Sourcing News & Creating Your News Machine

If you missed the first week, go read and watch Plan B: Starting Your Own Information Business first – then week 2, week 3, and week 4.

Click To Play The Video:

(Click to play – you may need to give it a few seconds to load.)

This 12-week class is completely free – just sign up now and you can have the whole thing.

Every Friday for the next 12 weeks, I'll release a new module. Watch the videos. Do the missions. You can discuss it with the rest of the group right here – and let me know what you think in the comments below.

P.S. Dear Video Haters: Just like we do in the SEO Braintrust, all Plan B training modules will be released in a PDF as well as video… so if you prefer, you can download the printable PDF of this week's module. You can also download the video (Size: 6.1MB, MP4, iPod/iPhone/iPad compatible) and watch it offline.

I'm now using HTML5 video to support "all" video-capable browsers – hello, iPad!

Are you signed up yet?

If you haven't already joined the Plan B mailing list, sign up now to take this class for free, and receive all weekly updates.

Mapping Out Your Magnet Content

If you missed the first week, go read and watch Plan B: Starting Your Own Information Business first – then week 2 and week 3.

Click To Play The Video:

(Click to play – you may need to give it a few seconds to load.)

This 12-week class is completely free – just sign up now and you can have the whole thing.

Every Friday for the next 12 weeks, I'll release a new module (Week 4 will be released Friday, May 21). Watch the videos. Do the missions. You can discuss it with the rest of the group right here – and let me know what you think in the comments below.

P.S. Dear Video Haters: Just like we do in the SEO Braintrust, all Plan B training modules will be released in a PDF as well as video… so if you prefer, you can download the printable PDF of this week's module. You can also download the video (Size: 10.2MB, MP4, iPod/iPhone/iPad compatible) and watch it offline.

I'm now using HTML5 video to support "all" video-capable browsers – hello, iPad!

Are you signed up yet?

If you haven't already joined the Plan B mailing list, sign up now to take this class for free, and receive all weekly updates.

Oh, you have to love the web… the stunningly intelligent conversations, the half-informed speculation, I mean… what's not to love?

The latest "semi-true" story involves Google's rollout of a (beta) SSL version of their search engine.

The Marketerati (not a real word) are up in arms, because when you use a secure site (like Google's new SSL search), your browser won't pass referrer data on to any non-secure sites that you visit from the search result page.

What this means, is that your non-secure site won't get any data from Google Analytics on what keywords searchers used when they come to your site from the secure version of Google search.

Oh, Noes!! It's the death of analytics, and the end of SEO as we know it… or is it?

Well, no. Actually, it's not the end of the world – even if Google turns on SSL search by default.

Why isn't it the end of the world?

Well, for the simple reason that you can still get the referral data, including those precious search terms.

Here. Look:

That's a screen capture from Google Analytics. It shows a search query that I typed into Google's SSL search. The page I clicked through to is on our secure (HTTPS/SSL) subdomain.

Yep. There you have it – keywords. From SSL search… but how is this even possible? Didn't the Marketerati tell me SSL search was the death of analytics? (Yes, they did.)

You see, although browsers don't send referrer data when you click from an encrypted/secure (HTTPS/SSL) page to an unencrypted/insecure (HTTP) page… they do send that data when you go from one secure page to another.

So if Google ever goes SSL by default, so will the rest of us… and the web will be a safer place. With keywords.

(Yes, browser developers could change the way browsers behave. They could also stop sending referrer data in all contexts, by default, which would really be the death of analytics*.)

*Except, of course, that many of your visitors already send no referral data, thanks to privacy settings/software and firewalls and whatnot… and I'd wager there are more people using Norton or Symantec or McAfee's referral-stripping software right now, than there are using SSL search. The world is still here, and you still rely on your analytics data to make decisions.