Being that it is the season for Halloween, I thought it would be appropriate to post the “Things that make me scream edition.”

Normally, I try to edit these things when speaking to colleagues and clients, but this is the season to “let it out”.

So without further ado:

1. When computer disaster strikes – Hey it can happen. It can be a external hard drive that suddenly stops working or a whole system that decides not to start up. This is why it is important to back up.

2. Comment spam. This goes without saying. I live my the motto my grandmother says, “If you don’t have anything constructive to say, don’t say it at all”.

3. Not tracking conversions. I am surprised at the amount of dollars that people spend on SEM (search engine marketing) and PPC campaigns and they are not measuring conversions. How can they seriously quantify if there campaigns are working or not if they are not measuring? They might as well just throw their money away and forget about it.

4. There is a 4th thing, but it bugs me so much, that it will get its own post. Stay tuned.

Posted via email from nextSTEPH’s posterous

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

I was quoted today in an article from Web Worker Daily.

Learn more about what others say about what it takes to have a career in search.

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

So before going on an “all borough scavenger hunt” , I decided to start online.  I went to a search engine and typed “lamp supplies.”  The results that came up were not specific enough, so I then typed in “lamp nut.”

This last query led me to a store in Little Italy  that had a webpage describing “finials.”  They say that a lamp is not complete without a finial.

I did tell the store owner that I found the store online.  He said that it was nice to know that the investment was paying off.

Tip to local retailers: Ask new customers how they found out about your store. It will give insight into your marketing and then you will be able to make informed decisions  about uncoming maketing plans.

The moral of this article is that advertisers have one vocabulary and the customer has another.  Make an effort to communicate in the customer’s language. That wil not only translate into revenue, but it will give you an opportunity to educate the customer as well.

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

This would be a good time to review whether or not mobile marketing is in your strategy.

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

As we know, there are multiple goals a website can have, but what happens when 4 isn’t enough?

Google Analytics currently has space for 4 goals. What happens when the client want to add another goal page?

In this environment, its not like most companies and/or small businesses can afford to buy an off the shelf solution.

In  Google Analytics, one can go to “Content > Top Content “  and/or “Content by Title” and do a search based on the file name and/or  a keyword.

However, Google released “Custom Reporting” that lets you create a report based on what your needs are.

So now,  the  task is to figure out how to find and id other goals.

There are two parts to making a custom report, “Metrics” and “Dimensions”. The metrics are  the data, and the dimensions really analyze the data. For example,  for “Metrics”one can have “Goal Starts” or how many people arrived on a form page,  “Goal Completions” how many people finished or filled out a  form.

For Dimensions, one can see what Country , State, County/Town, Hour they where on the site and what site they came from.  One can have an maximum of 5 dimensions. This is very helpful if one needs to dig for specific data.

Are you trying to figure out what website referred the most traffic, what time to the most amount of sales come in or from what city, Custom Reporting holds the key.

Of course, one still has to use the search function to find the particular goal page in mind. At least the amount of steps is reduced and once you create a custom report, it can be accessed for other linked analytics accounts.

What are you doing to analyze your site when you have more than 4 goals on a budget or no budget? Inquiring minds want to know.

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

I was lucky enough to win an SMX T-shirt from SMX East this week. How often does a girl get 2 shirts in one week without having to pay for them?

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

For more about today, visit the post from last year.

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.

With further investigation, I then learned that the logo was tribute to Walter Gropius, father of the Bauhaus movement.

As a architectural student, I can appreciate the process as well as the execution.

If you check out the artist’s profile page, you can also see that there are more notable figures in Architecture and Art (like Michelangelo) that Google has paid tribute to.

Thanks to Search Engine Land for the resource.

This post is from Stephanie M. Cockerl's blog, From the desk of next STEPH.