New Google AdWords Keyword and Placement Tools Beta Released.

If you are a Google AdWords user, there is some good news for you . The AdWords team has released a new beta versions of the Keyword and placement tools.

The updated Placement Tool (beta)

As with the updated Keyword Tool, you can now search for placements by any combination of keyword, website/URL, or category. For example, you can search for placements that are only on youtube.com that are also video placements and that are also in the automotive category. Under Advanced Options, you can also further filter placements by Country or Language, Impressions Per Day, Included Ad Sizes (those sizes offered by the content publisher for their offered placements), and demographic options.

The updated Keyword Tool is available via a link in the current Keyword Tool and the updated Placement Tool is available via a link on the Tools page.
So if you see those links in your AdWords account page, please use them and provide Google AdWords team with your input so that they can further hone the final version. Use "Send Feedback" link in your account.

Inside AdWords: Updated Versions of the Keyword and Placement Tools - Now in Beta

Bloggers wanted! By Blogger

Google Blogger published today that they are looking for bloggers who are willing to document their blogging practice over few weeks and participate in some interview questionnaire. The input will help all of by providing even better blogging service by Blogger.

Details of the study:

* This a two week diary study, starting on a date between September 28th and October 2nd (you will have a small daily task to complete)
* Compensation for the diary study is $100 US dollars in American Express gift cheques.
* Some participants may be selected for a 60 minute follow-up session which can be run either at the Google campus in Mountain View, CA or run remotely via screen sharing ($75 incentive). These sessions will be run after the 2 week diary study is completed early-mid October.

To participate you will need to:
* be at least 18 years old
* be willing to sign our Usability Non-Disclosure Agreement

If you are selected for one of the 60 minute follow-up sessions, you will also need to:
* Allow us to video or audio tape the session
* have a desktop or laptop computer preferably with Windows 2000/XP/Vista with Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers installed
* have a Broadband Internet connection or stronger (DSL, Cable, T1 all fine)
* a phone next to your computer that we can use to call you during the study. A speaker phone is recommended.
***or you can participate in person, in Mountain View, CA

You can register at Google.
Blogger Buzz: Bloggers wanted!

Bing Gains 18% In August Web Searches

Experian® Hitwise® published today that BING is gaining since its launch. Google accounted for 70.24 percent of all U.S. searches conducted in the four weeks ending Aug. 29, 2009. Yahoo! Search 16.96%, Bing 9.48% and Ask.com received 2.37 percent.
The remaining 56 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 0.95 percent of U.S. searches.

Bing had 8.02% share in the month of July. So it has gained 18 percent while all other search engines declined, Google, Yahoo and ASK had -2, -1 and -4 percent drop respectively in August.
Hitwise

Google Analytics API, How To Develop With Analytics.

Google Analytics have been very helpful to webmasters, marketeers and generally everyone. But what we do day to day with Google Analytics is tip of the ice berg. There are much more hidden under the skin and Google  coming forth with information and steps needed by developers need to take, in order to retrieve data from Google Analytics: Authentication, Account Query, and Profile/Report Query.
Once you watch the video, there is a link for samples of javascript to play with Google Analytics via the API.

 interactive javascript examples for Google Analytics API

Get Closer To Your Google Team With Twitter.

Google has said and of course some of you may have noticed that Google searches for "coupons" have gone 95% over the year and that people are searching for "things to do" over the summer. Perhaps these folks are land locked by financial crisis that most people are experiencing.
But did you know that Google has it's own industry groups? they are Google Auto, Media and Entertainment, Financial Services, Retail, Tech, and Travel.
All these groups keep you updated with

• The latest industry trends and information
• Google insights and news
• Relevant product information and updates

And if you follow them, you might uncover information such as "coupons" and "Things to do" before most others do and be able to leverage it your advantage. If you do that I am sure you will not be searching for "Coupons" nor "Things to do" because you do not have to!
So to make the following even easier all these groups are now on Twitter!
Use the links belows to follow your favorite(s), Auto, Media and Entertainment, Financial Services, Retail, Tech, and Travel.

Inside AdWords: Stay Connected with your Google Industry Team on Twitter

Google Analytics How To: Use Dashboard To Save Mutiple Clicks And Time!

I just read an post on Google Analytics blog about a small but a valuable tip;

 Once you have gone through and created a nice reports, of of those real deep level ones, like analyzing your visitors from different cities in your state or any other state of a country for that matter by;

Click Visitors

            Map Over Lay

                United States

                     and your preferred State.

If this is a report you would like to visit regularly, make it simple add it to your dash board!. So next time you can select it direct from the dashboard, saving a bunch of clicks and having to remember the steps.

Try it now. Go to one of your favorite reports that requires several clicks to access. Once you've arrived at the report you want --and at the level you want it -- click Add to Dashboard. (The Add to Dashboard button is at the top of your report on the left, next to the Export and Email buttons.)

 Google Analytics Blog

Google Captures reCAPTCHA

Official Google Blog: Teaching computers to read: Google acquires reCAPTCHA

reCAPTCHA that you and I have been using on many a sites like facebook, ticket Master and twitter to thwart spam bots and the like, has been acquired by Google.
But the reason for Google to capture reCAPTCHA was not to beat spammers (they might use it in places like blogger) but to use the technology to make it better for computers to read, like in reading (Character recognition) Google Books scanned pages (The real thing behind reCAPTHA);

"reCAPTCHA's unique technology improves the process that converts scanned images into plain text, known as Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This technology also powers large scale text scanning projects like Google Books and Google News Archive Search. Having the text version of documents is important because plain text can be searched, easily rendered on mobile devices and displayed to visually impaired users. So we'll be applying the technology within Google not only to increase fraud and spam protection for Google products but also to improve our books and newspaper scanning process."

I hope people will be able to continue to use the simple interface that reCAPTCHA provided to protect web sites.

If not Blame Canada

Find Your HIgh Performance Keywords Through Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is a tool that many things to many people. I use it constantly to measure and improve sites that I work with. Some are in the high echelons of performance and production. As a policy I do not links or name those sites.
The point for today is that you can use Google Analytics for your advantage and one such point is finding high performance keywords for you for further expanding their performance, and turning them into ultimate keyword for your site or sites that you manage.

Without further ado, here it is straight form the masters of Google Analytics.
Recently, a Google blog called Solutions for Southeast Asia wrote a post about this topic, covering the techniques to use Google Analytics and AdWords to find and add the most effective unused keywords. It's a great post - definitive and very thorough, going from soup to nuts, expanding on these steps:

Step 1: Ensure Goals and E-commerce Tracking are set up

Step 2: Access the Keywords Report
Step 3: Export non-paid keywords to a spreadsheet
Step 4: Expand the list of keywords using other Google products
Step 5: Download a list of keywords that you are already advertising on
Step 6: Identify keywords you are not advertising on
Step 7: Expand on these keywords and start advertising

The article Using Google Analytics To Identify High-Performing Keywords
Go find your high performance keywords, and make them better.