January 2009

Exclude filter in analytics for WordPress post/page previews

Posted by on January 29, 2009 in Analytics

I’ve never had to really create an exclude filter within Google analytics before, never had the need to exclude pages/queries from sites i’ve worked on. However i always need to preview my posts, allows me the opportunity to take another scan over for basic errors and to tweak images (perfectionist at heart).

I’ve hard coded my tracking script into the footer of my wordpress theme, so previewing posts is always tracked within the analytics. No point in creating a custom exclude filter for my home and office ADSL line, as the IP address always changes as well. So the other solution would be just to exclude all “preview=true” URI’s from being tracked, to help having to see my previews in my top content pages breakdown in analytics.

The Obama Effect – Online Marketing

Posted by on January 24, 2009 in Social Media

I’m sure everyone by now knows what an effect the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, has had across the globe. The “Yes We Can” attitude and his amazing ability to give hope and positivity to all those through his speeches had not been the only impact he has had on the world so far.

The online industry saw politicians enter the online realm with the race for presidency, starting with YouTube last year. But that was just the start, from MySpace and Facebook, Paid Search and Viral, right through to Twitter, Obama embraced the power of the online community to spread his message in one of the most successful online marketing campaigns i have yet seen.

2009 has started – so much happening

Posted by on January 15, 2009 in Business

It’s 2009 and for many South Africans back on the 5th, the catchup began while at the same time being fairly relaxed while the rest of the world started slowly drifting back from their time off.

The year kicked off with the fun Nerdies 09 awards, which i’m sure everyone’s twitter feeds went crazy with nominees and updates.

Surprisingly enough the reports coming in on the holiday season showed that the recession did not affect online retail as much as anyone would expect, with Hitwise reporting increases in online traffic and spend in the UK. As from today, IMRG reports and increase in 14.2% for online retail for the December 2008 period. Seems the recession had less effect on online holiday shopping as people would have expected. I can agree with that, being the unfortunate one to have to dive into the shops on Christmas eve, where there seemed to be more people shopping than i’ve ever seen in my life (South Africa that is).