WebProNews

Tag: Compete

  • Is Amazon Part Of Your Search Strategy?

    If you sell something online, and you’re not showing up in Amazon search results, you might be missing out on a major opportunity. This is especially true as we enter the holiday season.

    Do you have search visibility on Amazon? Is this a priority for your business? Let us know in the comments.

    Compete has released some interesting numbers on Amazon and how it related to consumers’ searching habits. Considering that Google thinks of Amazon as its biggest rival in this department, these are worth paying attention to.

    75 million consumers conducted at least one search on Amazon in September, though only 30% ever clicked beyond the first page of search results, it says.

    According to Compete, when a user searches on Amazon, there’s a 35% chance they’ll click on products listed first in any search, compared to a 17% chance for items listed second. They’re ten times more likely to click on items listed first then on items listed tenth.

    Amazon itself accounted for 22% of visits to any online retailer in September (up from 19% last year). The top 5 online retailers combined for about half of all visits.

    “For manufacturers of toys, diapers, groceries, auto parts, and everything in between, being on Amazon, and more importantly being seen by consumers on the site, is paramount to ecommerce success,” says Compete’s Mattt Pace. “Amazon acts as the Wikipedia of ecommerce for many consumers: it’s their de facto jumping off point for online shopping.”

    “To succeed in ecommerce, consumer product brands need greater visibility into consumers’ path to purchase for their brands and categories… both across the web and within key retailer websites like Amazon,” he says. “Understanding how consumers shop enables brands to optimize their channel investments to drive greater awareness, consideration and purchase of their products.”

    According to Compete, the average shopper returns to Amazon 2.8 times per month to search for products.

    Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt recently said, “Really, our biggest search competitor is Amazon. People don’t think of Amazon as search, but if you are looking for something to buy, you are more often than not looking for it on Amazon. They are obviously more focused on the commerce side of the equation, but, at their roots, they are answering users’ questions and searches, just as we are.”

    So how do you rank in Amazon? Well there’s not nearly as much research out there on the topic compared to ranking in traditional search engines, but Nathan Grimm posted an in-depth look at Moz a few months ago. That’s probably a good place to start. He breaks down the key differences between Amazon and Google, and looks at results page mechanics, ranking factors, tracking your progress, and other visibility systems.

    I will pull an excerpt from Amazon’s own documentation that he references:

    “Search is the primary way that customers use to locate products on Amazon.com. Customers search by entering keywords, which are matched against the search terms you enter for a product. Well-chosen search terms increase a product’s visibility and sales. The number of views for a product detail page can increase significantly by adding just one additional search term – if it’s a relevant and compelling term.

    “Factors such as price, availability, selection, and sales history help determine where your product appears in a customer’s search results. In general, better-selling products tend to be towards the beginning of the results list. As your sales of a product increase, so does your placement.”

    So if you’re talking about ranking factors, Amazon is basically naming a few of them here: keywords, price, availability, selection, and sales history.

    When many businesses think about being seen in the search engines, they think about Google, Bing, and Yahoo, but if your’e selling a product, and you’re not thinking about getting Amazon search visibility you might be missing out on an important opportunity.

    Is Amazon part of your search strategy? Let us know in the comments.

    Images via Compete

  • Twitter Study Says Twitter Exposure Drives Purchases

    Twitter has partnered with Compete for another study that shows that exposure on Twitter is good for business. This time, they looked at Twitter’s effect on online shopping by analyzing 7,600 users and their purchasing behavior as it pertains to 700 retailers on Twitter.

    Here’s the gist of the study: People who see tweets from retailers are more likely to purchase a product.

    Twitter users who see retailer Tweets are more likely to make online purchases. During the timeframe that Compete analyzed, 27% of general internet users bought something from a retail website. Twitter users, however, made purchases at a rate of 33% from the same sites during the same period. When Twitter users were exposed to a Tweet from a retailer, that purchase rate increased to 39%. This represents a lift of 1. 4X and 1.2X, respectively, and is true across a variety of retail categories.

    Furthermore, quantity matters:

    The more retailer Tweets people see, they more they visit retail sites and make online purchases. As people are exposed to more retailer Tweets, the likelihood that they will visit a retail website and make online purchases grows. Twitter users exposed to Tweets from retailers on 12 or more days were 32% more likely to purchase from those retailers compared to all users exposed to retail Tweets.

    Twitter payed for another study back in October than looked at Twitter’s influence on political donations. That study found that simply being a Twitter users increases a person’s likelihood of visiting a campaign donation page. Furthermore, “this likelihood increases when Twitter users are exposed to political Tweets either from political handles they follow, retweets by users they follow, Promoted Product campaigns by a political handle, or searches on political terms. Twitter users exposed to any of these kinds of political Tweets are almost twice as likely (97%) as other Twitter users to visit an online political donation page.”

    Like this most recent study, that study is a pretty strong argument for making your tweets have a larger reach through Twitter’s family of promoted products (tweets, accounts, and trends). These studies are obviously beneficial to Twitter’s advertising strategy, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t true. Exposure can indeed drive a lot of things – purchases being one of them.

    You can check out Twitter and Compete’s full report here.

  • For A Ghost Town, Google+ Sure Grew A Lot Last Month

    The words “Google+” and “ghost town” are often found in the same sentence, but new data from Compete appears to indicate that, at least in the U.S., Google’s social destination is growing nicely in unique monthly visitors.

    In June, the number was nearly 32 million, up 43.08% month-over-month.

    Google Plus numbers

    Kontxt communication consultant Morten Myrstad wrote about Compete’s number in a Google+ post, where he compared them to some other social sites’ growth from May to June (numbers are in millions):

    Facebook 158,6 (+1,0%)
    YouTube 153,8 (+0,75%)
    Twitter 42,6 (+0,9%)
    Google+ 31,9 (+43,1%)
    Linkedin 24,6 (-6,5%)
    MySpace 21,9 (-8,0%)
    Tumblr 21,6 (+0,1%)
    Pinterest 19,4 (+0,4%)

    “The Compete numbers are US only and desktop only,” writes Myrstad. “If US still representents about 30% of the Google+ global community, as earlier statistics have shown, Google+ now has more than 100 million worldwide visitors via desktops each month.”

    “During the Google I/O Conference in June, Google’s +Vic Gundotra announced that the Google+ mobile traffic is now larger than the desktop traffic,” he adds. “Gundotra also announced that Google+ has 250 million accounts, 150 million active users during a month and 75 million active daily users. The June statistics from Compete seems to confirm the published figures from Google.”

    Regardless of how accurate the numbers are, I’m really not getting that ghost town vibe.

  • New Compete Data: Top Business And Tech Sites

    Compete has released its new analytics numbers for May. Following is a list of some of the web’s popular destinations for tech, business, search and social media news, and what Compete lists as their unique monthly visitors (US Only).

    This is not a complete list of all publications covering these areas. Still, while some may cover other areas of interest, each is rooted in one of them primarily. The list doesn’t include the more general news sites, such as The AP, Reuters, The New York Times, etc., many of which do cover these areas extensively as part of their overall products. The list is not meant to be the state of the news industry or anything, but just a quick look at our industry’s unique audience landscape. Not all of these sites are necessarily in direct competition with one another. Some are much more niche than others. It’s not about comparing a site that only writes about Facebook, for example, with a site that covers the entire tech industry (or even more than that).

    I’ve included a few popular sources of such types of news, which are more aggregators than publications, yet seemed worth including for perspective.

    It’s also worth noting that Compete’s numbers are just that – Compete’s numbers. They’re often much lower than what sites’ internal analytics will reveal, and will differ from those of other products.

    Finally, I want to stress again, that these are unique visitors. Not pageviews. If we were talking pageviews, the list would no doubt look much different. For example, Reddit announced earlier this year that it hit the 2 billion mark.

    But anyhow, on with the list:

    Website Unique Visitors (U.S.)
    CNET.com 13,486,109
    Forbes.com 9,449,089
    WSJ.com 5,969,016
    Bloomberg.com 5,036,418
    BusinessWeek.com 3,192,967
    BusinessInsider.com 2,681,606
    Mashable.com 2,244,083
    WebProNews.com 2,239,178
    PCWorld.com 1,930,292
    BizJournals.com 1,827,123
    Reddit.com 1,684,897
    TechCrunch.com 1,660,121
    PCMag.com 1,586,938
    Gizmodo.com 1,511,785
    Wired.com 1,505,012
    Engadget.com 1,067,846
    MacRumors.com 780,441
    ZDNet.com 717,523
    TechTarget.com 765,059
    DigitalTrends.com 684,963
    Economist.com 576,800
    Entrepreneur.com 551,489
    Inc.com 550,359
    FastCompany.com 530,499
    ComputerWorld.com 522,378
    ArsTechnica.com 424,854
    MacWorld.com 382,234
    SlashGear.com 356,398
    TheVerge.com 354,331
    Geek.com 330,427
    ReadWriteWeb.com 309,871
    VentureBeat.com 304,361
    MarketingPilgrim.com 251,146
    AllThingsD.com 227,963
    Slashdot.org 223,023
    TorrentFreak.com 222,383
    GigaOm.com 219,288
    TechnologyReview.com 200,324
    BGR.com 182,691
    SERoundtable.com 176,793
    SearchEngineLand.com 170,178
    AdAge.com 151,725
    TheNextWeb.com 150,228
    AppleInsider.com 136,356
    TechDirt.com 136,015
    SearchEngineWatch.com 120,709
    AllFacebook.com 116,388
    9to5Mac.com 105,323
    PaidContent.org 82,786
    PandoDaily.com 82,687
    ClickZ.com 69,098
    InsideFacebook.com 56,379
    MarketingLand.com 54,748
    GeekWire.com 53,169
    Electronista.com 52,336
    Techmeme.com 42,930
    SearchEngineJournal.com 24,771
    DaringFireball.net 24,045
    9to5Google.com 8,182
    Betakit.com 6,928

    Compete lets you look at the data for any domain free of charge here, though they do require a sign-up these days.

  • Business Insider Hit 15 Million Uniques In May, Praises Aggregation

    In the publishing world, it’s no secret that Business Insider has seen tremendous growth in recent years. Today, co-founder, CEO and Editor-In Chief Henry Blodget announced that the site had 15 million unique monthly visitors in May, and he largely attributes the site’s popularity to news aggregation.

    On Friday, we looked at Compete’s latest numbers for some of the web’s popular business and tech publications. As previously noted, Compete’s numbers are often lower than publishers’ internal analytics, and it had Business Insider at 2,681,606 uniques for the month of May (U.S. Only), compared to 2,239,178 for WebProNews. The 15 million Blodget announced today are presumably global. For perspective, in light of Compete’s data, WebProNews (based on our internal stats) was at 5.2 million for the month.

    It’s interesting to see what Blodget has to say about aggregation. In his post, he writes, “We occasionally hear other media organizations speak ill of aggregation, as though it’s some sort of a bad thing. This has always been mystifying to us. We assume this attitude arose from an era in which big media organizations were like hydrants in the desert–the only place to find news and information.”

    “In the past, publications like ours would have had to hire PR firms to send their articles around and beg other journalists to write about them. Now, thanks to the Internet, you all not only choose to read our posts with no prodding from us, you write about them, link to us, raise awareness of our brand and writers, and make it easy for more readers to find us. And we’re grateful for every mention and link!”

    He’s right. You don’t hear that too often from traditional media publications, some of which have historically been quite defensive about news aggregation.

    It was only a year ago we were reporting that Business insider had surpassed popular social media news site Mashable in Uniques (based on Compete data from that time). As you can see from the Compete list, Business Insider is in the upper tier of business sites, in terms of unique audience. It will be interesting to see if it jumps up further, on a list dominated by sites like CNET, Forbes.com, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Businessweek.

  • Business Insider Overtakes Mashable in U.S. Unique Visitors (Compete)

    Business Insider has overtaken Mashable in unique visitors according to Compete. It seemed noteworthy when competing blog Mashable overtook TechCrunch as the more popular tech blog, and now Business Insider (whose tech section is technically Silicon Alley Insider) appears to be doing even better than Mashable.

    Business Insider Overtakes Mashable

    Of course, there are plenty of factors that could be contributing here. For one, Business Insider is pushing out a ton of articles these days, and on a variety of topics. It’s not all tech, or even all business at this point. It’s pretty much become an all-purpose news source, leaving the name “Business Insider” a little misleading. That’s not to say they don’t cover business well, but visit the site, and you’ll find sections on Tech, Media, Sports, Lifestyle, Politics, Travel, Etc. The content will still often have a business angle, but not always.

    This kind of branching out into other content areas by previously niche publications has drawn some criticism. In fact, a TechCrunch writer recently blasted Mashable for this kind of thing (which I defended here). Interestingly enough, Business Insider has also been known to syndicate articles from other sources, including TechCrunch itself.

    Business Insider puts out a ton of content. They seem to be going for almost a Huffington Post-type thing. In terms of unique visitors, it seems to be playing out well for them so far.

    It’s worth noting that Compete’s data is all U.S. and has been subject to its own share of criticism. Last week, we ran a piece, in which Compete’s Damian Roskill, Managing Director of Marketing, compared Compete data and Google Analytics data to Apples and Oranges.

  • Compete: Comparing Our Data to Google Analytics is Apples and Oranges

    Compete, as you may know, provides analytics tools, and shows website traffic data on things like unique visitors, pageviews, visits, etc. The data is sometimes compared to Google analytics, and often tells a different story.

    We reached out to Compete to discuss this a bit, and Damian Roskill, Managing Director, Marketing at Compete tells us, “It’s really like comparing apples and oranges – both methodologies have their strengths and their weaknesses.  Google Analytics doesn’t actually track people – it tracks cookies.  This means that when people change computers, or delete their cookies, you can have double counting that goes on.”

    Compete’s methodology has four basic components. They are (as described in a Compete white paper):

    1. Multi-source panel – combines both recruited panelists and licensed clickstream data from partners, resulting in a very large and representative online consumer panel;
    2. Harmonization algorithms – proprietary processes and technology that work together to integrate Compete’s multiple data sources into a unified online
      consumer panel;
    3. Sophisticated normalization techniques – unique processes that weight, calibrate and project metrics across panel sources resulting in accurate base audience measurement data;
    4. Metrics that matter – analytics on site visitation, audience profiles, media exposure, search term usage, cross-shopping, conversion, competitive behaviors, and audience segmentation

    “In contrast, a panel is a sample-based approach – we track about 2 million US consumers – a percentage of the total internet audience here in the US – and then we use computer modeling to project behavior from our panel to the general internet audience,” says Roskill. “The upside is that a person is a person – you don’t have the double-counting.  The downside is that you can sometimes get undercounting of smaller websites.”

    “Also notice that we are currently only doing US consumers – so people often send us a Google Analytics number that includes all international users as well as US consumers – the two aren’t comparable in that way either.”

    Certainly an important point to note.
     
    “Bottom line, the approaches are complementary rather than either/or – what should make sense is that the two methodologies should be similar directionally.  But comparing the numbers doesn’t really provide much value.”

    In my experience, they generally are similar directionally in most cases.
     
    “What we think can be meaningful is combining the two approaches – essentially using a cookie-based approach and combine it with a panel based approach and use them to provide validation for each other,” says Roskill.

    The fact is that you can compare data from any number of analytics tools, and you’re going to get different results. It’s when they tell dramatically different stories that you need to investigate further. Luckily there are resources explaining how data is collected. Compete’s white paper, for example explains its methodology. Google Analytics has an entire help center, and there are plenty of articles on the web discussing it.

  • Facebook Traffic Vs. Website Traffic

    Facebook Traffic Vs. Website Traffic

    It’s clear that many sites are using Facebook for marketing purposes. The social network has given businesses many new ways to communicate, brand, engage, and more. In fact, recognized search expert Bruce Clay called the popular Facebook “Like” metric the new link.

    With all the value that Facebook is creating, is it safe to say that it is becoming more valuable than a brand’s own website? Let us know your thoughts.

    A recent study from Compete addressed this issue in part by comparing the extent to which consumers visited the Facebook pages of certain brands to how often they visited each brand’s own website. Among the 40+ brands that were analyzed, Walmart, State Farm Insurance, and BMW had the most unique visits to their Facebook pages.

    But, in terms of comparing the traffic, iTunes’ Facebook page received more traffic than its domain did. Lincoln Merrihew, Managing Director at Compete, told us that Apple is using its iTunes Facebook page as a “storefront.” Going forward, he believes that more brands will use Facebook in this same way.

    So, what does this information mean? According to Merrihew, brands should definitely pay attention to Facebook, if they aren’t already. However, he also says that they need to consider the quality of the traffic. When brands drive people to their Facebook page, are the consumers looking to make a purchase, or are they just there to look around?

    In other words, he believes businesses need to have clear goals for what they want their Facebook pages to accomplish. The iTunes page, for example, is set up like a store for users to download music. Progressive Insurance, on the other hand, has a Facebook page for its spokesperson Flo that is more for engagement and relationship building.

    “Everyone wants to be on Facebook, [and] everyone wants to use it, but then [it’s] understanding the quality of what you’re getting,” said Merrihew.

    He also said that, as brands establish their strategy, they should consider if their customers are more comfortable on Facebook or on their website. Once this is figured out, a business can determine where it should be focusing its traffic efforts.

    Social media strategist Sally Falkow recently wrote about this issue and pointed out that while social channels would likely be a leader in online business communications in the future, they still would need to be connected to a website. She wrote, “So it’s not that you no longer need a website, it’s just that if you don’t integrate social features and connect your social content with your corporate website it will become irrelevant.”

    So, even though opinions are probably divided on this issue, it is something that businesses need to think about and plan for in regards to the future.

  • Google and Compete Reveal Data About How People Research and Buy Phones

    Google and Compete teamed up on a study on consumers’ shopping habits as they relate to purchases of wireless devices and smartphones.

    "With over 450 mobile devices in North America and an average of 10 new phone launches each week, how do shoppers decide which phone is right for them? How do marketers influence these purchase decisions?" asks the Google Tech Team, previewing the report.

    Hot Phones Trump Upgrades according to findings from Google and Compete

    There are some very interesting numbers in it. Here are a few: 

    – At the beginning of the purchase process, 42% did not have a a specific carrier preference, while 78% did not have an OEM preference

    – 5% bought a new smartphone because they wanted more features, while 22% bought because they saw a new phone they "had to have"

    – 62% of consumers who searched for a newly launched mobile device purchased one, and the average consumer conducts 13 searches throughout the purchase process

    – There was a 29% increase in the number of online resources used in research

    – 63% of people who bought phones in stores researched their purchase online

    There is plenty more statistical and visual data within the report. View it here.

  • T-Mobile Customers Bigger on Stocks, Bill Pay?

    Last week, we saw some interesting findings from AdMob about smartphone usage. Now Compete has shared some of its own findings with WebProNews. The firm recently conducted a Smartphone Intelligence Survey.

    About 47% of T-Mobile smartphone users use their phones to find local branches and ATMs, while 45% of AT&T users and 36% of Sprint users reported doing this (see chart #1 for data).

    According to the survey, 34% of T-Mobile users use their phones to pay bills, followed by AT&T users (31%), Sprint users (23%) and Verizon users (21%).

    Compete Shares Smartphone Usage findings

    While the numbers were lower, 19% of T-Mobile smartphone owners used their phones to buy/sell stocks. 11% of AT&T and Verizon users also bought/sold stocks, while only 8% of Sprint users reported buying/selling stocks.

    73% of smartphone owners reported using their devices for at least one shopping-related activity during the holiday season.

    Compete Shares Smartphone Usage findings

    Currently, 38% of smartphone owners conduct leisure travel research on their mobile devices (at least some of the time), according to the findings. This compares to 27% using mobile for leisure travel bookings, 20% using for business travel research, and 15% using for business travel bookings.

    Compete Shares Smartphone Usage findings

    The findings present an interesting look at how people are using their devices to interact with the mobile web and make decisions.

  • Don’t Count Out Facebook as a Competitor to Google

    In case you were wondering, Facebook is pretty popular. Google is of course the undisputed king of search market share, but Facebook has the edge in some areas. Social media is the obvious area.  While Google is hoping to make some serious headway here with Buzz, Facebook is far and away the dominant being in the world of social networks.

    Compete shared some data with us that emphasizes just how big Facebook is, and just how seriously it should be taken. If these stats from Facebook weren’t enough for you, Compete points out that Facebook has surpassed Yahoo as the #2 site online in the U.S. in terms of unique visitors, just under Google.

    In December, according to Compete, Facebook’s unique visitors in the U.S. had increased by over 121%. That’s pretty incredible, because I seem to recall Facebook being pretty popular in late 2008 too.

    Unique Visitors in December

    In terms of social media sites, none of the others even come close in the U.S. – not even the world’s second largest search engine, YouTube: 

    So Facebook is already bigger than the second largest search engine. Add to that, the fact that search on Facebook itself is rising. According to comScore, Facebook’s search query percentage increased by 13% from December to January, growing to 395 million searches:

    Search Query Report

    Greg Sterling notes, the numbers in the chart "are likely internal searches on Facebook for content or friends, rather than web search. This is not the same thing as people conducting searches on Google, Yahoo or Bing more generally. And 13 percent growth is certainly strong, but not "phenomenal.’"

    Facebook’s search feature, which has been emphasized somewhat with the latest redesign, lets users search people, pages, groups, apps, events, posts by friends, posts by everyone, OR web results. Sterling makes the case that internal Facebook searches are different from web searches one would perform on Google, but in some ways, Facebook search simply goes places that Google doesn’t (while also going Places that Google does via the Bing-powered web search).

    Facebook is almost like its own web in some ways, and that is becoming truer all the time as Facebook gets more of users’ time spent online (which it is doing through status updates, news, apps/games, videos, music, events, and possibly email in the future…we also suggest Facebook consider adding blogging to the mix).

    Look at this newly released data from Nielsen about time spent online. In January (in the U.S.), Facebook users averaged 7 hours a month on the site. As a point of comparison, Google users spent about 2 hours.

    Hours spent online

    In some ways, that doesn’t really take anything away from Google, because Google’s job as a search engine is to get you where you need to be to find what you’re looking for. However, Facebook users appear to be finding plenty of stuff they are looking for along with stuff they didn’t know they were looking for, as well as just hanging out and being entertained. With Facebook’s search feature, they’re able to find what they’re looking for without having to leave Facebook until the search result (at least theoretically).

    Whether you think Facebook’s search growth is "phenomenal" or not, you can’t overlook the fact that more people are using the search feature, and some unknown percentage of that is pulling from Bing. Maybe this should be construed as a good reason not to overlook your Bing SEO efforts. Maybe it’s also another reason why Facebook should be viewed as one of Google’s key competitors (along with Microsoft, Yahoo, and increasingly Apple).  Actually, Sterling points out that Google recently listed Facebook officially as a competitor for the first time in its annual 10K filing.

    Google is seemingly going after the market that Facebook dominates with the launch of Google Buzz, but status updates are just part of the big picture. Search is just part of the big picture. It’s all about getting the user’s attention, is it not? Here are some tips for running a good Facebook page.

    What do you think? Discuss here.

  • Search Engines Impact Perception Of Brands

    The search engine consumers use to find a brand’s website impacts both their perception of that brand and the decisions they make while on the site, according to new research by Wunderman, ZAAZ, and Compete.

    "Search begins with the choice of search engine," said David Sable, vice chairman and COO of Wunderman. "What this means if you are managing a brand is this: you need to know how consumers relate to Bing, Yahoo! or Google and how that reflects on you."

    Loyal users of Bing, Yahoo and Google were found to have distinct characteristics that benefit some brands more than others.

    The search experience on different search engines offers different results, with some being more relevant to the consumer than others. This contributes to overall customer and brand awareness. If the search results satisfy the needs of the consumer, then the search engine has greater appeal to that potential customer leading to a deeper connection to the brand and the search engine.

    Search-Engines

    "This research demonstrates that marketers have a real choice to make when formulating search strategies," said Shane Atchison, CEO of ZAAZ.

    "The search engine acts as a kind of ‘train’ on the Internet. Each train provides a different set of unique results or ‘destinations.’ Consumer preference for a specific train demonstrates a unique demographic and psychographic profile."

    The study found two reasons why different brands do better with different search engines:

     

    •     It’s About Who You Are: The demographic and psychographic profile of each loyal search engine user is different. Bing users, for example, tend to be mostly from the tip of the adoption curve (innovators and early adopters) where Yahoo! and Google’s passengers tend to be middle majority (see accompanying chart). 
    •     It’s About the Road You Take:  Each search engine delivers a different result, whether paid for or earned. In the brands and vertical categories studied (automotive, travel, retail, and wireless), each search engine demonstrated different degrees of consumer engagement ranging from visiting to finally purchasing. 

     

    Related Articles:

    > How Google Rates Links from Facebook and Twitter

    > How Press Releases Can Be Great For Search

    > Link Building for Bing Rankings: Dos and Don’ts

  • Travel And Weather Websites See Big Gains In December

    During December 2009, winter weather hit the country driving holiday travelers online, according to Compete’s latest top 50 website rankings.

    Six of the top 20 highest growth website categories in December were travel and weather related.  The airport travel category attracted 40 percent more unique visitors in December (2.1 million) than the previous month.  News sites related to weather and traffic also saw big growth, increasing visitors by 34.8 percent over November to reach 52.5 million unique visitors.

    Weather.com still has a clear hold on the online weather market. The popular forecast site attracted 33.6 million unique visitors in December, a 46.7 percent increase month-over-month and 22.1 percent growth over 2008. Wundergroud.com also continued steady growth, reaching 6.98 million unique visitors in December, which represents 19.3 percent growth year-over-year.

    Top-50-Websites

    Shipping services attracted consumer’s attention in December as they logged on to track shipped packages and research shipping rates. UPS.com led the online shipping sites with 25 million unique visitors, a 51.9 percent increase month-over-month and 17 percent year-over-year growth. USPS.com trailed, attracting 23.4 million unique visitors, while 15.5 million unique visitors clicked on FedEx.com.

    While the top 50 websites in December once again remained largely unchanged, there were two notable moves among the group. eBay moved up the ranks to take the number five spot on the most popular site list. With 88.5 million unique visitors in December, the site was previously ranked number eight edged out Amazon (85.9 million unique visitors) by growing 19.6 percent month-over-month.
     

    Related Articles:

    > The Top 50 Websites in the US

    > Online Shoppers Have Bigger Holiday Budgets Than Offline Shoppers

    > Compete Builds "Twitter Down" Case

     

  • Compete Documents Hotmail Dominance

    Compete Documents Hotmail Dominance

    If you ever set out to collect personal email addresses at a tech gathering, here’s a tip: generally speaking, you can save time by typing or writing out the "@gmail" part before approaching people.  But Compete provided a bit of a reality check today by showing that Hotmail remains in the top spot overall.

    Andrew Pearlman – who is himself a satisfied Hotmail user – wrote earlier, "I am happy to report that MSN Hotmail still holds a slight lead in the number of Unique Visitors over Gmail every month."

    It’s done so for quite some time, too.  Pearlman continued, "Below is a trend line for the previous 3 years, keep in mind that the domain for hotmail.com has changed over time and in late ’07 the sub-domain moved from msn.com to live.com."

    Of course, if you eye the July 2009 to September 2009 region of the graph, the odds of Hotmail staying in the lead start to look a little slim.  Nonetheless, if Bing continues to become more successful and Microsoft does a decent job of tying all its products together, it’s hard to say what might happen.

    At the least, this should be a sign to not give odd ("you’re backwards") or rude ("you’re blowing me off") looks to people who supply Hotmail addresses.

    Related Articles:

    > 10 Reasons Social Media Isn’t Replacing Email

    > Google Adds Easy Way To Merge Duplicate Contacts In Gmail

    > Offline Use Now Part Of Everybody’s Gmail

  • Smartphone Owners Frustrated By Poor Mobile Site Functionality

    Smartphone owners are more comfortable making purchases from their handsets, but poor mobile site functionality is still a frustration for many, according to a new survey by Compete. 

    While m-commerce is set for strong growth in 2010, consumers are still more likely to abandon mobile purchasing on sites that are not optimized for the on-the-go experience, similar to shopping cart abandonment in the early days of ecommerce.

    Compete’s Q3 Smartphone Intelligence survey found that eight percent of smartphone owners that tried to purchase a product on their device were unable to do so. Nearly half (45%) of those that abandoned the process said that they did so because the site would not load, and an additional 38 percent left the site because it was not developed specifically for smartphone users.

    "Retailers are beginning to recognize that smartphone use is no longer limited to an exclusive group of tech savvy consumers," said Danielle Nohe, director of consumer technologies for Compete.

    "As these devices proliferate – and people grow more comfortable transacting, site owners must redesign around mobile shopping ease-of-use. We see this as a win for both consumers and businesses."

    Smartphone-activities

    Key findings from the survey include:
       

     

    • 37 percent of smartphone owners have purchased something non-mobile with their handset in the past 6 months.
    •     19 percent of total smartphone owners have purchased music from their device, 14 percent have purchased books, DVDs, or video games and 12 percent have purchased movie tickets.
    •     The most popular mobile shopping-related activities are still research related – 41 percent of iPhone users and 43 percent of Android users are most likely to check sale prices at alternative locations from their mobile phones while they are shopping.
    •     The second most likely activity is accessing consumer reviews, with 39 percent of iPhone owners and 31 percent of Android owners investigating reviews from their handset before they purchase.

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