They say things come in threes, but I don’t think anyone expected the final glove to fall with such shocking news. Last week’s trio of celebrity death’s started with TV Icon, Ed McMahon (86), Super Model, Farrah Fawcett (62), and ended with the “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson (51). Sure, the passing of Mr. McMahon and Ms. Fawcett was given main stream media attention. However, MJ’s death caused an online traffic frenzy of record breaking proportions.

How many people hit the web to get the skinny on MJ? Millions would be a conservative estimate. In fact, Yahoo! News set an all time record of 16.4 million UVs (unique visitors) on Thursday. Celebrity gossip site, tmz.com, received so much traffic that their servers reportedly crashed multiple times. Google was also a victim as the New York Post reported that Google News had to actually block the term “Michael Jackson” to prevent their site from crashing.

Using Compete’s daily online traffic metrics, reach and attention, we’re able to get a real sense of just how many online users in the US were surfing celebrity gossip sites to get their MJ updates.

Reach lets us to see what percentage of U.S. Internet users online visited a particular website on a particular day. Tmz.com, who broke the story of MJ’s death, reached 1.9% of the total US online population on 6/25. That’s a 438% increase from 6/24 and a 527% increase year over year. Other celebrity news sites experienced the same trend – eonline.com (up 213% to 1.3% of total US traffic), people.com (up 70% to .54% of total US traffic), perezhilton.com (up 28% to .45% of total US traffic), and ew.com (up 49% to .21% of total US traffic). These five sites alone reached 4.42% of all U.S. Internet users online.

Attention is a metric that considers the collective time all U.S. Internet users spend online and calculates what percentage of that time was spent on a given website on a particular day. Once again, tmz.com showed the greatest increase on 6/25, up 478% over the day before and 272% year over year to .037% of all time spent online. However, people.com garnered the most attention of all the celebrity sites on that day with .053% of total time spent online (up 71% from 6/24 and 50% year over year). The other celebrity sites also showed increases – eonline.com (up 175% to .032% of total US traffic), perezhilton.com (up 28% to .45% of total US traffic), and ew.com (up 49% to .21% of total US traffic).

Although some may credit MJ’s never-ending fame to his character flaws ridden with tabloid headlines, his musical career was undoubtedly flooded with accomplishments – 2 time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, 13 time Grammy Award winner, and over 750 million records sold worldwide to name a few. The polarizing effect of his personal life’s blunders and undeniable talent obviously kept audiences captivated and will continue to captivate them for years to come. His passing even added another notch to his belt – “king of the Internet”… for a day.

Copyright Compete Blog – MJ or Bust: Millions Hit Web to Learn of the Loss of Their “King of Pop”

Urchin has done it again! Version 6.6 is available for purchase, as an update to your already purchased license and for trial.

Version 6.6 introduces some really great improvements to the software including:

• A deeper integration with Google AdWords, including Budget Alerts, a Keyword Generation Tool, direct links to AdWords (so you don’t have to switch between programs), an Urchin Tag Manager, AdWords Optimizer, and a Copy Campaign Tool!

New Reporting:

• Time On Site Report under Content Optimization, Content Performance, Engagement Metrics
• An entirely new reporting section called Advertiser View and Section (If you’re upgrading from an older version of Urchin, you’ll need to reprocess your data to populate these reports.)
• Click here for a complete list of Urchin 6 Reports

Also new:

• External Authentication (LDAP)
• New Urchin “Home” Page (modified to provide metrics for all the profiles that are visible to the logged-in user)
• Automated CPC Data Import from Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM)
• Data Export API

For more information on the benefits and features of Urchin 6.6, check out this table.

If you currently own Urchin 6, simply download the software to have the latest updates.

If you don’t yet own Urchin 6 Software you can purchase it online for a one-time licensing fee of $2,995.

Copyright Unofficial Google Analytics Blog – Latest Urchin Version 6.6 Ready and Available for Download!

I recorded a 30+ minute DEMO (screencast) of YWA version 9.5 the other day – and am publishing the outcome below. The tone of the Video is less advert-like and much more educational; or this is at least something I tried to capture.

I believe the video is a great appetizer for how we approach web analytics from a feature point of view – and if you are not yet fully comfortable with YWA, I am most confident this video will shine some light on the product. Enjoy

The above screencast is reduced in size, simply to fit this blog page, but you can click through to the original sized (990*938) screenscast, should you want the full experience.

Yahoo Web Analytics in 30 minutes (VIDEO – HD)

If you made it through the video, and were pleased, you might be happy to hear that we plan to do a number of 3 min. videos focused on insight – not features.

Cheers
/ Dennis Mortensen (@dennismortensen)

Copyright VisualRevenue – Yahoo Web Analytics in 30 minutes (VIDEO)

by Jennifer Laycock

With more and more people signing on to social sites like Twitter and Facebook, companies are working overtime to figure out how to make the companies, products and offerings go viral. While I’ve written quite a few article about the theories behind preparing a campaign that’s likely to go viral, the truth is that some of the most effective viral campaigns are also the simplest. Sometimes it’s less about creating a great idea and more about enabling the spread.

I saw the perfect example of this earlier today while hunting for a pair of sandals. I was looking for a pair of slip-on Croc sandals to replace a pair that broke last week. Since I’m going camping with friends this weekend, I wanted to make sure I had replacements before we head out on Thursday. There aren’t any local stores here in Canton that sell this style of Crocs, so I headed to Zappos, knowing I’d get fast, free shipping. Unfortunately, Zappos doesn’t carry Crocs.

That sent me to the Crocs site, which had my shoe in stock, but charges a hefty fee for shipping. That’s when a Google search turned up Shoebuy.com. The site advertising free UPS ground shipping both ways, plus they carried the Crocs I was looking for. On top of that, they were offering $20 off a $50 purchase if I used PayPal. That alone would have been enough to make me mention the site to at least a couple of friends. After all, giving people a great deal is a key way to get them to talk about you.

In fact, I pretty much expected to see the standard “send a discount to friends” option pop up after I checked out. I wasn’t disappointed. But the folks at Shoebuy.com score in the viral realm by taking it a step further.

Give the Consumer Control

If you look up in the top right corner of the checkout page, you’ll see the discount code for friends. Clicking on that discount shows where they take things a step further and do them right. They not only offer me a discount for my friends, they give me the ability to share that discount in any way I’d like.

If you look closely at that screen shot, you’ll notice the standard “email to friend” form. The nice thing is the line of options along the top of the window allowing me to share it via several other social media outlets. As a woman, I love this. I’m not keen on giving the email addresses of my friends to a random company. (I’m more than happy to TELL my friends about a company, but I don’t like handing those email addresses over.)

The folks at Shoebuy.com give the power of the message to me. No email? No problem. I clicked over to the Facebook icon and filled out the form to share it with my Facebook friends.

A few seconds later, their coupon and my personal endorsement broadcast to my list of Facebook friends.

I clicked through the list, looking at the options and ended up shooting the link and a quick plug out to my Twitterverse as well. Making a perfect example of how this type of enabling of your customer can take word of mouth or viral marketing to a whole new level. Had the Shoebuy.com demanded email addresses for me to give friends the discount, I likely would have given them just three or four addresses. My best friend, my mom and maybe one or two others. But with these options…it got broadcast to a few hundred Facebook friends and to a few thousand Twitter contacts.

Heck, they even gave me a simple “embed” option complete with code, so I’ll go ahead and share it with all your Search Engine Guide readers as well.

Here’s $10 off at Shoebuy.com

“”

Save on shoes, accessories, handbags and apparel at Shoebuy.com. We’ve got something for everyone and for a limited time, you can save $10 on that special something. Valid on purchase of $50 or more.

View >>

Put More into Enabling than Inspiring

I watch companies put tons of time and creative energy into coming up with a brilliantly catchy video, or an enticing blog pitch. Marketers preach viral like it’s the key to free advertising, but we try to convince business owners they have to create the next big thing to capture a viral success. While that’s one way to go about it, most companies will see a dramatic improvement if they just start with something as simple as creating a really great social media friendly “send to friend” option. Give people a simple and easy message to spread, then give them the tools to spread it. You might be surprised at how far it takes you.

Check out our small business news site.

Copyright Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing – Sparking Viral Spread – Make it Easy For Them

by Miriam Ellis

A few day ago, a business owner told me about a rather complex problem with his Google Maps business listing and asked me what to do about it. My explanation was pretty long, starting with the need to claim his listing and ending with a warning that fixing errors in Google Maps isn’t always simple.

It took several paragraphs of detailed text to cover what I felt the business owner needed to do and he came back to me with a, “That’s great, but how do I claim my listing?” Sometimes, I get ahead of myself when I’m answering questions and in this case, I forgot for a moment that such a huge number of the business listings that make up Google’s local index are still unclaimed. Let’s get down to basics with this article. If you’ve been mystified by the verification process, read on!

Why Do You Need To Claim Your Google Maps Listing?

Important Reason #1 – Just as you keep careful tabs on the content you have published on your website about your business, you need to be in control of what content Google is publishing about your business. You may discover that Google has errors or blank spots in their data about you. The way for you to correct this is to let Google know you own the business, which I’ll describe how to do, so that you can officially edit the content of your business listing. Claiming your listing gives you improved control over how you are being represented by Google.

Important Reason #2 – Just like the rest of the web, Google’s local index is plagued with spammers and crooks. Unclaimed business listings are at risk of competitive hijacking. If you haven’t claimed your business listing, malicious parties can step in and alter its content for their own benefit – not yours. This has been an acute problem in Google Maps and your best defense is to lock down your listing by claiming it.

How To Claim Your Google Maps Listing

Step one is to go to Google Maps and do a search for your business. Let’s imagine we own K-Mart in San Mateo, California. So, we do a search for k-mart san mateo ca.
Unless your business is brand new, chances are it will have been indexed by Google already. So, all we have to do is click the More info link next to the business title, as shown:

This brings up the big popup to the right of the business listing. Click the Edit link, as shown:

This will bring up a second popup, this time a smaller one. In this popup, we see the question, Are you the owner? Claim your business:

Click that link and you will be taken to Google’s Local Business Center login page. If you already have a Google account of some kind, such as for gmail or Adwords, you can use your pre-existent login information to get into the Local Business Center. If you do not already have a Google account of some kind, you will need to create one at this point. Once you have logged in, you will be shown the business you want to claim.

Look carefully at all of the data in the listing! Are the address and phone number correct? Are the categories the business is listed in accurate? Are there additional details you could include, such as hours of operation, languages spoken or forms of payment accepted? Make sure the description of your business is as thorough and accurate as possible.

Once you have edited the data so that it is the best possible representation of your business, the Local Business Center asks you whether you would like to verify your changes to the listing by either phone or postcard. A phone call is the fastest way to go, but sometimes, the phone call doesn’t work because of weaknesses in Google’s phone system and you have to select the postcard route. In this case, Google will send you a small postcard containing a pin number that you need to phone in with when you receive it.

And that’s how you claim your Google Local Business Center listing.

Despite the fact that Google has given major prominence to their local search results in the Universal SERPs, they have done very little to alert business owners to the need to verify ownership of the listings. No one, that I know of, has calculated what percentage of the listings in Google’s local index are unclaimed, but pretty much everyone agrees the number is staggering. So, don’t feel badly if you didn’t realize you needed to take control of your listing. You’ve got the information you need to do it now.

Once you’ve got this initial, and utterly vital, task completed, you can work towards starting to win reviews from your happy customers and encourage citations from relevant websites. But that’s a subject for another post!

Check out our small business news site.

Copyright Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing – How To Claim Your Google Maps Listing