Marc Ohmann’s Blog

Last month I accidentally typed the letter 'i' twice when writing ZoomInfo on the 'About ' section of the blog so it appeared as ZoomIinfo.  Through the analytics I discovered quickly that I was ranking for this misspelling and quickly corrected the spelling on the site.  However, before I could get it changed I had already had 15 visitors from Google due to the misspelling.  It gets better, those 15 visitors ended up with an average of 4 pageviews each!  Oddly enough due to the misspelling it seems those visitors still found something they were looking for on the site.  Long live the long-tail-of-search.

Andy Beal recently blogged on "Five Secret Strategies to Add $1 Million in Revenue to your Interactive Marketing Agency in 2007"  Others followed suite including Rand at SEOmoz and Eric at Ramblings about SEO

Since I had such an extraordinary ride this year in Web Development and Interactive Marketing, I figure I'll through in my 1/2 cent worth.

With the simplicity of Javascript style analytics packages such as Google Analytics compared to the traditional log file parsers, comes the concern that some data (page views) may be overlooked.  One legitimate concern is for browsers with Javascript turned off (which could really be less than 0.05% of all users).  But another concern is for the case where a site removes traditional form posts and replaces them with elegant AJAX calls.  By using the urchinTracker a site can accurately track all sorts of non-pageview events.  Over at Google Support there is a great example of how urchinTracker can be used specifically for tracking AJAX calls.

Now my wife will attest that I am not the most observant person so this may have happened a couple of days ago I just didn't notice.  But today I have been seeing a Google map link included in the search results for some businesses — such as the listing below.

Just another reason to make sure your business is included in the Google Maps (Local) database.

Popularity: 10% [?]

I switched over from Outlook + Exchange a couple of weeks ago to GMail for email.  However I still found myself opening Outlook every time I had a schedule an meeting.  Well today that's all changing.  I dumped my whole calendar from Exchange to a csv and imported into Google Calendar - seamless.  I am loading all my past emails right now with Gmail Loader GML - again seamless (except for the date thing).  I have project milestones fed into GoogleCalendar from BaseCamp and by next month I should have salesforce.com contacts and events syncing with Google also.  Man I love integration.

With web searches constantly craving better search results, there is a large trend in search towards vertical searches (searches refined to a specific industry, location, etc).  As with anything in search these days, the Google juggernaut is making aggressive moves in the area.  One particular product Google is offering in the area is Google Base.  From the Google Base info page:

I have been running Digital Solutions now for just over 7 years.  It is amazing how caught up in day-to-day activities one can become when running a rapidly growing company.  Sometimes it is difficult to stay focused on the core ideas which really drive the company.  In my mind, every day you need to focus on improving in 2 areas.  Therefor these two areas become my 2 keys to business success. 

1. Your ability to market products/services in order to attract and sell profitable work.
2. Your ability to attract and manage talented labor to fulfill the products and services that are sold.

This is one of the most common questions we are asked by clients who are new to web development projects of any size. My response is generally,

“That depends on what you are trying to accomplish.”

The client’s response is then generally, “I know but can’t you give me an idea.”

The truth is we can’t give a good idea towards cost before determining desired results. I actually had on VP Sales say to me, “yea but is it going to be $5,000 or $500,00?” and really the answer is it could be either of those, anywhere in between or even more.

So I spent some time recently reviewing some of our local competitions portfolios to get a feel for the types of work they are completing.  One company in particular has been trying to chase a number of our clients and prospects.  I won’t name any names but I feel so much better about differentiating ourselves from the competition after reviewing their work.

The Good