One Facebook fan = 20 web visits
Each new fan acquired by retailers on Facebook equates to 20 extra visits to its website over the course of the year, according to new stats.
According to Robin Goad from Hitwise, each 'top' retailer on Facebook can expect to receive an average of 62,000 visits per month from Facebook, even if they have no fans.
Free shipping works in emails: study
Offering free shipping in emails is a tactic which is increasingly used in marketing and rightly so, as in can result in higher transaction rates, according to a new study.
A US focused report (pdf) by Experian CheetahMail has looked at the trends and offers tips on using this offer effectively. Here are a few key takeaways from the study, as well as some useful observations on search trends...
Paid search down?
Search marketing has held up remarkably well during the recession. But can it last?
According to Hitwise, there are signs of weakness. In the four weeks leading up to May 9, it observed that 7.25% of search engine traffic in all categories of sites it monitors came from paid clicks.
Online retail growth slows slightly in March
Though online retail sales are still on the up, new figures from IMRG suggest that this growth may be slowing, as sales in March grew by 19%, less than the same month in 2008.
These are still encouraging figures in a recession though, and it shows the strength of the online retail sector; e-commerce offerings have improved in the last few years, while more shoppers recognise that the internet is the place to find value for money.
Supermarkets missing out on an SEO opportunity?
The number of searches for store opening times and related terms spiked over the Easter weekend, as people looked to see if it was worth a trip to the local supermarket, but retailers aren't making the most of these searches.
Robin Goad from Hitwise has been looking at the number of searches for these terms, finding that Tesco, Asda and Sainsburys all featured in the top ten.
Hitwise: Twitter looks like a social network
Yesterday I detailed my experience of trying to use Twitter as a search engine. It wasn't a good experience.
A lot of people have been trying to define and categorize Twitter lately with minimal success. That's probably due to the fact that Twitter is being used by lots of different people for lots of different things; it's hard to fit it in a neat little box.
Yahoo is Yahoo Mail
As a network, Yahoo websites are the second-most trafficked behind Google according to comScore's numbers. Yahoo's properties are diverse and Yahoo is far closer to being a 'media' network than Google.
Yahoo's impressive audience of over 145 million visitors in January is one of the reasons that many have high hopes for a turnaround. But what assets should the company focus most on leveraging?
Search queries keep getting longer
Search queries keep getting longer. Over the past year, queries of 8 words and over experienced the higher the jump in usage.
A Hitwise study finds searches of 5 or move words in length increased 10 percent from January 2008 to January of this year. Over the same period of time shorter queries of 1 to 4 words in length decreased 2 percent.
The longer the queries, the longer the long tail becomes. As searchers becomes more sophisticated in honing their terms, SEO gets correspondingly more complex, but also more potentially rewarding.
With search queries getting longer, are long tail keywords a good SEO strategy?
If you sell widgets, being #1 on Google for generic keywords like 'widgets', 'cheap widgets' and 'buy widgets' is the stuff of dreams.
A top ranking for lucrative generic keywords can literally mean the difference between tens of thousands of dollars a month or more in revenue and no revenue whatsoever for many businesses.
How newspapers can make good use of Digg
It seems that The Telegraph has been using Digg successfully to drive more traffic to its website, and provides a useful example for other newspaper and blogs to follow.
By encouraging readers to Digg the stories they are reading on the newspaper site, The Telegraph has managed to increase the amount of traffic it receives from the social news site, and is now largest recipient of Digg traffic in the UK.
