Google Analytics currently has a new feature in limited beta that I am particularly excited about. Multi-Channel Funnels.

With this feature you will be able to see all the channels that led to your customer purchasing a product or signing up for your service. Internet marketers currently struggle with attribution and without a room full of quant nerds running equations or extremely high-level services, it is difficult to not give conversion credit to the last touched channel.

Below is a brief video that previews how the multi-channel funnels will work.

I have been reading the SEOmoz blog for a couple years now and started using their tools as they became available. Near the end of 2010, they made the commitment to focus heavily on their SEO tools and to make them better and more available to other business owners and SEO professionals.

By creating a free account, you now have access to a variety of tools for competitive analysis, link building, on-page optimization and keyword research.

Upgrade to a Pro Account

After several months of using the free tools (and beginning to rely on them), I upgraded to a pro account and it has been awesome.  In addition to getting extra tools, I was also able to create campaigns for ongoing research, tracking and analysis.  Below is a brief overview of some of the great tools included in the pro account.

On-Page Errors & Warnings

Once a week the campaign will index each website in your campaigns and then display any on-page errors.  The errors are categorized by severity so that you know how to prioritize your efforts.  The errors can include duplicate content, meta data too long, 400/500 errors and many more.

Full Backlink Analysis

The competitive backlink analysis tools are an amazing way to understand the linkscape of your website and your competitors.  You can easily understand your top anchor text, linking domains and domain authorities with these tools, to make your link building efforts more effective.

Keyword Ranking Report

Another excellent tool within the pro account is the keyword ranking analysis.  Simply add the keywords you want to rank for and every week the index will be updated, showing you the increase or decrease in ranking for each term in Google.

If you love the free SEOmoz tools and you want to get serious about your SEO campaign management, I would highly recommend you check out the Pro Account.

Get your free 30 day trial here! >>

Three years ago my wife & I moved to start the spiritual, and entrepreneurial venture, of planting a non-traditional, post-modern church. Much like any start-up, letting people know we existed was our number one priority. We received advice from many on how to do this but ultimately decided that using social media would be our primary focus.

Three years later, I have started to refer to this type of strategy as “Connection Marketing”. Connection Marketing builds a bridge from your product or organization to the consumer.

We all know connections matter in the culture we live in & building relational bridges is often the difference between success & failure. It’s no longer as simple as putting up a billboard & hoping people show up. Exposure is important, but I have grown more & more convinced that connection is what matters most.  Social media has made this connection more possible than ever before.

To be effective, connection marketing must be intentional, interactive and relational. If your current strategy isn’t fulfilling each of these areas I would suggest going back to the whiteboard with a fresh perspective and the willingness to explore how you can best connect your vision with the world.

Are you connecting?

Marin Software announced today that they raised $16 million in Series E funding, totaling $51 million.

Marin Software offers products for search engine management used primarily by large advertisers and agencies.  In 2010, the company expanded it’s offering to provide options for companies spending less than $100,000/mo, as well as retargeting, Facebook ads and more.

Check out the write up in TechCrunch for more information on Marin Software and their latest investors.

Chicago L Shirts is a cool online shop that has a very niche product.  The shirts take the Chicago CTA signage and coordinates and apply them to a corresponding t-shirt color.  This is a really cool concept and a fun way to show your neighborhood pride for just $20.  According to the website, the only designs available are the Chicago Avenue stops, but they are planning to add more in the future.

Chicago Blue Line

Chicago Brown Line

Chicago Purple Line

In addition to having cool shirts, this t-shirt shop has a stunning website.  As you can see below, the website uses stunning images for the entire background and the Helvetica font for a clean look, which is consistent with the CTA signage.

Definitely check out Chicago L-Shirts, even if you don’t live in Chicago.

One of the most important attributes of any brand is it’s voice. This is what a buyer hears when it holds a product up to his/her ear to listens to what it has to say. With social media marketing taking center stage, brands are now looking to Twitter for the perfect way to showcase their voice. Wow Bao, a Chicago-based Asian restaurant chain, has created @BaoMouth to be the voice of their brand.

Read more about the Wow Bao social media strategy to find out how to create a voice of your own:

http://435digital.com/blog/2011/01/05/the-social-media-marketing-strategy-of-wow-bao/

With a wave of publicity and pockets full of cash, the new mobile photo application COLOR is turning a lot of heads. They announced $41 million in funding, all of which is pre-launch.  According to Tech Crunch, this is the most money Sequoia Capital has ever given a pre-launch startup, including Google.  Needless to say, there are going to be a lot of eyes on Color, waiting to see what they are going to do.

Below is there quick demo video to get a teaser and you can also download for iPhone or Android from their website: http://color.com.

See the rest of the Tech Crunch story here: Color Looks to Reinvent Social Interaction With Its Mobile Photo App and 41 Million in Funding

Heineken, one of the most well known “green bottle beer” brands, recently announced that they are going to be focusing more on getting their draft beer in bars and restaurants.  The interesting aspect is that they are using this method as a marketing tactic in attempt to improve their in-store sales of bottles, cans and mini kegs.

AdAge.com has more on the details of how Heineken plans to market the draft beer, available in restaurants and bars, and how they believe it will help reverse their slumping sales.

To view the full story, visit: http://adage.com/article/news/heineken-marketing-push-focus-draft-beer/149437/.

If you have been anywhere near the loop in Chicago over the past few months, you have probably seen some large, orange signs for a new condo like the one shown below.

However, if you aren’t close enough to the signs, you can’t see what everything else says.  This slogan caught my interest so I did a search for “missing this would suck” in Google and the results are shown below.

Nothing.  I had to wait until I saw a sign closer to realize it was for a condo called 565 Quincy.

Maybe I was one of very few that had this problem, but the point is that people are going to go online for more information.  If all they have to go by is your slogan, you need to optimize your website to at least show up for that exact phrase, if nothing else.

This is a pretty quick and easy concept, but it can be very help for your long-term analytics use.  Last month I switched my static personal site to a Tumblr blog and experienced an immediate spike in traffic.  I was just looking back over the last month and I had to spend a few minutes figuring out why traffic spiked, which is why annotations are so great.

Simply hover over the day where the traffic spiked (or dipped) and you will see the option to click “Create new annotation”.

A box will appear below the graph and you can type your notes in the open box.  It also gives you the option to allow other analytics users to see the annotation, or keep them private.

Once you are done, you will see a small note window under the day.  If you hover over the note you can see the annotation.

As things get hectic and as time goes by, you will be glad you took the 2 minutes to add an annotation when you can no longer remember what happened.  You think you will remember at the time, but for me it didn’t even take a month to forget.