When I opened up my Google Analytics today I noticed that I have been given access to the Beta for the new Google Analytics alerts - shown above in the LHS menu (under "Intelligence") and below the traffic graph.

How it works is, if Google analytics detects a change in the pattern of your site traffic, or other metrics, it can send you an email to let you know.  This way, you don't have to log in to keep checking, you can rest assured that if something important happens, you will know.

Below is a screen shot of how you create the alerts - first you choose the thing you want to monitor (in this case a keyword), then you choose the metric (in this case I chose visits), then you choose a condition - you might want to make it over a certain amount (your average, for example), or a % increase or decrease could trigger the alert.



This way, for example, I could get an email alert sent to me whenever the number of visits for the term "digital media" exceeds 200 or falls below 50.

For your business, maybe you want to know when your 'Melbourne' campaign has started working, so you set up a Google analytics alert to trigger visits from Melbourne increasing above average. 

Maybe your site relies heavily on traffic from a certain referrer or source - you can make an alert for when traffic from that important source dips below a certain level.

You can monitor almost any Google metric, and I think nearly every business could find a use for them.


.

After speculation throughout this year, Biz Stone has told the BBC that Twitter will start providing paid for commercial accounts in 2010. He emphasised that the existing functionality would remain free, but that businesses could pay for extra functionality and perks.

• The functionality could include(as speculated by bloggers everywhere)

- Customised Analytics
- Guaranteed site performance (as opposed to fail whale)
- Account verification (saying this account is actually who it says it is)

I think businesses could do without the analytics, they could do without a site performance guarantee. They could definitely do without any improvements in functionality of their Tweets, private messages, or follower groups, and keep it to a simple format.  BUT how well will businesses do without verification, if verification becomes the 'expectation'. In an increasingly spammed online world, where trust is turning out to be paramount, a verification could very well be the key to making money out of Twitter. (Of course this can be gotten around by listing your Twitter account in your official press releases or business website, but it doesn't cover all bases).

In a news conference in Tel Aviv, Biz Stone told reporters that their new model of advertising will be 'untraditional', which paid accounts in social media certainly are. Or perhaps Twitter, with their millions of investment capital, has come up with something completely different altogether.

Interested in finding out when people are talking about you on the web? Want to know when there is a new story about your favourite person/thing/song? How about tracking what people are saying about your competitors?

An easy way to do any or all of this, is to use Google Alerts.

Google Alerts can send links to relevant news stories, blogs, video, images, or any other google searchable item straight to your inbox. They arrive daily, weekly, or as-they-happen.

The Google Alert form looks very simple, but the search term box will let you put in any query you can put in the normal Google search box. You can use the same operators you would normally use to refine your search. I recommend these particularly for Google Alerts:

1. Think carefully about the words you use, maybe people won't be using the same language as you to describe your name, your product or your competitor. You might need to use the OR operator in your query

2. Exclude any sites which you regularly update yourself, or which you don't need to hear about. These can clog up your alerts. So, include a negative site search, which is like this   -site:notthisone.com.au
3. If you want to filter out all press releases you write, do a negative phrase match for a key part of the release. E.g. -"MooMu Media press release #123"

So an alert for moomu media might go like this:

"moomu media" -site:moomumedia.com/blog -"MooMu Media press release"

You can create as many Google Alerts as you like, and edit or delete them whenever you want.

You know linking is almost the most important part of a search marketing strategy, but sometimes it seems like you have exhausted all your options, and your linking comes to a grinding halt.

True?

Don't give up. Linking is important because a search engine see's each link to you as being like a vote, saying your website is good or trustworthy. Your competitor, if they're clever, will constantly grow their links, so to keep up with them, you have to too.

In order to help you all reinvigorate your linking campaign,  below are my best SEO linking tips...

First, remember that links are more valuable when:
1.They have relevant anchor text (although, there should be a mix, because having all your links under great text looks a bit 'manufactured'. A large proportion of your links should be for your name or something like that)
2.They are from a variety of sites, not just one
3. They are from relevant sites, - in your industry or related industries
4. They are embedded in content
5. They are not prefixed by a 'nofollow' in the source (On the page you want to place a link, click on view, then page source, and look for the code surrounding a link like the one you want to place - does it have 'no follow' before it?)

Now here are some tips on how to find great link placements. The key, I think, is to just assume there is an everlasting trail - that every site who links to you will help you find more sites who could link to you.

 - Use Yahoo site search to see who currently links to you. Do they refer to other sites or blogs who also might link to you? repeat this until you get to the end of the trail.

 - Similarly, do the above for your competitors - will any of the sites who link to them, or their friends, also want to link to you?

 - Search in Google on query parameters like; intitle, "", inurl,

 - Find directories, through search engines (search "add url", "submit url", "suggest url") or from other sites who use them, then check out what link building sites are in their directories. Repeat as necessary.

 - Another way to find directories, is to search for similar code, or 'footprints' (text on the site which might be similar to another site. e.g. "Add your URL now")

 - Search social media like Linked in, forums, Twitter and Facebook public, to try and find groups focussed on your product or service - do they have affiliated websites?

•  - When you find appropriate sites, search for similar sites - e.g. searching for similar content in Google.

 

Starting March 2010, the Timesonline.co.uk and the Sunday Times online edition will start charging users for online content.

As mentioned as early as May this year by Rupert Murdoch, his newspapers are moving away from the advertisers-pay model to a user-pays model. Since it was first mentioned there has been a big question mark over how this might be done, and now we know.

• The Timesonline will pilot  a subscription service for online users, with less frequent users being allowed to pay for a daily 24 hour access pass.The daily cost will cost about the same as a copy of the daily paper, about 90p ($1.50AUD).

A previously mentioned 'per-article' cost will not be applied, since they say, this could result in an increase in Britney-spears-type stories, with less Tamil-tiger stories.

Now, while I have been totally against Rupert Murdoch's paranoid statements about Google ruining his business, I am not in principle against this. It is a legitimate business model and I am interested to see what happens.

Their reasoning is sound - they want to protect the integrity of journalism - however their fear that this could not happen in an advertiser pays world is odd.

Also, Rupert's worries that people will rip off his content cannot be allayed, because for $1.50 we still could. (when I say we, obviously I don't mean me!)

While I agree that this could work, I also think that the content might not be unique enough, especially for my generation - why pay for the Timesonline, when I could get the Guardian for free?

Also I wonder, is this increased cost just going to be used to support offline newspapers? Don't online newspapers get enough revenue from their ads?

I can't wait to see how it all goes.