Copywriting/split testing vs SEO
Posted by David WhitehouseAfter working for Bronco for a while I’ve been noticing how there can be two ways to approach things – from an SEO perspective or from a copywriting perspective. Obviously you can combine the two, but usually there is an emphasis on one or the other.
Which do you prefer to use? Which do you prefer to read?
I’m reading up on copywriting at the moment, it’s a skill I’d like to develop. I’m currently reading The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters by Joseph Sugarman. I’m only a quarter of the way through – it seems quite interesting, but the approach is from a direct marketing angle, not online (although apparently he goes into that later).
AdWords not linking to Analytics
Posted by David WhitehouseWe had a problem at work the other day where our AdWords account was not linking to Analytics. It wasn’t the autotagging option in AdWords and it wasn’t caused by us not choosing the ‘add cost data’ in Analytics, since this wasn’t an option.
The problem was caused on the 23rd/24th of March – Google switched over to their new system in AdWords, which meant all AdWords accounts can only have one Analytics account against them. Where they messed up was when an AdWords account had an Analytics account against it, it would choose the original. In many cases the original was no longer used and contained no information – something which I think they should have taken into account.
Anyway, to fix it you need to:
- log into the account with the email address of the account that was originally used
- Click on the Analytics tab
- Edit Account Settings
- Unlink from AdWords account
- Then go back to the Analytics tab and link it to the correct Analytics account (the logon will need access to the account in question)
Scheduled Posts on WordPress
Posted by David WhitehouseOne thing I never bothered using before working at Bronco is scheduled posts on WordPress. But this feature happens to be extremely powerful! You can get all your articles on for say the week, or month (whatever) and have it released whenever you want!!! If your in the UK and you want to target the US market – this is espcially useful if you are Tweeting your post at the same time.
Checking it out, the best time to Tweet is between 4pm-5pm (according to Malcolm) so from now on the majority of my posts will be at this time, every day 
It would help if my web server’s system time wasn’t an hour behind though…
Feedburner – the answer to my email marketing dreams!
Posted by David WhitehouseFor those of you who know me, you will know that I’ve had a health problem that has prevented me using the net as much as I like over the years – so you’ll understand. For the rest of you, please bare with me if I regurgitate old stuff/ideas – I’m still playing catchup!
I’ve recently discovered the power of Feedburner after seeing that Seth Godin uses a similar service called FeedBlitz. so I thought, if it’s good enough for Seth, it’s good enough for me
Anyways, it’s great, I’ve been harping on at Anthony Shapley all week about it. It’s a great way to “save” all those visitors who visit your blog and then bugger off. Blogs have the worst bounce rate of any other type of website, because people tend to be interested in just one post, so it is important to keep them coming back via a feed subscription or an email subscription. It is probably best in encouraging everyone to sign up to Feedburner at the end of every post – with a call to action (I guess I best put this on my list of things to do now I said that)!
You can see on my sidebar that I have my feed link (as per standard) but I’ve also added receive blog updates by email. Now I much prefer this way of receiving blog posts – mainly because I tried Google Reader once and I hated it, plus I can’t be bothered to keep checking back.
Anyways, if you want to follow my blog via feedburner you can do so by clicking here.
Promoting my new blog
Posted by David WhitehouseI got this blog a few months ago when I first went to meet Dave Naylor (at which I asked him for a job – he said yes). So I bought the domain name and set it up with WordPress and then just left it.
I’ve now got a job working with Dave, and I’m happily fitting in with the Bronco team. There is a really good working atmosphere there and I’m dead please to be finally finding my feet
So tonight I’ve properly started to setup my blog, I’m trying to hit all the areas – social bookmarking, twitter, email updates, blog feeds, linkedin etc. etc.
One thing that shocked me (well two actually):
1. How do these people have time to use Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Yahoo Buzz, Delicious etc. etc. etc. I just don’t have the time!!! I’m a Google man, I know what I want, I search for it, I get the job done – but perhaps that’s just me. I suppose one disadvantage of this is I tend to be a bit behind on things – perhaps I should check Digg more.
2. Digg have noindex and nofollowed their pages, but Google still indexes them, why is this? Anyone know?
G1 Android Review
Posted by David WhitehouseI am typing out this review on my new G1, which I love. I’ve got one or two gripes, but on the whole it is by far the best phone I have ever owned.
So I’ve taken advantage of the Android marketplace and installed:
- WPtogo – allowing me to post to my wordpress blogs fom my phone
- Skype – allowing me to phone my girlfriend in Thailand for the cost of a local rate call
- some compass application
- a flashlight application
- MyTracks by Google – allowing me to track my bike rides
- Twidroid – so I can use Twitter
- A Facebook app
- and more!
I can also use gmail, browse the web, check out youtube, check my Google Calendar, Sync my Google Contacts and use Google Talk.
So I think I would give this phone 9/10 – far better than any htc phone I have ever owned!
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