In Response to Dan's Blog about Fast-Food Promoting Health...

We see this time and time again not only with fast-food companies but with any company that is trying to capitalize on the popularity "green and healthy" products.

At the grocery store there's soaps, chips, beauty products and even desserts that are marketed to appear "healthier" or "good for the environment."

I don't think that these companies should get away with it. They're not actually providing a better product, they're simply manipulating its image to convince consumers that they've changed their product. This is misleading and as consumers we should not allow them to get away with it.

Unfortunately, legislation only goes so far in monitoring and controlling these misleading marketing tactics but as consumers we should do our homework before we purchase a product and not fall prey to these lies that continue to make these companies richer at the expense of our money and health.

Using Google Analytics to Benchmark & Track Progress

I've been using Google Analytics to track the behaviors of my visitors when they visit my website. This helps me identify pages that they spend the most time on, which pages they visit and which ones they don't. It also helps me identify how much of my web traffic is new traffic and how much of my traffic are returning visitors. This way I can see whether or not any changes I make to my site to increase its ranking are working or not.

When William Faulkner visited our class one of the things that he said that I found most memorable was that we needed to set measurable goals as a way to determine whether our marketing plan is working.

For my photography business, one of the ways I measure the success of my marketing strategies is through Google Analytics and its benchmarking tools.

What better way to track progress than through numbers? These tools are completely free and incredibly powerful.