Amanda just wrote about how to find out what your IP address; but how do you go about excluding your traffic from your Google Analytics reports? With the old version of GA I knew how to input my IP address so it would get filtered in the reports;  but for some reason I couldn’t quite figure out how to do this in the new version. Thanks to a smart colleague (ahem, Monica) she pointed it out to me and I thought I’d “pay it forward” and show you!

Click on any of the images below for a closer view.

1. After you’re logged into your Google Analytics account and have selected your account you’ll see a little gear looking icon in the upper right hand corner. Like in the image to the right. This will take you to the settings for that GA account; this is also where you can set up assets like Custom Alerts, Goals, and Users.
2. You want to make sure that you’re looking at the “Profiles” which is the top tab in this section, then select Filters. This is where you can add, remove, and edit filters on your Google Analytics account. If you’re setting up filters for the first time, choose “+ New Filter.” Indicate whether you are creating a new filter for a profile or applying an existing filter to a profile.
3. The next steps are very easy – give your filter a name (you might want to filter home traffic and office traffic; this is a good place to note which is which), select filter type (it’s probably predefined), and then choose “Exclude,” “traffic from the IP addresses,” and “that are equal to” from the drop downs. This is where you put in your IP address! Click “Save” and voilà you have just filtered out your IP traffic from Google Analytics reports!

Pro tip!

Once you’ve filtered your traffic you should make an Annotation in Google Analytics. That way, if someone else is looking at your site metrics and they notice that traffic has dropped some in the last month, they can see that there is an annotation that reads, “Filtered out office IP traffic from reports” and be able to attribute that decline more easily. I try to get in the habit of making annotations whenever something significant may have changed on the site or that may affect the reports.

Each computer or device that communicates over the internet has a numerical label assigned to it – your IP address. This way your computer can be distinguished from everyone else. Think of it as your computer’s phone number.

You may need your IP address to set up a firewall, or sync a device or program to your computer. It is also handy to know so you can exclude your IP address from your Google Analytics results. By excluding your IP address you will block any data from your office network and get a more true picture of your website’s results.

There are lots of ways to figure out your IP address….

Jenika likes IP Chicken, but let’s be honest… she probably just likes the chicken.

Matt, on the other hand, likes the new Google feature where if you Google the phrase ‘IP address’, it will show your IP address above the search results.

Hope that helps! Got this question twice this week!

We talked a lot about mobile last year and we’re probably going to talk about it even more this year. Hopefully you’re all okay with that and hopefully you took our advice and reviewed the mobile visitors on your website and maybe even considered using a mobile site. Did you see what Google Analytics is doing with mobile analytics now? They are showing you the actual device that your site visitors used to browse your site.

Why does this matter?

There are so many devices that use different screen sizes and offer different browsing experiences. It’s a lot to keep up with! The more you understand about the types of devices people are using to visit your site, the better you can improve your mobile site to give them a good user experience. Of course there is always responsive design, which allows you to cater your website to all mobile and tablet devices. However, you may still want to give your mobile visitors a unique mobile experience when interacting with your business website. So, if you do have a mobile site, you can use the information in Google Analytics to customize their interaction. Not only will the device type help you understand how they are browsing but it also gives you some insight as to who is browsing. For example, if you have a higher number of Blackberry visits than iPhone visits, what can you learn about the people browsing your site?

Other cool mobile reporting

Not only can you see the device, you can see who their service providers are and “Mobile Input Selector” tells you if they are using a touchscreen, a click wheel, or another method to select information using their mobile device. You can also see top screen resolutions in a simple report format.

It can be intimidating to try to accommodate so many different resolutions and device types but, there are lots of tools to help you see how your website looks on different devices.

(I think) This is the third year in a row dubbed as “the year of mobile” so you should all be ready for this by now. I know I am interested to see what happens in the mobile world this year – how voice search changes mobile browsing and how that will affect mobile advertising.

I am always intrigued to learn new and creative ways that businesses/brands are using mobile marketing. Is it to nerdy to say that I’m excited to see what mobile will bring to us this year? Oh well, it’s true, bring it on 2012!

This is an entry in our daily Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series. Each day your favorite marketing elves will focus on a new topic to get your internet marketing in order before the start of the new year.

I am going to bypass the first 17 tips on why Google+ is important to get us straight to this one. This is an important fact, and I’m sure many haven’t seen it .

Did you know that you can see how Google connects you socially with your contacts? Google combines your Google contacts, contacts via connected accounts (for example, if you have your Twitter account linked to your Google profile), and secondary connections, and uses this network of Google contacts who have a profile in order to deliver more relevant search results.

Anyone can see their own list if you’re logged into Google, just go here, you’ll see something similar to what you see below. This is my own personal social data, so you can see how socially active my friends are. At least my friends that begin with the letter “A”.

Drilling down a little deeper, I can see how Amanda has been sharing content, as well as how her Google profile is linked to other profiles.

Seeing expanded views of social sharing like this demonstrates a bit how Google+ Circles and Ripples work. As more and more people start using Google+ these connections are going to expand dramatically, providing insightful social value to search results. And ads – don’t forget the ads.

One moment, you say you are still on the fence on how Google+ may influence your search results?

To translate what Lauren from google just said – yes, +1 & Google+ pages for brands will become a significant ranking factor #mpsis

— elisabeth osmeloski (@elisabethos) December 10, 2011

(Lauren Kelley, Social Media Lead for Google+, Mediapost Search Insider Summit, 12/10/11)

That should clear thing up enough to get you started.

You can learn more about Google’s social search here:

Read more from our Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series!

This is an entry in our daily Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series. Each day your favorite marketing elves will focus on a new topic to get your internet marketing in order before the start of the new year.

I don’t know about you but I’ve been cooking up a storm since November! Cookies, pies, and casseroles, OH MY! This is the time of year when we join our friends and family and share tasty treats from each others’ kitchens. There’s something so important about the way food brings people together. Is there something special that you always bring to your holiday events or something you look forward to that someone else will bring?

In the past year I learned of a recipe that I keep bringing to event after event because it’s such a big hit and so easy to make! I’ll leave you with the recipe at the bottom. But first, let’s talk about blogging. I’ve been blogging for Hall’s Vision Blog for almost 2 years. I don’t really consider myself a pro blogger or anything, but I have learned a lot about what readers like and important features to include in a blog. It’s really similar to when you bring a food to share at an event. It has to intrigue others to try it and of course you’ll want people to enjoy it!

Here are a few features that I think make a good recipe for blogging success:

• Keyword-Rich Title – You want a title that intrigues people to read the contents of the blog. But you also want to balance that with a title that is descriptive to search engines about what the blog is actually about. Here’s a great referral about writing headlines that I like to use; it’s an 11-part series put together by Copyblogger to help write better headlines.
• Blog Content – It’s hard to say what the most important feature of your blog is, but if I had to pick one – this is it. It’s the actual content you write about and share. This is make or break for the success of your blog. It has to be insightful, helpful, entertaining, etc. Here are a few blog posts to check out that show you how to find out what content people on your site enjoy and some tips on how to bring your personality to your web content.
• Multimedia – Support the text on the page with an eye-grabbing image or corresponding video. I’ve found that images are so important not only to break up the text on the actual blog but to intrigue users to read the blog post. For example, if you share your blog on Facebook, the post on Facebook will attach the image from the blog. If you just have a linked title to promote the blog, people may pass it over, but the image grabs people’s attention and gives it more of a chance of getting someone to click.
• Sharing Options – Make sure you offer ways for people to share your content. This gets new visitors to your website and also helps validate that popular content to search engines. You should also make sure you’re including the +1 button on your content too.
• Subscription – Include an option for people to subscribe to your blog. If they like the content they’ll want more of it, plus its a great metric to monitor. Not only is it important to look at your site analytics to see how engaged people are with your content but you can also look at how many people subscribe to your blog. Watch how that number grows over time. You want there to be steady growth; it shows that more and more people are interested in what you have to say.

There are so many important features that will help boost your blog not mentioned here like organizing posts into categories and creating both inbound and outbound links. Like any recipe, there are ways to make it your own, whether it’s a secret ingredient or the way it is presented. Whatever works best for you – own it and sell that as its unique value.

If you want more information about blogging here are some great archived webinars:

Beginner 101: Get Your Business Blogging
Beginner 102: Get More Return by Blogging Better
Intermediate: Audience, Analytics, and Online PR: Strategies for Better Blogging

We also have a section in our blog about blogging!

Ok, here it is; my top secret, super yummy, easy to make, favorite recipe to bring to parties…

Spinach Artichoke Dip

1 can quartered artichokes, drained and cut up a bit smaller
1 pkg. Frozen spinach, thawed and drained
1 jar alfredo sauce
½ – 1 pkg. Cream cheese softened
¾ cup mozzarella

Combine artichokes, spinach, alfredo sauce, cream cheese, and ½ cup mozzarella into bowl. Put in a casserole dish (sprayed with non stick cooking spray for an easy clean up). Sprinkle remaining ¼ cup of mozzarella on the top. Bake in oven at 350°F for 20-30 minutes or until top is golden brown. Serve with tortilla or pita chips. Enjoy!

Flickr Photo Credit: Youssef Abdelaal

Read more from our Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series!

This is an entry in our daily Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series. Each day your favorite marketing elves will focus on a new topic to get your internet marketing in order before the start of the new year.

In the pay-per-click world, preparedness is everything. While reviewing data and making related changes to your campaign certainly takes up its own valuable time, it is making preparations in advance which really keeps a company’s ads running smoothly.

The holiday season is just the sort of big event which can seemingly arrive out of nowhere and take a business by surprise. And while making some basic assumptions seems simple enough — increasing your advertising budget to cash in on increased search traffic, for example — a business should always sit down and think about its goals, long before Christmas music starts lighting up the airwaves, or reminders of Valentine’s Day loom.

So when is a good time to start thinking about holiday marketing plans? As with everything, it depends on your business. Internet marketing has seen holiday ads debut earlier with every passing year, and so it’s equally important to balance normal plans with what your competitors may be rolling out.

Think about the goals which should be reached in order to determine acceptability, and then about what it would take to consider your campaign a rousing success. Look at normal day-to-day measures: maybe your PPC campaign is a best practices dream, and you’ve segmented out your ads across both Google AdWords’ Search and Content Networks. Maybe you have a campaign specifically for mobile search traffic, and another for desktop traffic. But have you looked into Remarketing? Sitelinks? Dynamic Search? Themed landing pages? Have you introduced holiday shopping thoughts into your ads early on, then built up incentive to shop with offers and deadlines?

These are all things which should be addressed well in advance, so as to make sure that you don’t suffer from headless chicken syndrome — running around and making hurried, harried changes, things which could potentially lead to misspend or lost opportunities. Online consumer spending is only increasing annually, and the opportunities are unquestionably out there. But it’s not enough to just react, or increase a PPC campaign’s budget by a tiny percentage — a successful campaign which draws traffic, leads or sales for your business requires forethought. So have you made your preparations with time to spare?

Read more from our Internet Marketing Advent Calendar!

This is an entry in our daily Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series. Each day your favorite marketing elves will focus on a new topic to get your internet marketing in order before the start of the new year.

I am going to let you in on a little secret. Although we consider ourselves a smart, creative bunch here at Hall Internet Marketing, there are times when we just need a little kick in the pants to get us out of a rut. Recently we were brainstorming a potential name for a new Casco Bay Tech Hub event, and were coming up empty. So like all good digital elves, we went online.

One of my favorite “name generators” is nameboy.com. It’s been around for as long as I can remember (ancient internet history) and to this day it has not failed in providing some ideas or alternatives to what to call a blog, an event or even an internet property. If it hasn’t offered a decent contender, it at least provides some good fodder.

On the more create side, generatorland.com aggregates name generators for a variety of subjects, covering everything from a roller derby team name generator to a Charlie Sheen catch phrase generator. Granted, these are automated name generators and may not seem very useful at face value. But with the content ideas you can get fantastic content inspiration. It may seem silly, but it gets the juices flowing for a catchy headline or possible topic. It’s also useful for creating persona names, generating passwords, domain names and even inspiration for a business name.

Additional Resources:

Dot-O-Mater
Fake Name Generator
The Generator Blog
Generator Land
Nameboy
Namestation
Nine French Boys
Seventh Sanctum

Read more from our Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series!

This is an entry in our daily Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series. Each day your favorite marketing elves will focus on a new topic to get your internet marketing in order before the start of the new year.

During a pretty brutal return home from SMX Social Media in scenic Scottsdale this week, I started reviewing notes of easy takeaways that I could start implementing right away. One presentation that resonated was by Courtney Seiter from Raven Tools.

We use Raven Tools along with many others here at Hall, and having used Raven for a number of years now, I happen to be a big fan. One tool she shared is the very cool – and very free – platform, Storify. Of course she already used Storify to sum up the social trends shared this week (great minds think alike).

So I thought I’d use Storify to aggregate the tweets about social tools and tracking resources discussed at SMX this week:

View other posts from our Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series!