Search Engine Optimization Help

It’s no secret that Google had a strong fourth quarter to end 2009. Their earnings last week showed it and we’ve already seen it in a report from Efficient Frontier.

Taking a look at two more quarterly reports, from Adgooroo and SearchIgnite, we see more of the same. Google continues its dominance in search advertising.

Adgooroo

SearchIgnite

Despite Bing’s steady gains in search query share since launch, they don’t seem to be capturing the hearts of advertisers. From speaking with advertisers, the problem seems to be AdCenter, which is frustrating on many levels for those with bucks to spend.

Additionally, the dip in ads for Yahoo! should be concerning for Microsoft as it will seek to begin implementing the search deal with the Sunnyvale company this year.

There is a silver lining for Bing and Yahoo! when they collaborate. Advertisers do tend to love the ROI they see on Bing. They just need to get share and search ad tech in place to make advertisers happy.

eBay is seeing a big payoff for getting into the mobile game early. Their iPhone app has been downloaded by 6 million users and they see 175,000 visits a day via mobile apps.

This year, half a billion dollars of transactions were made on eBay via mobile. And it’s not just “safe” inexpensive items as people are trying out the apps. Mobile eBay purchases included designer handbags and a $75,000 1966 Chevrolet Corvette.

“Mobile is changing the way people shop this holiday season,” said Lorrie Norrington, president of eBay marketplaces. “We see consumers taking advantage of that freedom to find great holiday gifts and deals without sitting at their computer or being stuck at the mall.”

This holiday, 1.5 million items were bought on eBay via mobile. That’s an item every 2 seconds. Users from 165 countries visited eBay through an app or the mobile web.

“eBay buyers and sellers have rapidly embraced mobile commerce this year, and this holiday season has been a mobile commerce tipping point. Shopping will never be the same again,” concluded Norrington.

comScore has released updated data for the 2009 online holiday shopping season. The trending increase in spending has continued, largely along the same numbers we saw last week:

Analysts expect “Green Monday,” the biggest online shopping day of the year, to occur today, December 14. It’s possible that the one day total could surpass $900 million. If that happens, it will be the first time in history.

Keeping our fingers crossed….

Seniors have been one of the fastest growing demographics on the Internet for awhile. New data from Nielsen Online shows that 6 million more seniors are surfing the web than there were five years ago.

So, what are they doing while hitting the interpipes? Let’s just say email is not dead. Oh, and grandma likes to keep track of what you’re doing on Facebook. Especially since you lost your phone manners to texting a long time ago.

There are two weeks left until Christmas and consumers still have a lot of shopping to do. That’s according to data released by the Google Retail blog.

The week before Thanksgiving, shoppers had still had 83% of their shopping to go. As of last Sunday, they still had 64% left.

Of course, that’s only for the shoppers that have begun their shopping. A whopping 29% haven’t even started. 19% haven’t started researching gifts.

Tis the weekend to get some sales!

Millions of people had a big case of the Mondays on the first day back to work after the Thanksgiving holiday. That’s why you spent your day shopping - on Cyber Monday - instead of working. Don’t worry, we won’t tell your boss. (S/he was shopping too, anyway.)

Coremetrics released data on what is thought to be the biggest online shopping day of the year (it’s not). Here’s what they found:

• Cyber Monday 2009 sales were up 24.1 percent compared to Black Friday 2009.
• Yesterday’s sales were up 13.7% compared to Cyber Monday 2008.
• Online shoppers spent more per order on Cyber Monday ($180.03) compared to Black Friday 2009 ($170.19), an increase of 5.8%.
• The average dollar amount consumers spent per online order rose 38.2% this year ($180.03) compared to last year ($130.24).
• Consumers bought nearly 10% more items per order this year compared to Black Friday last week.
• Consumers bought almost 30% more compared to Cyber Monday 2008.
• The peak of consumer shopping was 9-10 a.m. PST, but held stronger momentum throughout the day than on Cyber Monday 2008.

Breaking it down by industry….

• Apparel and jewelry retailers is where the biggest increase in average dollar amount per ordre, up 26.4% and 14.3% respectively.
• Sports apparel and gear retailers were up 55% in new consumers visiting their sites. However, the average dollar per order declined slightly by 3.1%.
• Department stores saw a 3% increase in new visitors, but average order value was down almost 10%.

In-store Black Friday sales didn’t please Wall Street yesterday, despite an increase in online spending last Friday. Perhaps the death at a Walmart last year and not wanting to get out of bed at butt-ugly early in the morning has driven a shift in behavior.

“We are seeing good online buying momentum because people are looking for the very best deals, and are going online for the most convenient way to shop,” said John Squire, chief strategy officer, Coremetrics.

By the way, if you missed yesterday’s sales - don’t despair.

“We expect to see one more spike in online spending when the final “free-shipping-is-ending” promotions are announced,” said Squire. “Until then, retailers will watch consumer behavior very carefully to gauge what’s working well and what they need to adjust. The end result will be a boon to consumers, as retailers pull out all the stops to entice consumers to make that purchase.”

Millions of people had a big case of the Mondays on the first day back to work after the Thanksgiving holiday. That’s why you spent your day shopping - on Cyber Monday - instead of working. Don’t worry, we won’t tell your boss. (S/he was shopping too, anyway.)

Coremetrics released data on what is thought to be the biggest online shopping day of the year (it’s not). Here’s what they found:

• Cyber Monday 2009 sales were up 24.1 percent compared to Black Friday 2009.
• Yesterday’s sales were up 13.7% compared to Cyber Monday 2008.
• Online shoppers spent more per order on Cyber Monday ($180.03) compared to Black Friday 2009 ($170.19), an increase of 5.8%.
• The average dollar amount consumers spent per online order rose 38.2% this year ($180.03) compared to last year ($130.24).
• Consumers bought nearly 10% more items per order this year compared to Black Friday last week.
• Consumers bought almost 30% more compared to Cyber Monday 2008.
• The peak of consumer shopping was 9-10 a.m. PST, but held stronger momentum throughout the day than on Cyber Monday 2008.

Breaking it down by industry….

• Apparel and jewelry retailers is where the biggest increase in average dollar amount per ordre, up 26.4% and 14.3% respectively.
• Sports apparel and gear retailers were up 55% in new consumers visiting their sites. However, the average dollar per order declined slightly by 3.1%.
• Department stores saw a 3% increase in new visitors, but average order value was down almost 10%.

In-store Black Friday sales didn’t please Wall Street yesterday, despite an increase in online spending last Friday. Perhaps the death at a Walmart last year and not wanting to get out of bed at butt-ugly early in the morning has driven a shift in behavior.

“We are seeing good online buying momentum because people are looking for the very best deals, and are going online for the most convenient way to shop,” said John Squire, chief strategy officer, Coremetrics.

By the way, if you missed yesterday’s sales - don’t despair.

“We expect to see one more spike in online spending when the final “free-shipping-is-ending” promotions are announced,” said Squire. “Until then, retailers will watch consumer behavior very carefully to gauge what’s working well and what they need to adjust. The end result will be a boon to consumers, as retailers pull out all the stops to entice consumers to make that purchase.”

Advertise.com and SEMPO are releasing the results of a survey about underutilized online marketing technologies. The survey was conducted in August and apparently some of you marketers out there are itching for a chance to remarket your products. Remarketing, also known as retargeting, topped the list of most under-utilized marketing technologies. Here’s what else made the list:

• Remarketing/Retargeting - 46.3%
• Geo-targeting - 18.3%
• Traffic source optimization-15.9%
• Keyword targeting - 13.4%
• Other - 3.7%
• Category targeting - 2.4%

And it looks like most of your desires for remarketing are going unrequited. When asked if remarketing had been tried with online advertising, this is what happened:

• No - 69.5 percent
• Yes - 30.5 percent

The nays should take a page out of the playbook of the yays. 51% of those who have tried remarketing in online advertising said it was impactful.

“We’re interested in taking a closer look at why Remarketing is underutilized,” Daniel Yomtobian, founder and CEO of Advertise.com. “We know that retargeting can boost ad response up to 400 percent so it’s definitely something online advertisers need to stay informed about and use more strategically.”

Remarketing wasn’t the only focus of the survey. Here are a few additional data tidbits:

Best ROI in Online Advertising:

• Search - 70.7%
• Cost-per-action (CPA) - 14.6%
• Email - 6.1%
• Social - 3.7%
• Other - 2.4%

On utilizing CPA in online ad strategy:

• To drive sales leads - 52.4%
• To drive traffic to a site - 13.4%
• To drive brand awareness - 6.1%
• Other - 1.2%
• Do not utilize CPA in online advertising strategy - 26.8 percent

PriceGrabber has released their holiday consumer spending forecast and it’s clear that shoppers are hankering down on the ol’ family budget. It’s not quite as severe as last year, but consumers seem to be planning their holiday spending with more diligence this time around. In order to spend smarter, they’re starting earlier, doing their research and looking for deals. Let’s dig in.

70% of consumers are conducting product research and comparison shopping online. This has nearly doubled from last year, which was 38%. That behavior is already in progress. 30% have already begun shopping, most of them beginning this month (October).

Fewer consumers are planning to spend less. This year 53% plan to spend less than they did last year. That’s down from 71% of consumers who were asked the same question in 2008. It’s good news that the number has dropped, but retailers need that number to drop even more.

The top 3 ways consumers plan to save are:

• research and comparison shop online (70%)
• shop at discount stores (50%)
• use online coupons (39%).

If you have a clearance, discount or outlet part of your e-commerce site, you’ll want to promote it. 50% of consumers are planning to shop at discount or outlet stores this year, while only 43% did so last year.

Women will make more of an effort to save than men. Female consumers dominate every penny-pinching category except for research and comparison shopping. 72% of men and 67% of women will research and compare online this year.

When it comes to how much will be spent, about 53% will spend less. 70% of those surveyed plan to spend less than $1,000.

The top 3 reasons for spending less this year should come as no surprise:

• increase in prices of necessities (48%)
• lack of confidence in the economy (45%)
• making less money this year (38%)

43% of consumers expect to shop on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Of those, 79% plan to spend on Black Friday and 66% plan to make a purchase on Cyber Monday.

29% of consumers are planning to purchase gifts for fewer people. That’s more than double last year’s number, when only 10% crossed names off their gift-giving lists. Acquaintances, coworkers and service providers are most likely to get the axe at 57%, 53% and 44% respectively.

We just threw a ton of numbers at you, but if you’re hungry for more, there’s a ton more data where this came from. Check out PriceGrabber’s full 16 page report (PDF) here.

At this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, new data presented by LibreDigital shows that readers who get access to a sample chapter of a book online are more likely to buy the whole thing. LibreDigital has powered 500 million page views of sample chapters for retailers, authors and social networking sites.

“In the case of one well-known book publisher, one in three people who browsed decided to purchase the book online,” said Russell P. Reeder, President and CEO of LibreDigital, Inc. “As a result, leading publishers are increasing their use of online previews when planning promotional campaigns for both new and existing book titles.”

Other need-to-know data about selling books includes:

• Women are spending nearly 70 percent more time browsing books online than men do.
• The most popular genre of books browsed online is romance novels, followed by books for tweens/teens and business books. The peak time for browsing romance titles is 11pm - 1am, in contrast to 4pm - 11pm for tween/teen books and 9am - 5pm for business books.
• An average reader spends more than 15 minutes browsing a book. They also preview an average of 46 pages of each book they browse.
• Adults are more likely to share links to content via email, while younger readers prefer to share within social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers have released their semiannual report on the state of Internet advertising. Overall Internet advertising in the first half of 2009 declined by 5.3% compared to the same period, coming in at $10.9 billion. However, search continues to ride out the economic downturn by increasing 1.7% to $5.15 billion.

“While the overall advertising market has continued to be impacted by current economic conditions, marketers are allocating more of their dollars to digital media for its accountability and because consumers are spending more of their leisure time online,” said David Silverman, PwC Assurance partner.

The news is good for an industry that has weathered the current economic woes better than most - especially its traditional advertising predecessor.

“We are in one of the most difficult economic slumps in decades. Interactive is one of the advertising sectors that has been least affected,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “In recent years the digital revolution has driven a transformation of how consumers experience advertising and media. As the economy improves, we’re confident that brands will devote an even greater share of their budgets to reaching consumers as they make interactive media a larger part of their lives.”

Looksmart CEO Ted West agrees. I spoke with him following the release of the data to get his reaction to the findings.

“This is the first recessionary cycle the industry has experienced. We don’t have the benefit of looking back of a tipping point and how things might bounce back,” said West. “The stability of search points to the strength of adoption. When the recovery does occur, search will be a very strong beneficiary of that trend.”

Because of that stability, online marketers can have confidence in maintaining their search marketing campaigns.

“I think that most search advertisers and their various agencies have developed a really sound base of experience and alternatives. I would continue to pursue those methods in selection and monitoring of keywords,” advised West. “It’s not a time to dramtically change. Search has proven to be productive.”

West emphasized that consumers haven’t left the internet, but when the conversions pick up again, search will benefit from that uptick.

Clearsaleing has launched The American Attribution Index, designed to help online marketers allocate their marketing funds according to the most effective forms of advertising.

They’ve released aggregate indices for Q1 2009 (pdf) for small, medium and large advertisers defined in the following manner:

• AAI: Aggregate–Large Advertisers (> $2 million/year online ad spend)
• AAI: Aggregate–Medium Advertisers ($300k to $2 million/year online ad spend)
• AAI: Aggregate–Small Advertisers (< $300k/year online ad spend)

Here’s how it broke down (key first):

Nielsen Online has released new online video streaming data for August 2009. In news which should surprise no one, online video streaming is up.

The number of videos watched increased 41% last month compared to August of 2008. Unique viewers were up 18% and vids per viewer were up 19.6%.

Here’s how it broke down among the video sites:

Whenever I get the whim to consider going back to school, I, of course, turn to search. I’m often completely appalled by the quality of websites associated with colleges and universities. There is little continuity of design and message and site search is generally terrible. Why go back to school when a university can’t even create a decent website?

That’s why I’m glad that Wordstream has released their list of top colleges and universities with regards to SEO. Optimization isn’t everything when it comes to web design and development, but it’s a start.

It should surprise no one that online-based higher education ranks high on Wordstream’s list. (Before you balk, consider that a recent study by the US Department of Education showed that online education beats classroom learning.)

Drexel University, a traditional university with a strong online offering, was the big winner with the most top 10 results. Two online schools, University of Phoenix and Capella University were the only other colleges to have strong top 10 showings.

Wordstream conducted the rankings by searching for popular higher-ed keywords such as “psychology degree,” “MBA,” and “nursing degree.”

Their conclusion that most schools aren’t conducting SEO or enough SEO didn’t surprise me. (It’s a bit ironic, since many link builders would love inbounds from a .edu.)

Of course, as I said above, this doesn’t even take into account design and most developmental issues. I’d argue that a nice chunk of incoming freshmen computer science geeks could team up with some design majors and probably code up a better website than most universities have.

Is it true that those who can’t do, teach? Sound off in the comments below.

Engine Ready has released another study revealing the growth rates among various traffic referrers. While SEO showed the least amount of growth in conversion rates and value per visit, it also showed the least amount of decline in order value, which is significant in this economy.

For conversion rates and average value per visit, the data mimicked results from an earlier study conducted in 2008: big growth across the board, except for SEO.

But when Engine Ready took a look at the average order value (AOV), things had changed. PPC was no longer the highest AOV, surpassed by direct access/bookmark as well as other referrers.

SEO declined the least, which supports the theory that these changes are a reaction to the economy. While SEO does cost money if you hire a consultant or retain an in-house employee, there are no extra charges for ad buys as there would be for PPC.

What do you think of Engine Ready’s study? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Ok, you’ve heard of this blogging thing, heard it might help your business but you’re just not sure if it will *really* bring results. A new Hubspot study will have you publishing a blog faster than you can say “55% more visitors.”

Why would you say that? Because that’s the average increase in visitors to small business websites as a result of blogging, according to the study.

That’s not all.

Small businesses with blogs experienced an average of 97% more inbound links and 434% more indexed pages.

So, yes, blogging has SEO value. All of this, as you can imagine, gives a nice little lift to conversions as well, though the study didn’t have hard numbers on that.

What are you waiting for? Go get your blogging on! (Then come back and read more. Perhaps, more about blogging. Say, for example how Social Networks and Blogs have surpassed email in popularity or how Blogging is helping at least one newspaper weather the current print journalism crisis Oh - and don’t miss out on SEW expert Ron Jones’ two part series on blogging (part 1 and part 2).

Nielsen is releasing data showing that recommendations from friends and family top the list of most trusted forms of advertising, with online reviews and branding topping the list as well.

Here’s how ad trust has changed over the past two years:

But what is the reason for the change?

“The explosion in Consumer Generated Media over the last couple of years - we are now tracking over 100 million CGM sources - means consumers’ reliance on word of mouth in the decision-making process, either from people they know or online consumers they don’t, has increased significantly,” says Jonathan Carson, President of Online, International, for the Nielsen Company.”

You can read the entire report here (PDF).

What do you think is the cause for the shifts in ad trust? Share your opinion in the comments below?

Hitwise has released their search engine share data for the month of June 2009. This is significant because it’s the first month that Microsoft’s Bing.com has been around. Of course, it essentially took over for Live.com, so there are a few factors to look at.

Now, normally we wouldn’t look (or even get) the week-by-week data. But that is quite possibly the most significant for this particular month. As you can see, Bing saw growth every week in the month of June.

But when you average the weeks together, Microsoft search engines still saw a slight loss year-over-year. This contrasts the data from the less authoritative Statcounter, which was released July 1.

Still, it’s no doubt who’s still sending traffic by way of search referrals: Google.

Perhaps overall search referrals would be higher if only searchers could really find what they’re looking for. The keyword length is on the rise, possibly indicating that searchers really have to do a lot of work to find what they’re truly searching for.