Input:
1. response.write format_ucase(”I WANT TO CAPITALIZE THE FIRST LETTER!”)
2. response.write format_ucase(”i want to capitalize the first letter!”)
3. response.write format_ucase(trim(request.form(”entry”)))

Output:

I want to capitalize the first letter!

Code Snippet:
< %
function format_ucase(tname)
do while instr(tname, " ")
temp_string = left(tname, instr(tname," " ) -1)
' ucase the first letter
format_ucase = format_ucase & ucase(mid(temp_string, 1,1))
' lcase for rest of word
format_ucase = format_ucase & lcase(mid(temp_string,2)) & " "
tname = right(tname, len(tname) - instr(tname," " ))
loop
'show me what i get
format_ucase = format_ucase & ucase(mid(tname, 1,1))
format_ucase = format_ucase & mid(tname,2)
end function
%>

Here are a couple other common scenarios using ASP:

All Upper Case Text:

< %
name = "Zach vonFelten"
response.write(ucase(name))
%>

Output:

ZACH VONFELTEN

All Lower Case Text:
< %
name = "Zach vonFelten"
response.write(lcase(name))
%>

Output:

zach vonfelten

http://www.publicspace.net/windows/BetterFileRename/

Yeah! No more spaces.

• In business for 1 year
• At least one dedicated person for Google Analytics support
• Must provide full service (e.g. setup, support, training, and consultation for Google Analytics)
• Must have an online ticketing system that Google can access
• Must provide support for both Google Analytics and Urchin software
• Must have a web site of sufficient Google Analytics/Urchin content
• Proven background in Analytics and Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Must have at least one Google Adwords Certified employee
• Must attend training sessions at a Google office - usually 1 per year

You can find more information here.

Senario: Your marketing department, boss, or client want more information about the people contacting them through their website and where they are coming from. They want to tie an ROI value to the money they are spending on Google, Yahoo, MSN, ad networks, social media, etc.

Don’t worry there are several ways to do this based on the type of language the web site is built in and the information you are after. I will give several examples and other scenarios down the road, but for now let’s start by pulling the session on a php website…This seems to be what a lot of people are looking for.

How to get the URL Referral using PHP from the session.

Using a session you can make sure you only get the URL when people first land on your website. You can do other things as well like set the time period you want the value to stay in the session.

Here’s the sample code you will need to add to the page you are sending visitors to:

< ?php
session_start();
if(!isset($_SESSION[’referrer’])){
//get the referrer
if ($_SERVER[’HTTP_REFERER’]){
$referrer = $_SERVER[’HTTP_REFERER’];
}else{
$referrer = “unknown”;
}
//save it in a session
$_SESSION[’referrer’] = $referrer; // store session data
}
?>

Code Explanation:

The first part is pretty straight forward and checks to see if the referrer URL has already been set:

if(!isset($_SESSION[’referrer’])){ …

If not we set the session variable. If we can’t get the URL it gets set to “unknown” in the above example.

For some reason you can’t always get the referrer URL. Some people have found that links originating from some email applications like Gmail don’t give you a referrer URL, but yahoo does. I assume it has to do with email security and caching old email messages.

Anyways, once you’ve got the session variable set, you can call it any time until the browser window is closed or the variable time limit runs out (the default time limit set in the php.ini, but you can also set it in your script.) You’ve normally got 180 minutes as default for a session time limit before your variable is lost.

Next is to call the variable and store it with the record or visitor information when they fill out a form.

To Call the Session Variable:

To call your session variable from another page, you just need to add this piece of code:

session_start();
echo “referrer = “. $_SESSION[’referrer’]; //retrieve data
?>

Stick the retrieve session data code snip it on your contact form if you want to associate the referring URL to the lead. Your get something like this in your output: “referrer = http://your.referrer.url”. You can store and pull other variables in the session such as landing page information or number of pages visited by incrementing a variable.

These are good resources if you need additional information:

http://uk2.php.net/session (Explains all session runtime configuration options)
http://www.tizag.com/phpT/phpsessions.php (Shows how to capture pageviews)

You will be asked to provide the following information:

• Name
• Email address (your email address, not the account address)
• Customer ID Number (use specific client id, not ad words master id)
• Date range of activity
• Campaigns, ad groups, and keywords affected(Use the ad words URLs to identify)
• Description of the issue
• Suspicious IP Address(Can be obtained by exporting the click fraud report in Clicktracks)
• Suspicious search or content sites(Can be obtained by exporting the click fraud report in Clicktracks)

Process after Suspicious Activity is Submitted to Ad Words

After you have submitted your complaint to Ad Words, they will send you an email asking for you to provide the data you have collect that lead you to believe fraudulent activity has been occurring on your ad words account (Clicktracks fraud reports). They may ask you to explain to greater detail what malicious activity you believe is occurring.

After you have sent in the data Ad Words will likely give you their findings and an estimate of what your account will be refunded. Ad Words will go on to say that they need to analyze the account further to determine the exact amount that your account will be refunded.

Give Adwords 5-7 business days to work this out, if you have not received further notice continue correspondence to keep the wheels oiled and the client’s budget returned to be used for legitimate traffic.

For this project, I created a page called go.php to control the URL/Link redirections.

Here is the code to put on the go.php page:

_________________________________________________

< ? PHP

if ($o == “site1″) {$link = “http://www.vonfelten.com”;} // Default link
if ($o == “site2″) {$link = “http://sem.vonfelten.com”;}
if ($o == “site3″) {$link = “http://blog.vonfelten.com”;}
if ($o == “site4″) {$link = “http://forums.vonfelten.com”;}

header(”Location: $link”); // Jump to the URL
exit();
?>

note: you can add parameters to the urls if you want. Be sure and use best practices so you don’t run into any issues. Parameters on a URL should be:

http://www.yoursitename.com/?parameter=value

or

http://www.yoursitename.com/?parameter=value&parameter2=value2,

and so on.
_________________________________________________

That’s it… Your ready to test it.

This would be the link you would reference on the page:

http://www.vonfelten.com/blog/go.php?o=site1
_________________________________________________

The next step would be to track some information in a log file (i.e. the number of clicks, unique visitors, search phrases, browser information, etc.)

If you are interested in seeing that code, hit me up on email.

For more information visit: http://www.clicktracks.com

Received ClickTracks Analytics Certified Professional on 4/20/2007.

Unfortunately, as soon as you start browsing the web from your phone you will find most web sites are not very “phone friendly.” Images load slow, navigation menus get distorted, and content is hard to read causing people get frusterated and leave your site before it even loads.

Mobile handsets use WAP technology to browse the Internet. Because of limited screen size, many WAP browsers strip out CSS, and show text in a method similar to how a search engine spider renders a site. Websites must therefore be designed such that the layout without images looks professional and is easy to use. You want to ensure that your customers can view your website correctly on their wireless device.

Most wireless devices provide Internet access using the Wireless Internet Protocol, WAP 2.0 (XHTML sites), WAP 1.x (WML sites) and i-mode (CHTML sites. Popular in Japan). Even though modern devices do not require the development of a separate, mobile version of the website, the screen size is still severely limited, necessitating special attention to the layout of the site on mobile web browsers.

Understanding the search engine user is a tricky proposition, to say the least, which is what makes search engine marketing a challenging and separate discipline in itself. Currently the basis for predicting future user behavior on which foundation a search engine marketing campaign is founded is past user behavior: mainly data about demand for particular keywords and discernible patterns in the results for those keywords.

A study by two search marketing firms, based on data gathered from about 5.1 million paid search advertising clicks from 3.9 million users in the first quarter of 2006, gives some insight into how search users function. The campaign was focused on Internet retailers that ran PPC campaigns so that the entire conversion scenario could be measured.

Key highlights from the survey:

• Search terms that had brand names in them converted better.
• Many users clicked more than one ad; in fact the conversion rate of users who clicked more than one ad was better.
• Users who switched from non-brand search queries to branded search queries tended to convert better than those who stuck with unbranded terms.
• A high proportion of users were still sticking to using simple search queries (one or two terms and not multiple word keyword phrases).

The implications for search marketers.

Some of the above aspects might seem quite obvious; however, there are significant implications for marketers.

While brand name conversions might be high, it simply means that search users already have a more definite idea of what they want and they are just trying to find the best place/ source to get it from. Such users have already made quite some headway in their vendor selection process.

However, the vast potential of search marketing lies in being found by potential customers who did not know about a company or its products and services. Search engine marketing is primarily about making oneself be found—catering to only those who already know would be turning the back on opportunity. Can any marketer with ambitious plans to acquire new customers afford to do that?

The long tail principle.

This calls for some strategic decisions as to how much a campaign should focus on acquiring totally new customers and at what cost. One of the most used terms in search engine marketing today (and in other aspects of business as well) is “The Long Tail”, a phrase coined by Chris Anderson.

The main premise of the long tail principle (when applied to search engine marketing) is that a very high number of keywords that individually may not contribute any significant volume of traffic or conversions can collectively contribute to a healthy volume of traffic and conversions. This principle of long tail can be applied effectively with branded and non-branded terms as well. Carefully selecting a high number of non-branded search terms can make a significant difference to the profitability and returns from a campaign.

The other aspect is related to the usage of simple terms versus multi-word phrases. Marketers cannot afford to forget that even today a very high percentage of search users don’t use search very effectively— or they don’t think very deeply before entering the search query. They put the onus of finding relevant results based on their vague search query on the search engines. This makes a marketer’s job extremely difficult, as it becomes almost impossible to gauge the intent behind that search query. Bidding for such keywords can often be a hit and miss; however, the sheer size of search engine users who input these extremely broad terms means that one cannot afford to exclude them from the search marketing strategy.

Experience & analytical ability are the only things that can help marketers in such a case, where they will have to make informed decisions and calculated risks while trying to optimize the campaign and maximize ROI. Professional search engine marketing firms, with their enormous reservoir of data, experience, the right tools and specialized personnel, make a difference there.

Currently, mobile ads are available to advertisers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, China, Ireland, India and Australia. Advertisers have the ability to decide whether their mobile ads or standard text ads will display on search results.

Mobile ads can be different then your standard ads as they contain two lines of text, with a limit of 12 or 18 characters per line. A destination URL appears on a third line if you choose to enter one. If you would like mobile users to connect directly to your phone line a call link will appear in this spot. You can create mobile ads in any language, but remember they only show up in the countries listed above.

Sample Mobile Ad:

[AD] Cargo Shipping by
SchumacherCargo.com
Call:800-599-0190

Google Mobile CPC

Mobile ads pricing model is similar to the current Adwords system. You choose a maximum cost-per-click (CPC) for each keyword from $0.01 to $100.00. You are only charged when a user clicks on your ad or the click-to-call link. There is no daily budget limit and you can change your bid amounts at any time. Your mobile ads budgets can be separate from your other campaign budgets and there is no minimum spending commitment is required.

Google reviews all mobile ads before they appear on any type of mobile search. Once they confirm that your mobile ads meet their editorial guidelines, you’ll start to see clicks on your mobile ads. After you begin receiving clicks on your Mobile ads, you’ll be able to run reports to see how they’re performing.

Check back as we discuss tips on implementing, optimization, and taking advantage of this opportunity. Yahoo and MSN are following suit by launching similar services.