Apple recently announced that over 1 million iPads have been sold in the first 4 weeks of U.S. availability. With media fervor subsiding and novelty wearing off, we were interested in better understanding how iPad users are browsing the web. Listed below are three observations related to iPad traffic stats gleaned from some of our retail clients. It’s important to note that individual marketers show variations in the amount of visits from iPad browsers, so your mileage may vary.
iPad is rapidly gaining share in terms of site visits. With just a few weeks of availability, the iPad has shown rapid growth and in some cases, has overtaken more established mobile devices in terms of visits. While iPad visits make up a small proportion of total site visits (typically less than 0.5%), this fast growth shows promise. Whether this rapid growth rate can be sustained in the longer term remains to be seen.
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Sitelinks are the extra internal links that appear with some natural search results. In addition to drawing more attention to a search result, these links are helpful to visitors that want to jump directly to a particular section of your site. 
Despite the recognized value of having sitelinks, few organizations measure their popularity or effectiveness. This post walks through how to use your web analytics solution to measure organic sitelink performance.
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Posted in Natural Search, Web Analytics
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Tagged Coremetrics Analytics, Google, Natural Search, Omniture Sitecatalyst, Online Marketing, Paid Search, SEM, SEO, Sitelinks, Web Analytics
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Search is a big channel. There are die-hard people in the SEO world who never think about paid search as part of search…it’s advertising they say. There are PPC jockeys who have disdain for anything that doesn’t have an easy metric and a quick way to A-B test. Anything else is squishy, they say.
Well, any debate that pits natural search vs. paid search is missing the synergistic whole.
It’s all SEARCH.
Search is about the traffic that comes from results to specific queries. And while there is a difference between the way paid and natural search works, as a marketer, it may help you to think of them as a single channel, because they work together so well.
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Below is the second installment of our trade show roundup with thoughts and recommendations for some of the key conferences for online marketers.
Internet Retailer – Internet Retailer currently hosts two key shows each year – the Web Design & Usability Conference which was just held last week in Orlando, and the larger Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in June. This year’s main conference will be in Chicago from June 8-11. If you are actively involved in web design, the February show would be valuable to attend. For more general retail info, I am a big fan of the June show. It draws a huge crowd (great for networking and exhibiting), and there is a ton of great content. Our clients also rate this show highly for value and time well invested.
Shop.org – Shop.org hosts several conferences throughout the year. The best known and largest of all the online retail shows is the Shop.org Annual Summit in the fall. This show has frequently been held in Las Vegas , but it’s moving to Dallas for 2010. The change is unfortunate as I predict they are going to take a hit on attendance. The Mandalay Bay venue in Las Vegas was much loved and Dallas pales by comparison. The Shop.org shows have the reputation of being extremely retailer-focused, as opposed to eTail which is more vendor-focused. Shop.org has retailer-only days and retailer-only events. But despite their somewhat heavy-handed non-vendor stance, there are many sponsorships available to vendors, although some (like the vendor-hosted tables on retailer-only day) come with a pretty hefty price tag.
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I am frequently asked which of the industry trade shows are worth attending. While PM Digital can’t attend every event, we do have better visibility to these shows than most, so below is the first of two installments that cover our thoughts and recommendations on the ever-expanding online marketing conference landscape.
Because PM Digital has a heavy penetration of retail clients, we attend many conferences in the retail category as will be evident in this roundup. The list below takes into account that there are generally three reasons to attend trade shows: 1) networking, 2) keeping current, and 3) investigating new technologies.
eTail - eTail hosts two big shows each year. eTail West (which starts today) is the larger and runs from February 22-24 in Palm Desert; eTail East will be held in Baltimore from August 9-12. I personally love the timing of the February eTail show since it’s the first big event after the holiday season. People have had a few weeks to relax and breathe, but they also recognize that now is the time to launch new initiatives in order to maximize the next year-end holiday. Attendees are definitely looking and researching at this conference.
A common criticism of the eTail shows is that it seems partial to vendors rather than retailers, and this manifests itself in sessions that occasionally sound like paid commercials. Many of the session panels include vendors, and there are some big keynote slots given to vendors (and as a vendor, we are aware that there is a cost to speak at this show as well as some of the other events). I once left a multivariate testing session and found one of the companies represented on the panel was also the manning the exits with one-sheeters. I haven’t seen anything that blatant happen in a while but it’s a good example of how eTail developed its vendor-first reputation. The August eTail conference is very convenient if you are on the East Coast, and I’ve found it attracts a high-level retail attendee. It is much smaller than the West Coast show.
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Google Caffeine’s obsession with speed will bring tremendous opportunities for marketers in 2010 – but you’d better get moving now.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am mildly obsessed with coffee. I savor it, gulp it, glory in it. But really, it is all about the caffeine. Caffeine makes me feel alive. Caffeine makes me engaged. Caffeine makes my heart purr along at 600 beats per minute. Caffeine is essential. Google shares my love for the caffeinated lifestyle. They are obsessed with speed. They want their servers chugging along like they’ve spent the afternoon with 400 of their favorite baristas. Google is ready to rock Caffeine, their new internal search architecture. Google Caffeine is ready to roll out after the holidays.
What Does Google Caffeine Mean to Marketers?
Fundamentally, it doesn’t change your current search positions a lot. The essential algorithm that Google uses to determine which sites are relevant for particular terms isn’t really changing that much in the near term (but look out…big changes are coming…more on that before Christmas). But there are nuances that are becoming evident:
1. Indexing - Caffeine is all about indexing speed for Google. How many more pages can Google add to its index and how quickly? Caffeine represents a significant change in Google’s housekeeping. This is good for Google. They are speeding up the indexing because the web is exploding in its growth. (See my Here Comes The Flood for more info on the whats, whys, and wheres of the explosions). Google needs to get faster so that it can keep up with the deluge of new information and links. The takeaway for marketers is that you can expect to see your newer pages show up in the index (but not necessarily well ranked) sooner. Speed of indexation is good, but a bigger index means that you have even MORE work to do to keep yourself visible. You will likely have to do less work to become seen by Google, but more work to be visible to searchers.
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Our recent acquisition of SpinShark has enabled PM Digital to go deep with clients on new strategies for improving natural search and page rank. While pretty much any business benefits from outside counsel and perspective regarding SEO, there are also things that marketers can do themselves to gain insight on how to continually optimize their web properties for maximum exposure.
To that end, below are five easy-to-use SEO tools that we encourage any marketer to check out. And best of all, they’re all free!
1. SEOTools Back Link Analyzer
Back Link Analyzer quickly determines anchor text, page title and number of inbound links to a page. This is a great tool that gives you insight to how the page gets its visibility in search. Links are food for search engines, and this tool gives you an idea how satisfying your page (or a competitor’s page) is. We use this tool to inform our link building and search improvement activities.
2. Website Grader
True to its name, Website Grader attempts to “grade” the effectiveness of your website vs. competitors. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. This tool gives you a great way to objectively look at your page from a search perspective. It looks at all of the on-page elements that search engines look at and points out your weaknesses. Website Grader is a great tool that provides objective measurement with a no-nonsense result.
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“Black Friday” search data from Hitwise underscores how consumers are increasingly plugged-in to online retail research and deal hunting.
I sat in on a good session from Hitwise Research Director Heather Doughtery this week that looked back at Black Friday 2008 and offered some preliminary stats for Black Friday 2009. The findings are fairly predictable and mirror what we know from our own data: consumers are researching earlier and looking for deals. The bigger question for this season is to what degree the economy and unemployment will accelerate the thrifty, marketing-savvy behaviors already in play. Below are a few takeaways:
Black Friday searches start earlier each year. Per Hitwise, early “Black Friday” searches in 2006 started the week ending 9/30; for 2009 those same searches started the week ending 8/8. At this rate, “Christmas in July” may lose its oxymoron status by next year. Of course we’re talking searches, not purchases. But unless a retailer is sitting on headline-grabbing price reductions for late in the season, capturing mindshare early is crucial. Consumers need to know where the good deals are coming from, and a retailer may have to expend more effort now if they haven’t laid the groundwork already.
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Don’t be held captive to short-term ROI. Free your brand.
Late last week, I was fortunate enough to be in the lobbies of each of these four institutions: Harvard Business Review, The Salvation Army, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Liberty Medical. Each is a stalwart business and their missions smack you in the face when you walk in the door. In their lobbies, I could feel the energy. Better said, lobbies are where the brand meets the customer, real and prospective. These four are amongst the most successful brand direct marketers in their categories because they intuitively and actively drive growth through discipline and iteration. But, more, they believe that brand direct marketing is the ‘Engine that Could’ (and does): it drives and shapes perception based on how people respond and buy. Offers, creative, pricing, terms, messaging evolve as performance reveals. Brand awareness and a brand’s performance are directly connected.
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Based on PM Digital’s beta work, Google’s Ad Sitelinks test well and offer a great new tactic for retailers this holiday season.
Google’s Ad Sitelinks are moving from beta to phased roll out next week. Whereas betas are seen by only a tiny portion of users (about 1%), in a phased rollout, approximately 10% of Google users will now see these ads.
Ad Sitelinks were developed specifically as a way for retailers to get better click through rates from their trademark terms. Rather than sending all searchers to the same landing page, Ad Sitelinks enable a marketer to direct consumers to specific pages. PM Digital had several clients take part in the beta and has since rolled out many more. We definitely saw significantly higher click through rates for Ad Sitelinks compared to regular sponsored ads.
Here is an example of how Ad Sitelinks look:
When Ad Sitelinks were first tested around the beginning of summer, it was done as an A/B/C split: 1) the normal sponsored ad containing a logo; 2) a logo plus Ad Sitelinks; and 3) Ad Sitelinks with no logo. The winning beta was Ad Sitelinks with no logo, which is what will be rolled out next week.
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