Carrie Hill is the co-founder of Ignitor Digital, along with long-time colleague Mary Bowling. After years working for other agencies and learning the ins and outs of great customer service, Carrie and Mary opened Ignitor Digital to serve the small and very small business with top-quality Local Search, SEO and Social Media services. When not working, Carrie loves to cook for friends and family, hang out with her pretty awesome kids, and read books that have little-to-no educational value!
I love my Google Analytics dashboard and I’m not ashamed to admit it. It saves me time, helps me look like I’m 100% on top of things when a client calls, and helps me add hours back into days that were previously spent hunting and pecking for information. Right now, my client load consists of […]
I spend a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what is wrong with some clients’ analytics installs. Unlike types or broken code, or misspelled words – issues with tracking scripts don’t always raise their hands and scream, “Hey dummy, you deleted the </script> tag!” I thought it would be handy for the beginners […]
If you’re working in online marketing in some function, you’ve battled this – the need to justify your marketing budget to the bean counters in the office 10 floors up, or even next door. Those not “in the know” about the truly trackable benefits of online marketing are generally skeptical at best when told “I […]
Many new webmasters and website marketers are under the mistaken impression that online marketing is a “Field of Dreams” and “if you build it, they will come.” Unfortunately, you can build it, but if you don’t market it, and place it in front of the audience that buys your products, nobody will come, and neither […]
When I first started using Google Analytics, my “goal” was to not run away screaming. The intense amount of information, seemingly disconnected, made understanding what I needed so overwhelming. In my last article,we talked about the basic reports you should watch as a beginner. This week, we’re going to work on how to make Google Analytics […]
The first login to a Google Analytics account can be daunting. There are so many things to see, and so many different ways to tweak data, that deciding which are the most important metrics to watch can be an insurmountable decision. Ultimately, in my opinion, you are the only one who can decide what metrics […]
Setting up Analytics accounts has evolved beyond installing “generated” scripts on pages and calling it a day. What started with the advent of software that told us how many “hits” we got a day has evolved into a sophisticated decision assistance engine, and keeping up on the new and cutting edge offers full time employment […]
Data is a fickle friend. It is only as reliable as the setup you have and the effort you put into understanding the numbers. There are so many variables that can kill your data, and fixing the things that are broken is always a process of elimination. I can tell you that most skewed data […]
I analyze websites every day, as well as a lot of Facebook pages, and a ton of blogs attached to websites and Facebook pages. I realized something this week. There are a lot of junktastical blogs out there, and I now wonder why people have even added this feature to their site. Here’s the truth….you […]
For a long time, I thought utilizing a strong Landing Page Optimization program was only available to large companies with large budgets. The software to create landing pages on the fly by keyword is pricey, and the learning curve is significant. If you have the time, budget and manpower to utilize a design team and […]
During the Matt Cutts You & A at SMX Advanced in Seattle last week, someone asked Matt if Google would ever “like” query systems that provided ranking reports to SEOs. Matt said, again, that the focus shouldn’t be on rankings, and that website should be focused on “what makes the most money.” I rebutted that […]
I heard the other day that if someone “Likes” your Facebook business page, they’re over 90% likely to never look at it again. Wow. 90% is a lot! We could assume that’s exaggerated by ½, but 45% is still a lot. When a website’s conversion rate is a fraction of its actual traffic – a […]
When I first started down this 6-lane highway called Online Marketing over six years ago, we used an absolutely archaic bid management software whose name escapes me. I want to say it was a Yahoo! (or precursor to Yahoo!) product, and basically it automated our bids so they would go up and down based on […]
A few weeks ago, we went over the pros and cons of using Phone Extensions and Location Extensions in your AdWords campaigns. This week, I’d like to finish up our AdWords Extension feature by running through the best practices for using Site Extensions and Product Extensions. Using Product Extensions In Adwords Being in the travel […]
Over the last year or so, Google has been steadily adding features to the AdWords interface that on the surface seem wonderful, unless managing and learning AdWords isn’t your full time job. It seems like just keeping up with what remains and what is gone and how to work the new stuff is a 40+ […]
It seems every few months a new feature of Google AdWords rolls out destined to make it easier for the do-it-yourselfer to compete with the big-wigs in Google Sponsored Results. Earlier this year, Google made it easier for small-to-medium size business owners to compete with larger international competitors within the display advertising arena. What changed? […]
I’m a huge fan of treating Page Titles and Meta Descriptions as ad copy. Using language that speaks to a person’s motivation for shopping and buying will encourage the click through when your listing appears organically, as well as in a paid position. The problem Having a “testing” environment for organic ad copy has, until […]
As I was searching for a topic for this article, the news has come in that legendary UCLA coach John Wooden has passed away. Not only was he a coaching legend, he was an extraordinary mentor and a damn fine human being. From what I’m seeing on Twitter, I probably won’t be the only Search […]
Google Maps (or Local, or Places, or whatever it is calling itself this month) is the bane of my existence. Well, maybe 3rd place behind Bing and Yahoo PPC platforms…but you catch my meaning. Inevitably, I can expect at least one phone call or email a week from a client asking why they’re not showing […]
Are you overwhelming your visitors? Generally in this column, I offer step by step instructions to figure out a part of Search Engine Marketing on your own from the comfort of your favorite chair. This week’s column may deviate from that just a bit (maybe even a borderline rant) because I’m currently being bombarded by […]