Google has provided a pretty amazing set of tools for analyzing keyword data. The tool I want to tell you about today is called Google Trends. Google trends falls under what Google also refers to as Google Insights for Search.

Check out this great video explaining Google Insights for Search.

Google Trends allows you to examine how a keyword/phrase has trended in popularity over the course of days, months or even years!. It is based on a scale of 1-100, with 100 marking the peak popularity of the search trend.

Here is an example of the powerful data that Google Trends provides. I want to chart the trend for the term “iPhone Development” from 2007  to Present. I also want to put this up against the term of “Android Development” for the same time period. Here are the results.

Search Trends – “iPhone Development” vs. “Android Development”

As you can see, Android Development is peaking over the last 18 months while iPhone development has cooled off considerably. You can imagine how powerful this information can be for businesses who are trying to understand the latest trends of their consumer base. If you know what the people are looking for, you can tailor your product or service to help reach those sales leads.

Google Trends goes even deeper by showing you a heat-map of searches by country. Here is an example based on the same search criteria as above.

iPhone Development Search Trend by Country

Android Development Search Trend by Country

Additionally you can see these charts by major city as well. Google Trends also provides a detailed list of trending related keywords, and also keywords that Google tags as “rising”, as in trending most recently.

I highly recommend Google Trends for researching search trends and planning your SEO and Digital Advertising Strategies.

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	Organize your campaign by theme In each campaign, create separate ad groups for each of your products, brands, or types of services you offer. Each ad group can then have a highly related set of keywords and ads that match the specific theme. By doing this, your ads can highlight exactly what a customer is searching for.
	Choose your keywords carefully Use specific keywords that directly relate to the theme of your ad group and landing page. Keywords that are too broad can lower your performance by generating many ad impressions but few clicks. One-word keywords are likely to be too generic, so try using two- or three-word phrases. Use the Keyword Tool to generate keyword ideas.
	Include keywords in your ad text Include your keywords in your ad text (especially the title) to show users that your ad relates to their search. If your ad shows when a user searches on a keyword in your ad group, the keyword will appear in bold in your ad text.
	Use the right destination URL Make sure that the destination URL (landing page) you use for each ad is the most relevant page within your website — ideally, a page dedicated to the specific product or service that’s highlighted in your ad.
	Track your success To make informed decisions about how to optimize your campaigns, review your campaign statistics. To measure your success, use conversion tracking to see which ads and keywords bring the most to your business.

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The about page (Help -> About Eclipse) has some icons towards the bottom of the dialogue. This should include two which are the plain Eclipse icon. Select the one with tooltip “Eclipse.org” when you hover your mouse over it. Eclipse has many components, each of which has its own version number. The core is the Eclipse Platform which will be listed, with its version number next to it!

There is a more detailed thread on this here:
Stack Overflow Discussion – http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2604869/finding-the-eclipse-version-number

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Cut to the chase, I had the constants with a leading forward slash ‘/’ when I should not have had one. The proper definitions for me were:

define(‘DIR_APPLICATION’, ‘catalog/’);
define(‘DIR_SYSTEM’, ‘system/’);
define(‘DIR_DATABASE’, ‘system/database/’);
define(‘DIR_LANGUAGE’, ‘catalog/language/’);
etc. etc…

I had it originally with a leading ‘/’ as follows:
define(‘DIR_APPLICATION’, ‘/catalog/’);
define(‘DIR_SYSTEM’, ‘/system/’);
define(‘DIR_DATABASE’, ‘/system/database/’);
etc.etc…

After a ton of messing around and frustration, and also searching google like a madman, I found the suggestion to remove the leading slash and it worked!

Maybe this will help one of you out one day.

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Google Docs is now Google Drive

First, if you had been storing documents in the free Google Docs cloud associated with you GMail account, you have probably noticed that you can’t find it anymore. That is because Google Docs is now “Google Drive”. Drive as in “hard drive” because this is where you can safely and easily store many different file types right in the cloud. This is a wonderful service that Google provides free of charge. It is so convenient because it eliminates the need for carrying around USB drives or going the old-school way and emailing yourself a file so you can open it somewhere else. Simply save it to Google Drive and it is there for you.

Google Drive is not just for storage

You can directly edit word documents, spreadsheets and other widely used document formats right in Google Drive. Once the doc is in the cloud, you don’t need to keep going back to your local program (Word, Excel etc.) and then re-uploading all the time. Just edit it right there and it auto-saves very frequently.

The feature that I particularly love is the ability to collaborate in real-time with others on the same document. Simply click on “Share” and add users to the document with the specific privileges/abilities that you see fit. While you are in the document you can see what other users are also viewing/editing it. Literally sit back and watch in real-time as your colleagues type/delete, brainstorm, insert images or whatever else they are doing.  A few years ago you would have to pay big money for such a collaborative tool, but Google Drive now offers this for FREE! Many people have yet to realize the potential of Google Drive Services. I have personally used it to work alongside clients and team members whether they are in the next office or in another country!

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Consider this link to a video on College Humor’s website.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6682439/amazing-new-invention-makes-pizza-worse 

Pretty long yeah? I think http://bit.ly/tDvK5N is much better!!

Go here to shorten your links before you send them.

If you are sent a bit.ly link, I highly recommend that you decode it before you click it! You’ll notice that the shortened link no longer has any distinguishing characteristics that would tell you where the link takes you and for what purpose. This means unfortunately that you cannot know for sure whether you are really going to the funny video your friend sent you, or to a devastating virus or a phishing site that wants to steal your personal info!

If you are given a bit.ly link, go to this bit.ly shortened URL expander. Just paste in the link and it will magically decode it and tell you exactly where that link points!

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Wrong!

You weren’t thinking about sending a plain old text email were you? The click through rate of plain emails is in the single digit percent range. You need a nicely designed HTML email with a layout that lets the information flow to the reader like a webpage rather than like an email. HTML emails give the reader a more in-depth feel of the content.

HTML Email Boilerplate — AWESOME Resource

MailChip, one of the world’s leading email service providers, has put together a wonderful Guide on How to Code HTML Emails

I highly reccomend reading this guide and the other information on the site that will empower you to start your own creative and beautiful email marketing campaigns.

Check out these Metrics on Email Click Rates

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Think of it as the hybrid of Youtube and Twitter, with the personal interaction of Facebook. No longer do you need to limit yourself to text and character limits. It is currently in the testing phase while they work on a sleek design and UI. Get to the appstore and download iRant now. There are multiple iRant contests up that could win you cash, concert tickets and more!

The post iRant Video Social Media- Post A Rant Now! appeared first on John Mulligan.

Ken Molay, President of Webinar Success conducted a research experiment to answer this very question. When dealing on a national scale in the United States, there is a big time zone difference when considering both coasts. 9am may seem like an orderly start to the day for a company in New York CIty, while the affiliates in Los Angelas would not be too happy about the 6am start!
You can read the entire article by Mr. Molay on the Bulldog Solutions Website

The results are as follows: The best time-frame to schedule a webinar is “Tuesday through Thursday, a little before lunch on the West Coast, a little after lunch for the East Coast”. This is tday through Thursday, a little before lunch on the West Coast, a little after lunch for the East Coasthe general rule of thumb that you can go by. The research did also show that Friday is not a bad day. One thing to note, Mondays are the WORST!

When participants were asked what single day would they prefer most, the results were:

• Tuesday 30.8%
• Wednesday 25.6%
• Friday 17.9%
• Thursday 16.7%
• Monday 9.0%

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CSS Background Image Map - Ok this first one isn’t directly related to Magento, but it can certainly come in handy! Need to turn a background into a clickable link? Using Image mapping you can make multiple clickable areas of various sizes that can link to different content. Thanks to Debbie Campbell at Position-Relative.

Magento: Change Image Sizes in Product List or Grid View - Handy code snippet that is useful almost anytime you want to edit or create a new Magento Theme. In summary, navigate to app/design/frontend/…/…/template/catalog/product/list.phtml. Within list.phtml there are hard coded values for image size. Just change them there to what you want. Then you adjust your css styles of the product list & grid items to properly fit the image. Remember to use a handy DOM inspector extension like Firebug to easily determine css stylings and selectors. In Internet Explorer just hit the F12 key to open of Web Developer Tools.

Magento: Add CMS Pages to Menu Navigation - You would think is simple to do with such a powerful platform like Magento, like just clicking a checkbox to add or remove it from the navigation. That however is not the case. Luckily there is a pretty easy solution where you can programmatically call for the CMS pages and then loop through them and output additional links in the navigation.

Magento Resources - The team over at Inchoo.net know a ton about Magento, so if you’re looking for more information on developing with Magento, check out their blog!

Magento: Change number of Products per Row - There is a forum string that goes back and forth over this subject, but I found two different solutions useful.

#1

go to:

/var/www/html/matrixgames/app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/Abstract.php and change the following line from: protected $_defaultColumnCount = 3

to: protected $_defaultColumnCount = #desired

#2 Try this in your app/design files template/catalog/product/list.phtml

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