Google's Analytics Evangelist, Avinash Kaushik, recently hosted a webinar on "Using Data to Better Connect with Your Customers". Attracting the right customers to your website will help you finish off 2009 strong and charge ahead in 2010. By using Google tools such as Trends for Websites, Insights for Search and the Ad Planner, you can access powerful information about how to best target your audience in your online marketing campaigns - for free! Below is a brief recap of the presentation. You can visit our Google Business Channel on YouTube to see the recorded version.

1. Mine Website Trends: Utilise Trends for Websites and other tools to index clients' performances, identify competitors' strengths, and find untapped opportunities.

2. Analyse the "Database of Intentions": Use Insights for Search to segment your clients' share of voice, obtain competitive gains, understand how to most effectively target their campaigns, and find out where they should focus their search efforts.

3. Monetise the Long Tail: Leverage the powerful Search-based Keyword Tool to identify your clients' long tail keywords based on their sites' content, and to find additional cost-effective targeted keywords.

4. Identify Relevant Audiences: Utilise Ad Planner to understand the demographic profile and search behavior of site visitors, and that of competitors, to effectively target clients' messages on the Google Content Network to the most relevant audiences.

Most importantly, Avinash's #1 Rule: Make sure that your clients' websites don't stink. What does he mean? Use data to identify fixes (e.g. pay attention to bounce rates) so that customers don't say, in Avinash's own words, "I came, I puked, I left." To learn more about how to improve your clients' web pages, check out this post by Avinash: Six Tips For Improving High Bounce / Low Conversion Web Pages.

Posted by Kelly Blackford, Agency Training Team
This is a partial cross post from the Agency Ad Solutions Blog

Since launching Google Insights for Search, we've been providing daily insight into what the world is searching for. Whether you're an advertiser looking to expand keyword lists, an economist analyzing economic trends or just looking to settle a popularity contest, Google Insights for Search can help provide the answers.

Insights allows you to tap into the collective pulse around the world, compare search volume trends across multiple search terms, categories (commonly referred to as verticals), geographic regions, and specific time ranges. Looking at search trends helps you understand when, where and how the world's interests have changed. Simply type in search terms to see how search query volume has evolved over time, in which geographic regions search interest is greatest and other related searches. For marketers, Insights can help you determine seasonal variations in your business (When do users search the most for weight loss products?). It can also help you find a new market (Where in the world are searches for "shiraz" and "chardonnay" most popular?) or determine new ways to market your business (As an exterminator, what words should be used for marketing?)

We are proud to announce that Insights for Search is now available in 39 languages around the world (including Australia - English, and several languages in SE Asia). We're also introducing a forecasting feature for some queries based on an extrapolation of the historical trends and search patterns. And to help you visualise these changes and trends, we've also added an animated map so you can watch how search interest changes over time in different locations.

You can check out some of these cool features in our video below.



Visit Google Insights for Search and see what the world is searching for. You can also keep on top of the latest trends by adding a customizable gadget to your iGoogle page or embedding a gadget directly on your website.

Posted by Jeremy Wood, Product Specialist Team
This is a partial cross post from the Official Google Blog and the Google Australia Blog