Another awesome marketing technique. Love it.

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I’m sure the majority of web users only use the web, image, or map search functions of Google. However there are many tools that Google offers which aren’t necessarily advertised on the main site, or even in their ‘more Google products’. They’re usually found in the Google Labs and one of these tools in particular can help one in the beginning phases of an SEO upgrade – and it’s called Google Trends.

Google Trends allows you to view search trends by multiple terms and compare them. This allows you to see where the trends lie for your specific industry in terms of keywords and what your target market is looking for. This tool can be very powerful depending on what you use it for. It can allow you to see seasonal trends and steady traffic patterns that you otherwise may have missed. For example, you can search for yearly events like “xmas gifts” that you think may have seasonal trends:

It’s also possible to browse trends based on calendar dates rather than searching for them by viewing the Hot Trends. For example, by browsing the top 100 hot trends of November 4th, 2008 it’s obvious you’ll see the majority of results circle around the 44th presidential campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain.

It is important to remember that just because a certain search term is a ‘hot trend’ does not mean that you should put into your keywords or website content if it doesn’t fit with your topic. If it isn’t already apparent to why it’s a bad idea to incorporate content that doesn’t fit your topic or audience I strongly suggest you revert back to either my post on copywriting for SEO or Jess’ post on building the right audience.

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I read this news story today and found it slightly humorous. I heard the morning radio DJ I listen to say that apparently all American Apparel stores carry this magazine and sell it. I’m still trying to figure out what the marketing strategy must be behind it or why on earth a popular clothing store would be selling these magazines.

I still get a kick out of the name of the magazine, BUTT. Could you imagine having to tell someone where you worked or interned? “Yes, I had an internship at BUTT.”

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With a little bit of graphic design assistance from Justin, and the authentication and upload from a couple of developers, I completed a small project yesterday. Netgenetix updated an online customer management system used by travel agencies for a company called Pro File Client. My project was making software demos to make learning the system easier for its users. There are three demos, one for an agent level login, one for an admin level login, and one for sales and marketing purposes. Over the span of about two weeks I managed to re-write the scripts, learn to use Adobe Captivate, code the new html pages (from an old template though, so not difficult), create pretty buttons for the videos, record all the audio and put it all together for upload. I was so hoping for a lauch on the deadline before noon. Unfortunately due to other projects being launched and other daily distractions I was unable to have it uploaded until nearly 5:30pm at the end of the day. This means all the QA things I noticed which couldn’t have been tested until it was live will have to wait until Monday to be fixed.

Despite the annoyance and frustration this project brought me, I actually probably had the most fun working on it than I have in the past few months on other projects. I learned so many things working on this one project alone as well. From simple coding tricks and some design tips to dealing with difficult audio. I can’t even begin to list all the techniques I tried to make the audio for these demos usable. Everything from making home-made sponges for overtop of the mic to making full on tents around myself to keep the sound confined and adding blankets and material to absorb the sound in an extremely boomy and echo-ey conference room. I spent hours trying to make the audio usable for these demos.

Considering the majority of this project was done myself it was also an experience in project managing myself. I’ve never really done any freelance projects and building your own website doesn’t really have much of a deadline unless you want it to. In order to make this deadline I pulled my first all nighter since college – and it actually wasn’t too bad – I managed to stay awake and still be productive at work the next day. People say to me, “why? why are you doing extra work you don’t get paid for?”. And the answer is, because I want to. I guess I’m exceptionally dedicated and caring when it comes to work than most people – but I’m not about to let a project go out past deadline or looking like crap if I can help it – especially if its a project I did all myself. It’s about the pride in the work and the reputation you get from it. I want people to look back on it thinking “Rebekah did an amazing job on that project” not look back on it thinking “We can do this project well as long as Rebekah isn’t involved”. It’s about pride and dignity, dedication, and the feeling it brings you when it’s done.

As for those demos, well, two of them are password protected but you can see the sales demo if you want. However I’ll warn you its probably pretty boring – its a software demo. Those of you who want to provide tips or criticism feel free to do so.

Thanks!
Rebekah

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I was driving around downtown Vancouver the other day and came upon a life-size letter F. Some good marketing if you ask me – I know I looked it up when I got home. It’s a new campaign for Fujifilm called ‘Get on the F list‘. I just thought it was worth posting for others to see. I apologize for the quality of the photo. Taken with my cell phone, on a rainy day, while driving (sort of, it was a red light).

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The following is a post I wrote for Citrus SEO on blogging for businesses.

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