Ecommerce & Web Marketing Research: October 1-10 2005

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October 9 2005

PPC - Click prices rising

You don't need to look at the calendar or read anything else to become aware that the holiday season is approaching - just check out PPC prices :).

Even without the holidays inflating click costs, since September 2004, when Fathom Online first published its tracking, keyword prices have increased on average from $1.37 to $1.44.

In the Consumer Services category, keyword costs increased 78 percent, but the Finance Investment category dropped 17 percent. So either the Finance Investment category is seeing a downturn, or advertisers are getting more savvy in their Pay Per Click strategy.

Learn more - PPC advertising - minimizing the cost.

The "submit your site to X thousand engines" rort

I've been doing some more research on Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing firms lately and I've been surprised to see that many companies are using the same sort of "hooks" as a few years ago - ones that are of little or no benefit to customers.

Probably the most useless hook of all is the "we'll submit your site to X thousand search engines". Given that there really are only a handful of search engines that account for approximately 90% of search engine traffic, this is a "bonus" that's really not worth a lot. Sure, there's that other 10%, but people need to be aware that the "thousands" of search engines you'll be submitted to may be nothing more than FFA pages and engines that nobody visits - and those that do may not be the types of visitors you want. Also, I suspect a bulk of the remaining 10% of search engine traffic would be from sources that just feed off the major players.

You also may find an avalanche of email awaits you when your site is submitted to these other "engines" - follow up offers from those companies.

If the company you're considering using is offering you this, ask them to put a $ value on this component - it's likely they'll put an inflated value on it. Once you have a response, ask them if you can trade that for the equivalent work performed on services related to search engines that *will* bring you traffic :). On the other hand, I'd be hesitant in using a company that advertises this sort of service given that they'd be well aware that the amount of traffic you'll receive from such huge submissions will be virtually nil. 

These are the engines you should be focused on

• Google

• Yahoo

• Ask

• AOL Search 

• MSN

• DMOZ (actually a directory that feeds many sites)

Any others should be a side-effect rather than a focus.

Hiring SEM's, SEOP's or doing it yourself

Search engine marketing and optimization 

Over 30% of Americans still not online

Say it isn't so.. but according to Pew Internet, although Internet adoption is up on last year by 5% in the USA, there are still thirty-two percent of American adults who do not use the Internet. Some of this is due to a lack of education, poverty or in the case of older Americans, it may be a matter of fear.

- 26% of Americans aged 65+ spend time online
- 67% of those aged 50-64 " "
- 80% of those age 30-49 " "
- 84% of those age 18-29 " "
- 57% of African-Americans are active online
- 70% of whites " "
- 29% of those who didn't graduate high school have access
- 61% of high school graduate " "
- 89% of college graduates " "
- 60% of adults who do not have a child living at home go online
- 83% of parents of minor children " "

While I still seriously contemplate the pros and cons of an "always on" world, I find it sad and disturbing that so many still do not have Internet access. That's not just from the merchant's perspective - it's just such an essential tool these days. In Australia, even the most impoverished in our society are able to have a telephone line if they want it. Surely our governments can start extending that to even the most basic of Internet access.

Read more - the Pew Digital Divisions report - (PDF 298kb)

Learn more about marketing to seniors online.

October 6 2005

A great idea - temporary credit card numbers

It seems this has been around for a while, but today was the first I'd heard of it. Citibank, Discover and MBNA card holders can apply for  limited-use card numbers, to help allay fears of credit card fraud. The system varies between card issuers, but the basis of it is a downloadable software package that generates a random 16 digit number that can be used for a once only purchase, or in some cases, purchases via that merchant only.

Read more

Related articles:

Credit card fraud and identity theft

Preventing credit card fraud - strategies for minimizing chargebacks

October 4 2005

Blogs, RSS gaining popularity - slowly

According to new research from Forrester Research, Inc. at its annual Consumer Forum, blogs and RSS feeds are steadily gaining popularity - but still have a long way to go to hit "mainstream":

• 10% of online consumers visit blogs at least once a week, compared with 5% in 2004.
• 6% of consumers use RSS feeds at least once a week, compared with 2 percent in 2004.

It still appears that RSS and blogs are most popular amongst the very web-savvy - although with services such as Yahoo and Google indexing and presenting RSS feeds in user friendly formats should see a more rapid adoption in the year ahead. If you haven't done so already, it really is time to start thinking about the possibility of incorporating blogs and/or RSS Feeds in your online business.

Learn more about creating RSS web feeds

October 2 2005

China surpasses 100 million Internet users

The number of people accessing the Internet in China has exceed 100 million, according to a report released by the China Internet Network Information Center, with the number of people accessing the web via broadband exceeding those getting online via dialup. It won't be too many years before we'll see China surpassing the USA in terms of the highest active online population.

Download The China Internet Development Report (PDF 727kb)

New article - email delivery issues

Email filters are becoming increasingly sophisticated; but they are a long way from perfect. An inviting subject line and enticing marketing message is only one element of successful email marketing - you also need to ensure that your subscribers will actually see it. Learn about email delivery issues and strategies.

Autoresponder software  & mailing list managers Get more from your email marketing - tips, reviews  & free trial software/services.

2 out of 5 Americans have broadband access

Nielsen Netratings have released the results of an August survey that state the number of Americans with broadband access from home reached 42 percent of
the U.S. population. This represents an increase of 16 percent since January. Narrowband connections from home have decreased by 10 percent since August last
year. 

In August, there were just over 86 million active Internet users accessing the Web through high-speed connections (home and work) - 34 percent gain over 64.1 million during August 2004.

Read more of the Internet access report (PDF 80kb)

Internet control - US vs. EU and the world?

In the final stages of the PrepCom3 conference, the European Union has challenged the USA's control of the Internet by proposing the creation of a new international body to govern, amongst other things, control of the DNS (Domain Naming System). The co-operative model would build on the existing ICANN organisation. The reaction from the US however has been not to shift from its position stated in July where it stated quite bluntly that it intends to continue overseeing the DNS.

Read more

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