Scott Allen

Any word on what level of SSL is required (other than 2048 bit key)?  Will a $9 Comodo PositiveSSL meet the requirement just as well as an extended validation (EV) certificate?

It’s amazing to me how little people understand about this stuff — even experienced marketers. Practically every client that comes to work with us for PPC, we take a look at their site and say “We really should work on your conversion path first.” They say, “No – we need leads now. Let’s just get started.”

A few weeks later, they wonder why they’re not getting enough leads. You look at the analytics and show them that they’ve been getting plenty of click-throughs, but very few conversions. When your conversion rate for PPC visitors is on the same order of magnitude as your CTR, guess what? Your cost per lead is ridiculous.

But until you show them this with their own data, they don’t believe you.

I agree with pretty much everything here, except the bit about social signals. Why? Well, primarily because I've split-tested, and gotten some great results with social signals. Is it the biggest factor? No. But I think that, once you've got good content, it's probably the best bang for the buck. So if you're on a budget, or doing it yourself and only have so much time to spend, social signals is a good place to spend it...if and only if you know how to do it efficiently and effectively.

Besides, isn't every social signal a link???

Classic. I truly lol'd. I've personally experienced at least 6 of those.

I tried to leave a comment, but nothing happened...might be spam purgatory.

But yeah, agreed with Nathan -- Inbox 0 doesn't mean it's all handled -- it means it's all either a) handled, b) archived, c) delegated, or d) put into an appropriate handling bucket.

And yes, that's pretty easy to achieve every day.

That said, my "Nice to do if you have time" and "Maybe someday" folders are getting ridiculous. :-)

This is like the world's biggest swipe file. You can search on keyword, brand, domain name, etc., and then it gives you one-click access to the different advertisers (in the case of keyword), publishers, text ads, display ads and landing pages. All for free. Amazing tool for competitive analysis or brainstorming.