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  • Microsoft’s new search engine Bing continued to sees gains in US searcher penetration and share of search result pages during the second week after its public launch, according to a follow-up study on its performance by comScore, Inc.

    The qSearch analysis revealed that Microsoft Sites’ average daily penetration among US searchers reached 16.7% during the work week of June 8-12, up three percentage points from 13.8% during the May 25-29 work week prior to Bing’s introduction.

    Microsoft’s share of search result pages in the US, a proxy for overall search intensity, increased to 12.1% during the period of June 8-12, and also climbed three percentage points from the work week of May 25-29, 2009.

    An earlier comScore analysis conducted during the first week after Bing’s public launch found that the new search engine’s average daily penetration was 15.5% and its share of search result pages was 11.1% during the period of June 2-6, 2009.

    “It appears that Microsoft Bing has continued to generate interest from the market for the second consecutive week,” said Mike Hurt, comScore SVP. “These early data reflect a continued positive market reaction to Bing in the initial stages of its launch.”

    The New York Post reported that Bing’s early success has “rattled” Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who is said to be leading a team of top engineers in a quest to discover how Bing’s algorithm works and to complete performance upgrades to the Google system.

    Originally  posted on Marketing charts

    Social networking among US broadband users has grown an impressive 93% since 2006, and has increased the amount of time people spend communicating online 18%, to 32% of total online time, according to a new report from Netpop Research, LLC that delves into social networking trends and habits. (from marketing charts )

    How many of you have accounts with Facebook? How about Linked In?

    Currently there are 6 Major social networks out there and more coming online monthly.

    Largest Social Networks:

    Facebook

    Myspace

    Linked In

    Bebo

    Friendster

    Hi5

    Catching up quickly, Twitter and Blogcatalog

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    February 28th, 2009 by admin

    The length of a string of words in the average US search request is on the rise, with longer search queries – averaging five or more words in length – this is a huge increase of 10% in January ‘09 vs. January ‘08, according to Hitwise.

    The most notable change was in search queries that were eight or more words. These have increase over 20%. For the same time period, and shorter search requests have gone down.

    So what is this telling us? People are getting m0re specific in the requests. They want more specific restultzzs.

    If you are a online marketer or are looking for a company to work with you on the ways of the internet. You should check services offered by Resultzzs.com They will be able to show you the path!

    A good friend of mine is about to “retire”, well at least that is what he says. Aussie Rodney is finally to a point in his life where he is ready for a change. Ok, so you are asking your self what is this all about?

    Well here goes, you have heard of the Geek Squad and I’m sure you have seen the ever so popular T.V show “CHUCK: with there NERD HERD. Well now there is an Aussie Version, the “Geek in a Bus” couldn’t think of a catchy title.

    Aussie Rodney’s Outback IT SERVICES!!!

    Imagine covering an area of Continental USA, north & west from Dallas, in a motor home or converted bus, providing a personalized network and PC repair service to anyone & everyone, wherever they are in Australia.

    What a great excuse to visit a remote cattle station!

    Will this do for transport?  http://rvpoint.com.au/DesktopDefault.aspx?ItemID=3038163&TabID=205104

     

    Downunder IT Services

    Downunder IT Services

    Good Luck Rodney!

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    January 2nd, 2009 by admin

    To draw consumers into brick-and-mortar stores, you need to engage them – and no channel makes it easier than mobile. Here are a few methods that are proven to work.

    Santa Claus should not text while driving his sleigh, but this holiday season, smart businesses should be focusing on mobile to drive results. Many retailers kicked off their holiday selling season on Black Friday by opening their doors before dawn and spending millions on advertising campaigns to publicize incredible deals at bargain-basement prices for one of the busiest shopping days of the year.Yet, despite heavy national TV, print and online pushes for the country’s biggest retailers, many major brick-and-mortar retailers have not begun to implement even the simplest forms of mobile marketing to expand engagement with their customers. They should take a cue from the few mobile-savvy retailers this holiday season.

    Amazon.com, the world’s biggest online retailer, launched a new initiative in November called “Text Alerts for Daily Deals,” through which customers could sign up to receive daily text alerts featuring the retailer’s Deal of the Day. J.C. Penney shoppers who visit the retailer’s website can sign up to receive mobile alerts that offer shopping tips or help locate the closest store. And just in time for the holiday season, Sears launched Sears2go, a mobile commerce website that lets customers select and buy products, then sends a mobile alert when the merchandise is ready for in-store pick up.

    In addition to basic product and service alerts, savvy retailers and marketers should consider these mobile tactics:

    Engaging messaging
    Create brand excitement with mobile messaging that engages shoppers quickly and easily by sharing valuable real-time information. Not everyone has a workshop of elves to help with the holiday bustle, so mobile outreach needs to be relevant to holiday consumers.

    Major brands like Coca-Cola and Budweiser tweak their holiday season marketing to incorporate polar bears and Clydesdale horses, and just about every retailer has prominent logos and branding that can easily be repurposed for marketing with a holiday touch.

    Subscriptions
    Retailers can use mobile subscriber lists in the same way they would target their customers by email or direct mail. By incorporating location and demographics data and then targeting customers based on purchase preferences, the nearest store or sales of interest, mobile messaging can be much more powerful.

    Santa has his list of which children have been naughty or nice around the globe. Marketers should follow suit by implementing geo- and demo-targeting to segment their mobile messages and maximize their ROI.

    Voice messaging (IVR)
    Add an IVR element to your mobile marketing campaigns and one-up the competition with the addition of personality and interactivity. With an IVR, consumers sign up via voice menus to receive mobile deal alerts or product promotions with interactive celebrity campaigns. They can also respond to mobile IVR alerts directing them to retailer call centers.

    Earlier this year, Maxim launched an IVR campaign tied to its “Hottie of the Month” section and greeted callers with a message from a Maxim girl. This holiday season, retailers can easily leverage voice interactivity to further engage consumers with mobile campaigns featuring prominent celebrity spokespeople and holiday-themed content.

    Interactive two-way messaging
    Two-way messaging can help retailers extend their brands and communicate with consumers directly, reinforcing the mobile relationship. Irish brewer Guinness recently launched The Great Guinness Pint Contest, asking mobile consumers to rate their pints of Guinness, entering them in a sweepstakes for a trip to the brewery in Dublin. These customer loyalty programs further encourage activity between marketers and their target audiences and strengthen the consumer engagement.

    For the holidays, retailers could deliver dynamic gift guides and bargain hunter notifications, invite customer feedback on their holiday shopping experiences, or promote and encourage mobile conversations with Santa himself.

    Coupons and discounts
    Promote incentives, mobile coupons, discounts and sweepstakes to increase shopper participation. Consumers always identify with special offers, and bargain shopping seems to be the theme of this holiday season.

    Wal-Mart introduced a holiday mobile alerts program this season, connecting shoppers with in-store bargains and online discounts. Earlier this summer, IKEA offered mobile coupons that could be redeemed at in-store kiosks. Even Santa needs to be tempted with cookies and milk; your customers are no different.

    Mobile ads
    Small banners, text links… you know the drill. Retailers just need to miniaturize these ads for the mobile platform. Mobile sites are becoming a mainstream marketing tactic and an easy way to bring the brand to the phones of loyal consumers.

    RadioShack ran full-screen ads within mobile games earlier this fall to increase awareness and purchase consideration for its brand. Consumers benefited from the RadioShack mobile store locator and could opt in to receive additional information. All retailers should be leveraging innovative mobile marketing tactics to extend their relationship and visibility with holiday shoppers.

    With many consumers expected to tighten their pursestrings this holiday season, retailers should be taking advantage of every opportunity they can to reach their customers. Mobile marketing — the kind that is targeted, trackable and quantifiable — should be a part of every retailer’s plan.

    Matt Silk is senior vice president of San Francisco-based Waterfall Mobile.

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    This week ebay released a coupon worth 10 percent off any order with a max of $100.00 off.
    This works on any region of ebay around the world.

    Coupon:

    CHOLIDAYNOV2008

    As you proceed to checkout simply put this into the COUPON section and it will knock of 10 %

    Not bad Ehh?

    I can only guess this is their attempt to stimulate an already slowing christmas season of online retail shopping.

    It’s good enough for me. I have used it a couple of times now, so it isnt a one time deal.

    Happy Shopping!

    Don’t forget the Black Friday sales coming up on Nov 27th.

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    November 14th, 2008 by admin


    Zappos.com Inc feeling the stress from the economic problems in the USA.

    The online shoes, clothing, bags and accessories retailer, No. 27 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, is laying off about 80 of it employees to cut costs.

    Zappos is thinking of also closeing outlet storesin Nevada and Kentucky all to save more money, CEO Tony Hsieh wrote in a note on the company’s blog last week. “We made the hard choice of laying off about 8% of our employees,” says Hsieh. “The layoffs will affect almost every single department at Zappos.com.”

    It is not their choice, the largest of their investors is telling them to trim the fat.
    The employees to be laid off will be paid through the end of the year. Workers who have been with the company for three or more years will receive an additional payout, says Zappos.

    In addition to firing employees, Zappos is also cutting back its sales forecast for 2008. Zappos now hopes that sales will grow by about 17% to around $1 billion from $850 million in 2007. That is still some serouis growth if you ask me. The turn in the market is effecting everyone. We will have to keep our heads up and push forward to make it through.

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    More than one in three holiday shoppers – or 62.3 million adult consumers – report they begin holiday shopping before Thanksgiving, according to new data from Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI).

    Just 35% of holiday shoppers say they begin shopping between Thanksgiving and December 15, and 25% say they start their shopping between December 16 and 23, MRI’s 2008 Omnibus Recontact Study found.
    Approximately 2% of holiday shoppers don’t begin their holiday shopping until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. (exceprt from Marketing Charts)

    So what does that mean for us retailers? Ya better get your act in gear! The 2008 holiday session is HERE!

    Things to keep in mind when do your advetising:

    1- Targeted ads are better than generic

    2- Google adwords is not the only place to advertise

    3- Social networks my be a key to advertising passive markets

    4- Don’t forget Ebay and Overstock

    The more target your ads can be the more chance that they will convert into sales. This means that if some one is looking up a product like a (Nokia N96 mobile phone) then you put those exact words in your AD and in the landing page that you send them to. The customer must feel that they are being led down the correct path to exactly what they are looking to purchase.

    Google is a great place to advertise but for most beginners it is way to complicated and you can loose a large sum of your advertising budget quite quickly. (Google adwords Learning Center) Look at other ways to advertise. Yahoo has a good program (Yahoo Paid Search) MSN has one also (MSN AdCenter). These are only tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of 2nd tier search sites that offer great advetising options. Miva, Kanoodle, Ask are a few of them that I trust.

    Social networks like Facebook, Bebo, Myspace and Friendster are just a few of the top social networks that are all the craze these days. (Just the other day a really good friend from my high school days found me on facebook, haven’t talked with him in over 10 years. ) So if so many people are there looking for old buddies why not advertise? Check out Cubics.com .

    Last but not least is the Auction services, Ebay, Overstock and many others are here to serve you and your customers. You may have heard that Ebay just raised their prices on listing auctions and completed listings.
    Yes this is true but never fear their is always a silver lining. You have many options to offset the costs by using third party services to list your items. Auctiva.com, Vendio.com, Inkfrog.com these guys allow you to speed up your listings and offer most of Ebays upgrade tools for free.

    This season is going to be very very GOOD for online sellers. No one wants to drive when the cost of gas is still pushing $4.00 per gallon (USA) Im sure it is as bad or worse everywhere else. So get out there and SELL SELL SELL.

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    So what does that mean to all you paid advertisers? Get off thinking that google is the only place that you can advertise. There are a lot of amazing OTHER places to spend your advertising dollars and get more use out of them. Have you ever heard of Cubics.com ? These guys have created a network with most of the top social networks. You create an account with them and you can advertise on FACEBOOK, MYSPACE, BEBO, FRIENDSTER and more. give it a try, it wont hurt, and… You might just hit the jackpot of a new marketing niche.

    If you want to read more about social media and adults

    Tips for writing titles and descriptions on product page and homepage

    Think of your title and description as an advertising campaign and spend as much time writing an effective title and description as you would writing an important ad.

    Include Your Researched Keywords: To have a realistic chance of being listed on search results for certain keywords, make sure those keywords are used in your titles and descriptions. This is because when a search is requested through a search engine, the search engine gives highest priority to the words within the title tag. Since each page of your website can have its own unique title, it is vital for you to customize each page with its own keyword-rich title, focusing on just one keyword phrase per page. Tip: Do not use keywords multiple times in the same title or description tag.

    Evoke Emotion: Don´t make the mistake of using just your company name for the title or stuffing keywords in the title with no other emotional pull. Your web page´s title MUST grab attention, create curiosity, and evoke emotion. Pay close attention to TV and radio news programs and how they use short “hooks” to keep viewers and listeners through a commercial break. The same “hooks” can be used for your title and description.

    Use Compelling Words: What words are compelling? We have compiled a short list of compelling words to choose from: bold, breakthrough, magical, revealing, accomplish, favorite, security, save, stunning, personal, outrageous, you, announcing, warning, secrets, enormous, love, best, earn, more, wealth, protect, dazzling, exciting, incredible, free, fear, imagine, succeed, gain, money, sale, stunning, how-to, proud, health, prosper, future, easy, extreme, and fate.

    Make Titles Short: Shorter titles are more effective than longer ones because web surfers scan the words on a search result page—they don´t read them.

    Avoid Search Engine “Tricks”: There are many “tricks” out there to allow you to have more than one title tag, a title longer than the maximum 78 characters, and multiple descriptions. We advise against these methods because search engine criteria and algorithms change frequently. Unless you are keeping up-to-date on the latest changes, what may be legal today could draw a penalty tomorrow.

    Make Sure You Can Support Your Claims: Make sure you can back up any claims you make in your title and description. If you can´t, you may be sued. Recently a large online site was sued for stating they were “The World´s Largest Bookstore.” They weren´t. They were sued. They lost.

    Use Capitalization Wisely: Do not use ALL CAPS. They are difficult to read and are considered “shouting” on the Internet. Instead, capitalize the first letter of each word (when appropriate).

    Make Titles under 78 Characters: Generally, your title should be 78 characters or less (including spaces). We prefer short, crisp titles. Some search engines only display a maximum of 78 characters, so by following this guideline, you are assured your title will not be cut off.
    Don’t Use Two Titles for One Web Page

    Although using more than one title on a page is allowed on some search engines, others (including Google) will heavily penalize you. For this reason, the Builder does not allow more than one title. Our programmers receive the latest changes to the major search engines from our marketing department, making our web builder one of the most search-engine-friendly builders on the market.
    Questions to Ask Yourself

    Read your finished title and description and ask yourself:
    Are my title and description compelling?
    Do they solve a problem?
    Do they suggest that my product or service solves that problem quickly?

    If you answered “no” to any of the above questions, you may need to rewrite your title and/or description. The bottom line is, when a search is performed on a search engine, two elements are displayed in the results list—the website´s title and description. And based on that title and description, your website may be welcoming potential customers—or turning them away.

    Post by brightbuilders.com

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