• The “Action Dashboard” (An Alternative To Crappy Dashboards) | Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

  Fantastic read. While this post refers to analytics, the fundamental truth of the post is that we want actionable information - not just stats. Stats don’t mean anything without analysis and action.

  (tags: analytics, dashboards)

• Tips for Google Site and Category Exclusion Tool - Search Engine Watch

  Nice article from David on using the AdWords Category Exclusion Tool. Must read if you are doing a lot of content campaign optimization.

  (tags: adwords)

• The SEO Success Pyramid

  Not sure how I missed this before - worth reading.

  (tags: seo,)

• Virgin Shows CMO’s How a Facebook Advertising Strategy Can Work

  Good article on the consistency of ads to landing pages (regardless that this is about Facebook - the messaging should be used in all digital marketing).

• LittleAfrica.com - General Colin Powell: 18 Lessons from a very sucessful leader

  Worth reading to see how it should apply to your business.

  (tags: business leadership)

• The best pieces of advice for successful startups | Aleyda Solis Blog | Web Enthusiast, Developer and Promoter

  (tags: start-ups, vc)

• Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog » Minimum Bids No Longer Fixed at $.10

  (tags: ysm)

• List of ondemand presentations for AdWords

  (tags: adwords)

• Inside AdWords: Improvements to AdWords Conversion Tracking

  Important to read if you use Google’s conversion tracking.

  (tags: adwords)

• Can I track more than one kind of conversions?

  Read this after you read the AdWords blog post.

  (tags: adwords+conversion+tracking)

• ʇuǝʇuoɔ ǝǝɹɟ ɥʇıʍ dıɥsuoıʇɐlǝɹ ǝʇɐɥ ǝʌol ɐ | Performancing.com

  worth a moment to think about.

  (tags: content)

• SEO is Not Free Traffic

  I’ve been saying this for about 10 years. Adding to the article, what would you be making if you were doing something besides SEO and would that lead to more total $$?

  (tags: SEO)

• Recognizing Your Inner-Boss: 10 Breeds and How to Survive With Them

When Google switched to using the minimum bids instead of disabled keywords, there was still one leftover item that was not fully transparent: A keyword that did not receive an impression for 90 days became disabled behind the scenes even if it showed as active within your account.

It seems Google has clarified when this happens, and ads the caveat that the word will go active again if people start searching for it.

Overall, I’m a fan of the keyword analysis info boxes within AdWords. I find the various alerts useful for a quick diagnosis inside an account. However, they would be very useful if you could run a report and see all of these alerts at a single time instead of having to view them one-by-one.

• Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (Research at the Getty)

  (tags: geo info)

• Zoho Blogs » Amazon AWS, Google App Engine, Zoho Creator: A Continuum

  Good article on the differences between AWS, Zoho, and Google App Engine.

  (tags: cloud+computing)

• Death of the Unique Selling Proposition

  Interesting read that might make you want to test some different ad copy and landing pages.

  (tags: copywriting)

• Google AdWords Opens up Demographic Bidding - Search Engine Guide Blog

  Nice walk thru by Jennifer about demographic bidding on AdWords.

  (tags: adwords)

• Wikipedia article traffic statistics

  Interesting to see how much traffic Wikipedia receives for some terms.

  (tags: research)