Ever feel like this?
www.tcimagination.com

So being a long time blackberry user I have been looking forward to getting my hands on the Motorola Droid. First impression is WOW!, I love it! The browser is amazing and the market place is just full of amazing apps and games, most of them being free!

So lets start with the pluses.

1. Amazing screen and graphics
2. The browser is perfect!
3. Emails with HTML!
4. Fast browsing
5. Market place full of Apps
6. Onscreen keyboard is good.

Not to many minuses but here goes.

1. Slide out keyboard is junk and very hard to use, I would rather have a thicker phone with a keyboard like the blackberry,
2. Battery life is poor

Considering the amazing screen quality and all the features, I can live with the bad battery life and poor keyboard.

Blackberry has really disappointed me, they have not made any effort to upgrade to the new need of business clients, they still think that all we need is exchange email, yes they have added Blackberry App world but what a joke! Still not open source and you can’t install apps to your SD card.  You have to install to the internal 256mb of memory…yep 256mb! so after 2 apps your phone will slow down to a crawl and lock up. Once again blackberry fails miserably.

Goodbye Blackberry and Hello Droid!
www.tcimagination.com
www.groupcci.com

Trevor

Its looking like I will be spending lots of time in the land of “adwords” I have been assigned the task to increase web traffic to Lockers ‘N’ More and oh what fun it is.   There are lots of tips out there but so far these have worked best for me.

FYI if you are in the market for Lockers, Toilet Partitions or Washroom accessories be sure to check them out here.

• Use global negatives

If you’re selling something, you don’t want people finding your ad if they’re searching for free stuff. This sounds obvious, but do some searches and you’ll see it happening. Use the word ‘free’ in your campaign global negatives. You can also use this for other words you don’t want to turn up for. Using negative keywords is especially important if you’re using broad matching.

• Turn off content targeting and search network

Do you know where to look at these ads? No. Leave them alone until you feel confident that you know where they’ll be showing and that you can make them work – get comfortable with Google first. Conversion rates and CTR’s change dramatically for each search property, not to mention content targeted ads. Get acquainted with Google before you move on to the others.

• Test different creatives and positions

How much of a difference will being in the first position, as opposed to the second, third or sixth position make, for your net profit? The answer is that it depends on your creative, industry and who else is bidding on your keywords. The bottom line is that you should know. Test your creative in each position and work out where it will be most effective, from an ROI point of view. Remember also that the adwords ranking algo works on a CPCxCTR basis (it’s actually more complicated than that, but that gives an idea as to why out of two ads with similar CPC’s, one will be higher because of a higher CTR)

You can also test your creatives. Write 5 or 6 different ads and set them to run evenly (Google will run the one which preforms best by default, but you can set them to run evenly in your campaign settings). The creative which gives you the highest ROI is the one you should go with. You should probably run this kind of test for more than just a day.

• Optimise your landing page

The landing page is the page which the person who clicked on your ad will see when they come through to your site. Don’t use your homepage as your landing page unless it deals only with selling the product you’re advertising. For instance, if you’re selling posters, have a landing page for ‘flower’ posters and a landing page for ‘car’. You can even go one better and have a landing page for each poster – so you’ll have a page for ’sunflower posters’ and ‘bmw 5 series posters’.

• Track conversion and ROI (Return On Investment)

Track everything. Google will track impressions, clicks and click through rate. Just because an ad has a high CTR doesn’t mean that it is making you money! You can use Google’s own conversion tracking codes, or you can use your own software. If you don’t know how each keyword is preforming – then you won’t be able to optimise your campaigns, by turning off the keywords that aren’t working and investing more in the keywords which are.

• Work out your CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)

How much is each sale costing you? Are your Google adwords listings preforming as well as your Overture listings? Your SiteMatch listings? Your offline marketing? You should know how much you’re paying for each order/sale/download/enquiry/whatever on each channel – only then will you be able to set CPA targets to work towards and know which channel is best for you.

• Don’t enter into bidding wars

It is easy to get into bidding wars with your competitors. You want to be number one and so does your competitor. The best thing to do is to take a step back, ten deep breaths and consider how important it really is to be in the number one spot. If you can justify it, fine but otherwise: let your competitor be number one, slot into the number two slot and wait. If you have a better product, your clickthrough rate will get you to the top – and you’ll still be paying the same as you were in the second position.

More and more people are using automated bidding software. This software will update at a set interval to keep the ad in the desired position. Doing battle with this kind of software is even more frustrating and less rewarding than trying to outbid a competitor.

• Set a weekly budget and stick to it

When you’re first starting out this is really important. adwords is addictive, and like anything else addictive, it can quickly get out of hand. A keyword may convert like nobody’s business one day and die the next. Make sure you know a keyword is working (more importantly, know why it is working) before you invest more.

• Geotarget

Geotarget your ads to the relevant audience. It can be done when you set up a new campaign and in your campaign settings. If you want to show on .com that’s fine, but remember that you can geotarget to individual countries and even cities (you can target regions in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the Netherlands). The more targeted users feels that your ad is, the more likely they are to click on it.

• Organise your campaigns into adgroups

This will make it easier for you to know what is doing well and what isn’t – especially a year later. If you’re selling shoes have a campaign not just for running shoes, but for Nike, and then an adgroup for each Nike model.

• Keep a close eye on your competitors

Is your competitor doing something better than you? What keywords do you share with your competitors? Can you discern their strategy? Do they use automated bidding software? Do their landing pages have some magic which you should be emulating? This is the sort of stuff you can find out and the kind of stuff that you need to know.

Discraft Discs

These are the Discraft discs I use and carry in my bag

Drivers

1. Avenger Elite X
2. XL Pro D
3. Force ESP
4. Predator Elite Z

Midrange

1. Buzzz Elite X
2. Wasp Elite Z
3. Comet Elite Z

Approach / Putters

1. Challenger FLX
2. Banger GT Soft D
3. Magnet Pro D

Innova Discs

These are the Innova discs I carry in my bag

Drivers

1. Roadrunner Champion (Favorite Disc!)
2. Destroyer Star (Tomahawk Disc)
3. Destroyer Pro (Roller)

Midrange

1. Stingray Star (2nd Favorite Disc)

I carry more Discraft discs but I use Innova more. I have had my Champion Roadrunner and Star Stingray ever since I started in 2008 and I know exactly what they are going to do everytime.  70% of the time I am using one of these two discs unless I am within 150ft and then it’s Banger GT  Time!

I have slowly been replacing my Innova discs with Discraft partly because Discraft is from my home town and right now Michigan needs all the help they can get and more importantly I like the way they perform.

I would be lost without my Banger GT, Challenger,Wasp, Avenger and Predator.  Some day I will get my Predator and Avenger beat in enough to replace my Roadrunner (or I will get better so I can turn over one of these discs) but I don’t see me ever replacing my Stingray, so rest assured Innova you will always have a place in my bag (Innova bag! until Discraft gets off there ass and starts making a bigger bag!) even though you will be crowded and most likely bullied by Discraft.

Remote Access
Using the Remote Web Workplace
The Remote Web Workplace enables you to connect to your Windows Small Business Server network remotely from any location with an Internet-enabled computer.
Read your email
When you are in the office, you typically use Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 to check your e-mail. When traveling or working from home, you can check your work e-mail remotely by connecting to the Internet or directly to your company network. You can use a Web browser (such as Microsoft Internet Explorer) to open a Web-based version of Outlook 2003 called Outlook Web Access.
The following is a partial list of what you can do using Outlook Web Access:
· Check your e-mail, calendar, contacts, and other Outlook folders, including the folders you created to organize your e-mail.
· Send e-mail and meeting requests.
· Move e-mail messages from your Inbox to other folders.
· Place audio and video clips into a message.
· Receive new mail notification.
· Receive meeting reminders.
Connect to your pc at work
Choose this option to connect to the desktop of your computer at work. Choose your computer from the Computer Names list, and then click Connect to connect to your work computer.
Remote desktop connections enable you to access your computer at work as though you are sitting in front of it. However, you cannot save data to the computer that you are using to connect remotely.

Visit me at Group CCI
Visit me at TC Imagination

Why did I start this blog?
Whenever I find myself in a situation I cant find the answer to, what do I do? google it of course. Google and many support forums and blogs provide many solutions,but sometimes I only find part of the solution or don’t find the soluton at all, eventually I figure it out and what do I do? Document it and move on. Well I think its time to make up for all the solutions I have never posted. So hence this blog was born. Hopefully I will save a couple late nights or maybe even a long weekend.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy!
Thanks,
Trevor
http://www.groupcci.com
http://www.tcimagination.com