I've written lots of posts dealing with online persuasion. But if your website doesn't appear trustworthy, you'll never get a chance to persuade anyone; visitors won't stick around long enough to enter into a conversation. So this week I'm going to backpedal a bit and cover trustworthiness.

It's not necessary (or desirable) to do everything presented here. And well-known organizations already carry an air of authority; they don't have to work so hard. (In fact, some of the items listed here would appear downright silly on a site like Apple.com.)

This "Trustworthiness Checklist" is intended more for small, new or otherwise unknown websites.

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Have you started using the Broad match modifier in Adwords? This summer Google globally rolled out an additional option to help you with your Adwords campaigns. The new Broad Match modifier is an excellent option for those who want more visibility then is offered through Phrase and Exact match but still want keywords which are more targeted then standard Broad Match.

We've all heard stories of how using Broad match can sometimes be a bit of adventure. Sure using Broad Match is going to get you greater visibility, but you're putting a lot of faith in Google's hands and are going to spend a lot of time with negative keywords. How often have you spent in front of a search query report shaking your head at irrelevant keywords that Google thinks are related?

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I noticed today that a fair few people are coming to our site looking for information on the structure of Google Analytics cookie values. While this is the kind of topic that might make some peoples eyes glaze over, it's really not very difficult to understand. In fact, Google Analytics cookies are relatively straightforward and easy to understand.

Disclaimer: I haven't worked with these since I started studying for my GAIQ (and the analytics crew isn't here for me to check this with), so its possible that things have changed since. The major details should still be the same.

There are five main cookie types set by GA:

• UTMA - The Visitor Identifier
• UTMB - 30 Minute session identifier
• UTMC - On Exit session identifier 
• UTMV - Custom Variable Cookie
• UTMZ - Visitor segmentation

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Summer, its oooooovvvveeeerrrrr. The weather is cooling off, the clouds are coming, and soon I'll have to go shopping for raincoats, or else buy a bus pass. 

In the blog world we have loads of stories from across the spectrum, including how Google ranks blogs, debugging GA tags, and hacking quantum cryptography with lasers.

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Foursquare is an interesting application. It combines gaming elements with real-world interaction and location aware technology to create an augmented reality mish-mash. The concept is interesting, in the same way that the concept of Farmville is interesting, and like Farmville…

I'm unfollowing each and every one of you who allow it to update your status.

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A client recently asked for my input on a Cause Marketing (or "Corporate Social Responsibility") initiative they were considering. As some readers might be considering similar projects, I'll share my thoughts here.

There are several recent studies on this subject, but the one I find most compelling was conducted by K.L. Becker-Olsen and B.A. Cudmore*.

According to this study, three factors influence whether a cause marketing campaign will succeed or backfire: Fit, Motivation and Timing.

1. Fit

Customers must believe the campaign/cause is a good fit with the company that's sponsoring it. For instance, these campaigns might be a good fit:

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We know that Web Analytics, regardless of the vendor solution, is never accurate. It's about trends. However, that's only acceptable, "all things being equal".

But 'None' may point the way to know issues and "all things not being equal".

This series on 'None' will highlight recognizing when 'None' is a problem and the hidden causes which may be bypassing developers writing SiteCatalyst code.

When 'None' is too many

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Bit of a quiet week, no? Well, other than the whole wikileaks thing. 

Well, this week we have posts on writing blog posts for SEO, compressing JS and CSS into a PNG, analyzing search traffic with Google Analytics, and more.

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The other day, some one in the office recommended I try Rapportive. Being a gizmo geek, I love installing plugins (yes, I am one of those people) and so I jumped at the opportunity to play with a new toy.

Rapportive's goal is to create "rapport" between individuals by giving them both more information about each other.  And it provides a host of information, including social networks, activity, and more. Take, for example, John:

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"I give a great foot massage..."

We don't like uncertainty. We'll take a less-than-perfect choice over an ambiguous choice any day. It might take some convincing to make us buy a less-than-perfect choice, but at least we'll consider it. An uncertain choice? Forget about it.

Consider the real-world example of being set up on a date. Which would you go for?

1. Photo of an attractive but less than perfect person. Plus a description of how wonderful the person is: Kind, honest, successful, funny, smart...
2. Same description as above, but no photo.

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