site, the visitor sees the default number.

The cool thing happens when a web site visitor decides to call because they need more information or to place the order over the telephone. The software then very cleanly capatures all the referrer information and displays it to you in a easy to read report format. With a bit of advance set-up you can even break it down by different marketing programs.

Now the exciting part and the second reason Mongoose contacted me. They wanted to see if it was possible to integrate their data automatically into WebTrends. After a bit of trial and error, I developed the framework for the integration and Mongoose quickly developed the code on their end to make it possible.

So what does it mean to the average WebTrends web analytics team. With a bit of effort and creation of some WebTrends Custom Reports, you can now know which campaigns (and any variable within your campaigns translation file) drove people to call in. This conversion point is no longer a mystery.

During our tests we were able to successfully monitor calls generated by a Twitter post (tweat), a link in a Facebook status, traffic from organic and paid search including which keyword phrases generated the calls.

The method was successfully tested with both WebTrends OnDemand and an locally installed version of WebTrends (must be using the SDC feature). Beyond passing a conversion point, the configuration also allows for you to set a dollar value to be assigned to each call. While this value is fix in your configuration right now, plans are being made to develop a way to make the value of call arbitrary and in control of the person who took the call. This feature is still under development and no time line has been provided. However, even with assigning an average call value, better quality ROI calculations can be made to better optimize your campaigns.

Below are some sample reports from WebTrends

Paths to and from the call

Orders By Campaign ID (in this case the order is a phone call)

We are still conducting tests, but I expect this feature to be available to the general public before the end of year. If you'd like more information please let me know and I'll be glad to make the appropriate introductions.

Getting Ready for Pubcon

It's hard to believe it's been a year since the last PubCon marketing conference in Las Vegas. To me this is one of the best organized and informative conferences of the year and I start looking forward to it as soon as the last one is finished.

What makes this conference so great, is it the location or the quality of the speakers or something else? As to location, unlike many others, I'm not a fan of Las Vegas for a conference. Yes this year hotel deals are plentiful, but all those neon lights give me a headache.

So it must be the great quality of speakers at the event. Yes over 3 days of presentations the shear number of speakers can be overwhelming. I personally will be speaking during two sessions and the quality of the speakers is a good as anywhere. While you might find all of us at one conference most of the speakers speak at other quality events throughout the years. So what is the big deal?

What I see going between the sessions in the halls at the conference is something you don't usually see. People talking to other people and exchanging ideas, making friends and network connections. It through these new friends and connection that the benefit of the conference continues to grow throughout the year. I attribute this lose/casual/friendly environment to the conference organizers and their ability to get everyone in the right mood.

So with just two weeks before the opening keynote, if you haven't booked your ticket and registered time is running out. To those of you who know you'll be there be sure to tap me on the shoulder in Vegas and say hi.

Best Search Engine for Canada

According to Hitwise and reported by Search Engine Watch today, the best quality search engine in Canada is Bing despite being ranked 6th in popularity.

http://www.searchengineland.com/best-search-engine-in-canada-hitwise-says-bing-24208

The primary reason given is that Bing is doing the best job of localizing search results. Through our own tests at K'nechtology, we've seen very little difference in search quality from Toronto office. So is Hitwise's data wrong, are our test wrong or has Hitwise simply assumed something about the results based on user behavior.

If you read the article you'll see its based on how many searches a person does before stopping. This assumes that the person found what they wanted when they stopped. Here is where I believe they've made some wrong assumptions.

1. Bing is new and lots of people are checking them out. This means "let me do a search on Bing for something I search on a lot and lets see what the results are." After their initial search or two when they don't see a significant difference between Bing and Google they return to Google as their primary search engine. Hence Bing is ranked number 6 in terms of popularity

2. While Bing may have a slight advantage in localized search, from this article it still doesn't appear that Canadians are doing long query strings and are still sticking to 1-2 word search queries. So if that query includes a geo-location then perhaps Bing is giving better results, but they did not analyze how many people include a city or province in their search. From the various clients data that we've analyzed even when they rank extremely well for an organic search phrase that includes a geo-locations, the vast majority of organic search traffic comes from phrases that don't include a geo-locations. So in my opinion this localization benefit of Bing is marginal at best.

3. Are people simply giving Bing the once over and doing a single or a secondary search and saying "so what, I'll stick to what I've been using".

Ultimately, it is going to be up to users to try Bing, see if they like the results and then to switch their default search engine. For that to happen Bing has to start promoting themselves here in Canada. In the US, I've seen TV commercials, heard radio ads and seen print ad. In Canada, next to nothing except at some industry trade shows. Unfortunately, this holds true for all the major search engines.

Canada's population is comparable to that of California, yet from my observations the amount of money spent by the major search engines here in Canada to promote themselves is a minor fraction of the California spend. Attention all search engines, if you want to take a bite out of Google's market share here in Canada, then start promoting yourselves by something more than word of mouth.

WebTrends 9

Two weeks back, WebTrends announced version 9.0. As with all recent upgrades this version is only be released to users of WebTrends on Demand. The good news is they expect by late this quarter or early October to release version 9 for the installed version.

This approach is both good and bad for users of the software version. The bad part is obvious, we don't get our hands on this latest version which holds so much promised and should make all of our reporting that much more completed.

On the other hand, when it is released, we can be assured that it will be relatively bug free and stable.

My clients really do appreciate that reduced frequency of the minor updates, as they can concentrate on the numbers and not a parade of upgrades and batches (unlike other products). I on the other hand feel that in many instances users of the software version are being punished as they do not always get some of the improved reporting. It is one thing not to release the a, b, c of the same version, but not to release intra version releases (i.e. 8.6) makes me wonder. My best guess is that WebTrends is really trying to get all users to migrate to the on-demand version. While I don't have any issues with it and have several clients using it, for many it is simply not an option based on corporate policies and the legal stance of where data is stored.

Either way, I'm looking forward to WebTrends 9 full release.

PubCon and more

If you've been following my near daily tweats (http://twitter.com/aknecht), you'll know that I'm speaking again this year at PubCon. PubCon which will run from November 10 - 13 in Las Vegas is by far the best networking industry conference I've ever attended. The combination of numerous sessions and what seems an endless number of nightly events make it ideal for making industry friends.

PubCon is first and foremost a search marketing conference put on by the people who bring us WebMaster world. This year the response to the conference from what I've heard has been fantastic despite the economy. By the end of July (then end of the first tier of early bird registration) they were well ahead of previous years. Also the number of people submitting proposals to speak at the conference has increased and made the work of conference organizers that much harder. Only over the past few days have some sessions been announced. I'm still waiting to hear what I'll be speaking on. I'm hoping to be on one of the Web Analytics sessions, but might just end up in a SEO and Design session like have been for the past two years. With some luck perhaps all the sessions will be announced by the end of the month.

If you've thought about this conference in the past this may be your best opportunity. Hotel costs in Las Vegas are the lowest they've been in years. This year I'm staying at the same hotel as last year and the room rate is 40% lower.

Beyond PubCon, I've also been book to speak at a Social Network/Web Marketing workshop series in my home city of Toronto called "Executing Social Media". This event is schedule to take place on October 28th and 29th. The details are still being finalized and I expect the their web site and registration system to be ready within the next week or two. More on this event as the details (location, registration, price) are announced.

Either way, if your at either of these events please tab me on the shoulder and say hi.

AT Internet Training & Certification

Last month my company K'nechtology Inc. became the first Canadian partner for AT Internet. AT Internet provides a high-end web analytics tool which competes in the market space currently occupied by such giants as Omniture Site Catalyst and WebTrends.

For the past 4-5 weeks I've been giving it a trial run and loving it. Today I started a 4 day training course which dives deep into the product as part of becoming certified as an expert on the product itself. The course will run until Thursday after which myself and my firm will be able to provide product support for AT Internet's web analytics product as well as becoming an authorized reseller.

I'll be posting some screen shots of some of the cooler things it does in a day or two. For right now, consider that this product can provide information on how far down a screen your visitors are viewing (especially useful for analyzing longer pages to see if people read to the bottom) as well as provide a 5 point images called a "radar graph" which easily displays 5 KPI on one image for easy segmentation analysis.

More on this product over the next couple of days.

Search Engine Strategies - Toronto

For the past two days, I was totally engrossed in Search Engine Strategies (SES) Toronto show. My hat goes off to this years conference organizers at Incisive truly came through and took all the negative criticism from the past couple of year and turned it around.

Change from the Toronto conference centre to the Sheraton Centre was by far the biggest improvement. No longer were attendees and speaker subjected to the dungeon like bottom floor of the convention centre, but instead were treated to a much warmer environment even if it was all virtually on the bottom floor as well. Perhaps it was just the lighting and the cushy carpeted floors, but it just worked better and there were not (or at least I couldn't find them) black holes where you cellphone wouldn't work.

As usual, the quality of speakers was fantastic as usual and Andrew Goodman who chaired this event did an excellent job developing the session topics. Grant many of the session were very basic, but there were a few sessions and frequently at least one panelist who took it to the next level.

One change I did notice this year was the background of the attendees. In past year there were many do it yourself business types at the event trying to figure out how to do SEO and PPC on their own. This time around there was the usual independent SEO consultants and some agency types, but many more people who were from medium to larger business who are the ones being tasked with implement SEO or paid search campaigns.

But no conference takes place with out a few criticisms. The biggest one I heard and agreed with was the location of one of the 3 session rooms. It was far way (about a 5 minute walk) from the may area. Attendees and/or speakers not paying attention to which room they needed to go to were frequently seen rushing to these rooms or getting there late. The distance from the main conference area to the speakers room had the same problem. While this was a inconvenience for most speakers, on the positive side this forced many of the speakers who usually disappear to the speakers room to remain in the conference area and opened up the lines of communication with all the attendees.

There are numerous blog posts and tweets on the session specifics so I would take up any more of your time, just simply search on SES Toronto for the blog post or #sesto in Twitter for more information