As this week comes to an end so does the month of November. Was it just me or did November just fly by and can you believe there are only 26 days until Christmas! Here are this week's must reads in search marketing:

Search Marketing

• Are You A Social Media Idiot? - Bruce Clay Blog
• Lost? No, Found! - Google Mobile Blog
• Its The (Other) Algorithm, Stupid! Understanding DiggRank - Search Engine Land
• Yahoo! To Soon Launch Structured Search - Unofficial SEO
• Passing The Tactical Torch To The New Kids - Search Insider
• Press Release SEO Tips - Top Rank Blog
• How Much Money Do Bloggers Earn Blogging? - Pro Blogger

Web Analytics

• Tracking Sub Domains with Google Analytics - Epik One
• Blog Metrics: Six Recommendations For Measuring Your Success - Occam's Razor
• 2007 Web Analytics and Behavioral Targeting Predictions Follow-up - Anil Batra
• Web Analytics and Targeting: A Quick Blogviation - Judah Phillips
• WAA and IAB Collaboration on Standards - a response to the Metrics Insider - Widget Analytics
• Welcome to the WAA Blog - WebAnalytics.be

Labels: Must Reads

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Today the Google Mobile Blog introduced My Location. My Location is a new beta technology from Google that uses cell tower identification to provide you with approximate location information, so it will work on phones without GPS. Simply fire up Google Maps for mobile, press [0], and the map will indicate your approximate location by centering on a blue circle.

Below is a short video created by the Google Mobile team which helps clarify how "My Location" works.

Labels: Google, Google Mobile, My Location

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SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) http://www.primezone.com/newsroom/ctr?d=97923&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.SEMPO.org, announced today it is launching its fourth annual industrywide survey to assess year-to-year changes in SEM spending and resource allocation.

The survey is open to all search engine marketing professionals working in an agency, or in-house. Participants do not need to be SEMPO members. Log on to http://www6.intellisurvey.com/run/sempo2007 to take the survey. As an incentive, SEMPO is partnering with Incisive Media, owners of the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conferences, to randomly select one participant who will receive an SES conference pass, valued at more than $1,000.

“This last year we in the search engine marketing profession have seen tremendous changes, with the major search engines making significant strategic company acquisitions, the exponential growth of social networking and their increasing influence in search and stepped up innovation in online advertising networks,” says Jeffrey Pruitt, SEMPO president and Executive Vice President, Corporate Partnerships, iCrossing. “SEMPO’s survey is the perfect opportunity to learn how these shifts in the market affect the role of the search engine marketer, whether agency or in-house,” and what changes are ahead in the coming year.”

Radar Research, a Los Angeles-based research and consulting firm which conducted the 2005 and 2006 surveys, is continuing as SEMPO’s survey research partner. SEMPO and Radar Research are conducting the survey through early January, 2008. Preliminary results will be available in February, 2008 with a full report expected in late Q1 2008.

“As the pre-eminent search marketing professional organization, SEMPO is committed to taking a leadership role in empirical research,” says Gord Hotchkiss, SEMPO chairperson and CEO, Enquiro Search Solutions. “Our annual survey and our new survey to collect salary data on in-house personnel are just two examples of how we provide unique, actionable market data to our growing professional community.”

2006 Survey Recap

SEMPO’s 2006 survey revealed that SEM spending had risen sharply, to $9.4 billion, a 63% year-to-year increase. The survey included data on paid placement, paid inclusion and organic search as well as spending on SEM technology platforms. The survey also found organic SEO to be the most popular form of SEM, with paid placement a very close second. However, in dollars, paid placement accounted for 85.9 percent of total spending, or $8.1 billion.

Labels: sempo

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U.S. traffic on Cyber Monday increased 26 percent compared to 2006, Hitwise reported today. This is the third year in a row there has been an increase on the Monday following Thanksgiving.

Traffic to the Hitwise 100 Retail Index, which is comprised of the top 100 retail websites, received 5.07 percent of all U.S. visits on Nov. 26, 2007 representing an increase of 26 percent versus Nov. 27, 2006, which received 4.02 percent of visits.

"Following a strong holiday weekend, consumers continued to shop online on Cyber Monday, increasing visits to retail sites from last year," said Heather Dougherty, director of research, Hitwise. "Traffic to the electronics and video games categories experienced the strongest growth as shoppers searched for products such as GPS navigation systems and Nintendo Wii consoles."


Cyber Monday stats:

• Traffic to CyberMonday.com increased 55 percent on Cyber Monday as
  compared to 2006.
• Traffic to Comparison Shopping websites increased 47 percent on Cyber Monday as compared to 2006.
• Multiple retail categories saw an increase in online traffic on Cyber Monday as compared to 2006 including:

Appliances and Electronics – 47 percent
Video and Games – 40 percent
Apparel and Accessories – 22 percent
Toys and Hobbies – 16 percent

Hitwise Retail 100 Index - Daily Market Share of U.S. Visits Rankings
For Cyber Monday 11/26/2007
Rank	Name	Domain	Market Share	11/25/2007
1	Amazon.com	http://www.amazon.com/	10.00%	1
2	Wal-Mart	http://www.walmart.com/	9.12%	2
3	Target	http://www.target.com/	5.72%	3
4	BestBuy	http://www.bestbuy.com/	5.59%	4
5	Circuit City	http://www.circuitcity.com/	3.73%	5
6	Overstock.com	http://www.overstock.com/	3.42%	7
7	Half.com	http://www.half.ebay.com/	3.22%	6
8	Yahoo! Shopping	shopping.yahoo.com	3.15%	8
9	Sears.com	http://www.sears.com/	2.83%	12
10	TOYS 'R' US - USA	http://www.toysrus.com/	2.75%	11
Note - the Hitwise Retail 100 Index does not include websites from the following categories: auctions, classifieds, subscription services, DVD and video game rental, reward point collecting and coupons. The Hitwise data is based on a custom category of 100 of the leading retail websites ranked by US market share of visits, which is the percentage of online traffic to the domain or category, from the Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users. Hitwise measures more than 1 million unique websites on a daily basis, including sub-domains of larger websites. Hitwise categorizes websites into industries on the basis of subject matter and content, as well as market orientation and competitive context.
Source: Hitwise

Labels: HitWise

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The battle between the "Big 3" in the online mail realm really interests me because it's amazing how over the years I have given focus to all 3: Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail. Initially I started out using a service called Visto because it offered 15 MB of space soon after its retirement I started using Microsoft's Hotmail. I think it offered something like 3-5 MB of space and almost everyone I knew was using it at the time. Around the same time I opened up a Yahoo Mail account, which I still really like using because of the simplicity in its interface. Finally when Gmail came out I got myself an invitation almost immediately and didn't think I was going to get much use out of it. However that was completely the opposite since I use Gmail more frequently than I do Yahoo Mail or Hotmail now. Below is a graph of my estimated email usage over the last few years and you can totally see the shift in power from Hotmail to Gmail.




Below are a few charts indicating market share between Google, Yahoo and Microsoft from Hitwise.





Earlier this year, Techcrunch did their own comparison and Gmail ended up coming out on top in their testing/research as well:

"Overall we prefer Gmail over all other webmail applications because performance (speed) is consistently fast, and emails can be tagged making search much more
effective. They also offer more storage and other features, and it’s free. However, Yahoo and Live Hotmail offer more mainstream Outlook-like user interfaces (although Live Hotmail does not allow you to access other email accounts from their application), whereas Gmail takes some time to get used to. If you are looking for speed and tagging is important, Gmail is for you. If you are looking for the closest thing to Outlook online, go with Yahoo Mail. "

Labels: Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo

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A little while back I got the chance to speak with Robert Bergquist, CEO of widemile (specializing in multivariate testing and optimization - based in Seattle). Widemile is recognized as one of the leaders in multivariate testing consultation and analysis therefore it was very interesting to get Robert's insight on the company's background and latest case studies.

Who are you and what is your background?

I love helping companies with great innovations find success in the marketplace. I’ve tried to make a difference in this regard in several roles, not just as CEO, over the years. (See my bio below for the boring details.) The consistent thread has been spotting great ideas and talent - doing my best to help both succeed. With my background helping companies in media, broadcasting, software and advertising, the Widemile value proposition (higher returns from online ad spend!) was a natural fit. I started as an investor and advisor to the company. Eventually, I was asked to join full time and take the reins. I haven’t looked back since, nor had as much fun. I’m not sure how it fits within this narrative, but other “real life” jobs I’ve held in the distant past are tire builder and commercial Alaska salmon fisherman.

In his 25-year career running and counseling companies, Robert has served as CEO and President, as well as in other roles, to a variety online marketing and advertising, broadcasting and other technology-driven businesses. Prior to his current position, Robert ran an online collaboration applications provider which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard. He has held positions with Bankers Trust Company (now Deutsche Bank) and worked as a corporate attorney and partner advising companies on finance issues and corporate transactions. He has also provided consulting services to businesses, including Microsoft and venture funds. Robert is active in the Seattle technology community, including serving on Washington Technology Alliance committees and as past Chair and President of the MIT Enterprise Forum of the Northwest. He holds a B.A. from Colorado College and the London School of Economics and a J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law. Robert serves on the Seattle Aquarium Society Board of Directors and is an advisor to Red Feather Development.

What is Widemile all about (i.e.: services, offerings)?

Widemile helps companies achieve dramatically better results from their online advertising – meaning higher customer conversion rates and more revenue. We have helped many companies, including The Weather Channel Interactive (http://www.weather.com/), Concur (http://www.concur.com/), SmartSheet.com (http://www.smartsheet.com/), Webex (http://www.webex.com/), Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/), Miva (http://www.miva.com/), and Telenav (http://www.telenav.com/), to name a few.We focus on delivering superior results to our clients by leveraging our own advanced multivariate testing and predictive analytics technology, along with an array of professional services, which includes full conversion marketing consulting, “conversion-focused” original creative development and MEC-certified Optimization Analyst project management. Our testing and optimization solutions can be applied to improve the performance of landing pages, microsites, sales funnels, registration pages or other key web pages with a visitor conversion goal – even if it’s just clicking through to the next page. All sources of traffic benefit, including paid and organic search, banner display ads, email, affiliate and direct.

What makes Widemile unique - What's Widemile's competitive advantage?

Again, we focus on results. We do what it takes to maximize our clients’ return on ad spend by testing, tuning and optimizing their high-value web pages to maximize customer conversion rates. We have found that great testing and analytics technology is just part of the success equation. Great conversion results also require expert marketing analysis (you have to understand the traffic, for instance), outstanding original creative and copy to communicate the value proposition in an effective way, and expert test design, set-up and interpretation. A simple testing tool alone will not deliver superior results. Our competitive advantage is superior results delivered using our proven testing methodology, original creative development and technology platform.

Can you talk a little bit about the level of knowledge surrounding A/B and Multivariate testing for SEM companies?

Most good SEM companies understand the importance of testing for superior results. However, they apply testing methodologies, such as A/B split testing, to the front-end the sales funnel to improve key word performance and optimize text ads. Some have begun to partner with web page and content testing companies like Widemile, Offermatica and Optimost in order to offer true multivariate testing of web pages as well. We almost always see an increase in the key word budget following a landing page optimization project where the traffic source is paid search – when returns on ad spend increase, most marketers will increase the spend.

At Emetrics you presented a multivariate testing case study for the Weather Channel - can you give some insight on what Widemile did and the results you noticed?

Widemile worked with The Weather Channel Interactive to optimize website customer acquisition for Notify!, a core subscription product that provides consumers with highly relevant and timely severe weather information. Launched in late 2002 as The Weather Channel’s first paid subscription product , Notify! provides consumers with highly relevant and timely severe weather information. The Weather Channel wanted to capitalize on the immense interest in weather information and the traffic provided by weather.com to capture new subscribers for the Notify! service. Initially, Notify!’s access to the massive traffic from the weather.com home page was leading to new subscribers, but conversion rates could be improved further. The landing pages had to quickly and clearly convey the unique selling proposition of the Notify! to weather.com consumers – sometimes in 8 seconds or less. The Weather Channel had done some optimization testing previously, but found the linear/sequential testing approach had limitations – namely timeliness and the identification of the most relevant factors that influence consumer behavior and conversion.

Working with Widemile, The Weather Channel was able to identify traffic sources and consumer segments to understand key user demographics and conversion behavior. Widemile devised an action plan which refined the main value proposition, developed a brand new page based upon best practices, and then designed and executed the multivariate test on new design. Six page elements (factors) were tested, with up to 4 versions of each factor presented randomly to site visitors. For example, 4 versions of the main image were tested, as well as 4 versions of the “hero shot” image on the left hand side of the page. The image of Jim Cantore, on-air talent for The Weather Channel, was tested against other images of snowy or stormy weather conditions to assess which worked better. Widemile tested the equivalent of over 1000 possible webpage combinations for The Weather Channel, including Flash® animated image versions.

The results far exceeded its goals and also delivered some unusual findings. The goal was to improve conversions by 30% over the previous Notify! landing page - any slight increase in conversion rates equaled a big increase in revenue due to the high levels of traffic. In fact, actual results improved results by more than 225% over the original control version. And, contrary to commonly held industry wisdom, the Flash version outperformed its static counterparts by a large margin.

Do you have any additional case studies that people can look at?

See the Smartsheet.com case study. Webinar available at http://www.widemile.com/company/case_studies.html

How Smartsheet.com maximized results and leveraged SEM investments through multivariate testing

Challenge: Smartsheet is an online provider of collaborative task management software and services. Using SEM extensively, Smartsheet.com successfully employs numerous keyword and text ad campaigns through the major search engines. Smartsheet.com, however, felt performance could improve further.

Solution: Smartsheet partnered with Widemile to strengthen the linkage between SEM and landing pages. Using multivariate testing and other optimization techniques, Widemile helped them to increase conversions and performance of the entire campaign. The top 5 Smartsheet.com landing pages, representing more than 50% of pay-per-click (PPC) traffic, were targeted for optimization. Widemile employed its proprietary multivariate testing technology and predictive analytics, original creative development and professional services to accelerate this process for optimal results. Widemile tested the equivalent of over 1000 possible page combinations during the 3-week optimization process.

ROI: The best-performing templates improved conversion rates by an average of 64% over the initial control versions. This translates into a dramatic improvement of 115% in conversion efficiency - capturing over twice the number of conversions for the same level of overall SEM investment!

Labels: Interviews, multivariate testing, Web Analytics

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Labels: HitWise

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WAPT is a load, stress and performance testing tool for web sites and applications with web interfaces. The product is designed to produce the maximum possible load on the web site under examination. At the same time it uses various techniques to make this load as similar as possible to the activity of real users browsing the web site in real life. This approach guarantees that if the tests are passed, the web site will show same performance characteristics in everyday usage.

WAPT is designed by SoftLogica and is a windows based tool and has a starting price of $350 (one time). I like the you can simulate thousands of users on your website as well as its ability to test different user interactions. WAPT also comes with in-depth reporting which can be viewed in both HTML and Excel formats.

Features

• Accurate simulation of real user activity
• Different types of users in one test
• Testing of dynamic web applications
• Flexible load level definition
• Testing of HTTPS/SSL content
• Descriptive test reports and graphs
• Support of different language encodings
• Support of all types of proxy servers: HTTP(S), SOCKS4(5)
• Additional command-line interface
• Scheduled run option to commence testing at a specified time
• Ability to add custom strings to HTTP headers
• Support for redirects, including redirects to another server

WAPT 5.0 evaluation version is provided with 30 days trial period. It will be fully functional on your system during this time, except that the maximum number of virtual users will be limited to 20.

This is a sponsored post

Labels: WAPT

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This morning I setup an event in Facebook, for Enquiro's first annual open house and later this afternoon while I was checking to see if anyone had registered for the event I noticed a slight modification to the contact phone number of the event. Instead of the regular 10 digit phone number there was now a button with my contact phone number on it along with a Skype icon. It looks like Facebook has added a creative method of integrating Skype to its framework. I was using FireFox at the time and when I checked in Internet Explorer 6, I didn't get the same result.

**UPDATE** It's just a FireFox plug (regardless it's cool)

Labels: Facebook, Skype

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• Login to StatCounter with the “remember me” option


• Point your browser at this URLhttp://my.statcounter.com/project/standard/add.php?sc4=1


• If successful the form should now read “BETA TEST SC4 PROJECT SETTINGS” then proceed as normal to install this new code below your current code.

Labels: Web Analytics

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The end of this week being US Thanksgiving weekend should see most bloggers losing a large portion of their page views/visits as US citizens are eating turkey and spending time with their family. I had a quick look into Google Analytics comparing this week to last week and the trend is evident that my blog has taken a hit in terms of traffic.

The graph below compares visits this vs. last week:




US traffic comprises over 50% of my blogs traffic and segmenting the traffic by US regions shows exactly what states I noticed the biggest drops in traffic in (this week vs. last week):

• California - down 19.44%
• New York - down 33.14%
• Masachussets - down 11.83%
• Pennsylvania - down 28.09%
• Illinois - down 33.33%

I expect this downward trend to continue until about Tuesday, when US citizens return to work at full force.

Labels: Thanksgiving, Web Analytics

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First – Relax. You will be fine

Despite what some may say there is not a Google “penalty” for duplicate content.

The word is “filter”. Google is not trying to punish sites for having duplicate content. They are trying to please their users. If multiple pages showed up in search engine results for the same content, then Google has failed to do its job. It makes sense to only show one site. Therefore, Google will filter out site from a search query that returns the same results. As a user of a search engine, that’s what I want.

Now that you know the Google is not evil, what should you do?

Yes, Google will only show one page if it is a duplicate of another. However, Google is also smart enough to know what page to show. If the site is gathering quality links and traffic, then that page will be the page that eventually takes over.

That is not to say search engine penalties do not exist, but hopefully that’s not you. Penalties are reserved for those attempting black hat techniques. These sites are intentionally trying to mislead the search engines. However, these are exceptions. Despite what the blogs may say these penalties are rare and usually happening to sites that are expecting the penalty. These are the so called “throw-away” sites. Deceptive web site owners intentionally break the rules for instant gratification, with the expectation that their site will get banned. Then, they open up a new site. However, for the average company who is worried about brand awareness, this is a non-issue and so is duplicate content.

If you find yourself having duplicate content, it’s not the end of the world. Yes, it is best to avoid duplicate content, but it some cases it’s inevitable.

Below are some basic guidelines to improve duplicate page filters:

• Extra Content - Wrap the content around consumer-generated content, such as reviews, notes, comments, etc.
• Unique Titles - Change the page titles on all pages. Even duplicated content needs unique title tags.
• Link Bait - Focus extra link building efforts on the primary site.
  

It’s important to keep in mind; duplicate content is not a new issue. Search engines have always tried to filter the results. And for the most part, they do an excellent job.

Duplicate content is not the end of the world and it can be overcome.

* Find more articles from John W Ellis at http://www.johnwellis.com/

Labels: duplicate content, Google, john ellis, SEO

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Here's a fun little quiz that measures how addicted to blogging you are. I scored 77% which probably means I am getting near insane in terms of blogging addiction.

Are you one of those people that tries to convince everyone around you to read your blog? Do you dream of RSS? I highly suggest you take this quiz, it could save your life.

Link: http://www.justsayhi.com/bb/blog_addiction

77%

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Below is a summary of key data points from Hitwise regarding Black Friday Traffic (week ending Nov 17th)

• U.S. traffic to a custom category of Black Friday advertising websites increased 145 percent for the week ending Nov. 17, 2007 compared to Nov. 10, 2007, Hitwise reported today. Year-over-year traffic to the Black Friday websites increased 45 percent compared to the same week in 2006.


• Visitors to Black Friday advertising websites were predominantly females aged 25-34, according to Hitwise demographic data. 61 percent of visitors to the custom category of Black Friday websites were female, for the four weeks ending Nov. 17, 2007. Females comprised the majority of visits across all of the sites, including Black Friday Ads (64 percent), BlackFridayAds.com (64 percent), and The Black Friday (63 percent).


• Visitors between the ages of 25 and 34 were the highest represented age group to visit Black Friday websites, comprising 37 percent of visits for the four weeks ending Nov. 17, 2007.


• Black Friday websites as a whole received 61 percent of traffic from new visitors for the week ending Nov. 17, 2007. BlackFridayAds.com received the highest percentage of new visitors with 73 percent. The BlackFirday.gottadeal.com website received the highest percentage of returning visitors with 48 percent.


• The Hitwise U.S. Retail 100 Index chart shows that visits to the websites within the Index were up seven percent for the week ending Nov. 17, 2007 versus last week (Nov. 10, 2007). U.S. traffic is up 12 percent compared to the same week last year (Nov. 18, 2006).
  Amazon.com remained the most-visited website within the Index last week, receiving 11 percent of visits among the Retail 100 Index. Wal-Mart received the second-most visits with seven percent. CircuitCity.com was the biggest gainer for the week, as their traffic increased 24 percent compared to the previous week.


• The iPod and the Nintendo Wii were the most popular search terms sending visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites for the week ending Nov. 17, 2007. The terms “ipod”, “nintendo wii” and “wii” were the top three product searches. Video game consoles remain a popular product search so far this holiday season as the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 were all among the top 10 searches this past week.

Top U.S. Search Terms Driving Traffic to Shopping & Classifieds Category
For the week ending November 17, 2007
Top Brand Searches	Top Product Searches
ebay	ipod
craigslist	nintendo wii
walmart	wii
ebay.com	uggs
target	ugg boots
best buy	ipod touch
amazon	xbox 360
amazon.com	ugg
sears	ipod nano
craigs list	playstation 3
Source: Hitwise

Labels: HitWise, Web Analytics

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Labels: Blog Radio

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From what I have heard and read there are a plethora of Search Marketing Jobs available at this time. For both Employers and Job Seekers it can be quite overwhelming to figure where to post/look for jobs in search marketing. Below are a list of resources to Find the right person or to Find the right online marketing career:

• CrunchBoard (from TechCrunch): The CrunchBoard job board gives you access to millions of technology and business savvy readers of TechCrunch and other top technology blogs. CrunchBoard is permanently linked from these sites.


• Marketing Pilgrim Job Board: This job board reaches an audience specialized in search marketing, affiliate marketing, email marketing, web design & development, and many other Internet marketing skills.


• Web Analytics Association Job Listings: Search Marketing and Web Analytics jobs powered by the Web Analytics Association.


• Jobs in Search: Jobs In Search is a specialist international job site advertising Jobs and Careers within the Search Engine Industry.


• SEO Services Marketplace (from SEOMoz): The SEOmoz Marketplace is the single best resource for finding quality SEO companies, employees, jobs & contracts.


• SEO Jobs Gaolore: Oaseo: The primary goal of Oaseo is to serve as a vibrant job community for the growing numbers of search engine optimization and marketing professionals and employers throughout the U.S and eventually, hopefully the world.


• SEMPO Job Board: SEMPO is an industry organization designed to promote search engine marketing in general.


• MarketingJobs.com: Sales and Marketing Jobs across the US.


• SEOConsultatnts.com Jobs: A highly targeted audience and have a high rate of filling job positions in the search engine marketing industry. Review our listings of SEO jobs and careers below. SEO help wanted ads posted here are current as of 2007 November 04, Sunday.


• Web Analytics Jobs (Web Analytics Demystified): A Site Dedicated To Making Web Analytics Professionals More Successful.


• American Marketing Association - Job Listings: Job Board from American Marketing Association


• Ad Age Talent Networks: Marketing Resource for Job Seekers and Employers.

Labels: SEM Careers, SEM Jobs

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Hitwise today announced that Google accounted for 64.49 percent of all U.S. searches in the four weeks ending October 27, 2007. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 21.65, 7.42 and 4.76 percent respectively. The remaining 49 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.68 percent of U.S. searches.

Percentage of U.S. Searches Among Leading Search Engine Providers
Domain	Oct.-07	Sept.-07	Oct.-06
http://www.google.com/	64.49%	63.55%	60.94%
search.yahoo.com	21.65%	22.55%	22.34%
search.msn.com	7.42%*	7.83%*	10.72%*
http://www.ask.com/	4.76%	4.32%	4.34%
Note: Data is based on four week rolling periods (ending Oct. 27, 2007, Sept. 29, 2007, Oct. 28, 2006) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users. * - includes executed searches onLive.com and MSN Search.
Source: Hitwise

Google an Increasing Source of Traffic to Key Industries
Search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories. Comparing October 2007 to October 2006, the Travel, Entertainment and Business and Finance categories showed double digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.

U.S. Category Upstream Traffic from Search Engines and Google - October 2007
Category	Percent of Category Traffic from Search Engines, Oct-07	Change in Share of Traffic From Search Engines, Oct-07 – Oct-06	Percent of Category Traffic from Google, Oct-07	Change in Share of Traffic From Google, Oct-07 – Oct-06
Health and Medical	45.14%	4%	29.08%	6.17%
Travel	32.58%	12%	21.31%	23.54%
Shopping and Classifieds	25.80%	1.9%	16.01%	6.52%
News and Media	21.03%	7%	13.41%	11.01%
Entertainment	21.69%	15%	12.93%	16.17%
Business and Finance	17.02%	19%	10.36%	30.81%
All figures are based on U.S. data from the Hitwise sample of 10 million Internet users. Source: Hitwise

Labels: ASK, Gmail, HitWise, MSN, Yahoo

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In part 1 of Getting past Bloggers Block we gave you 5 ideas on what to do when you simply have nothing to write but still want to put something insightful out. The 5 ideas from part 1 included:

• Providing your perspective on hot industry stories.
• Staying on top of the latest news by making relationships with PR Firms.
• Using Google Hot Trends to figure out the buzz on the Internet.
• Relating topics outside your niche to your industry (i.e.: sports or travel).
• Inviting guest bloggers to write for you periodically.

Below are 4 more ideas to help you during blog brain freeze:

• Reigniting Old Topics: Dig into your stats and figure out posts which have been historically popular (consider seasonality if appropriate) and then write an update to those posts explaining how strategies have changed or Part 2.
• Credit Other Bloggers: In any given week there are dozens of posts and articles around your industry which people should definitely read. This is your opportunity to categorize these other posts and spread some link love. Both Search Engine Land and Marketing Pilgrim both do this on a regular basis.
• Create a Compilation: Have you ever written 3 or 4 posts on the same topic which you think an organization can circulate around to it's employees, then try combining those posts and offer them in a PDF version.
• Attend a Webinar: If you wanted you could probably attend 2 or 3 webinars everyday (and realistically 1 every 2 weeks) and for those who can't make it, provide a brief summary for them detailing the "nuggets" from the webinar.

Labels: Blogging

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More News from WebTrends: I heard that Tim Kopp was leaving WebTrends this morning so I decided to investigate a little further, especially since many executives left the analytics company last week as well. The WebTrends team was very accommodating and answered all of the questions I had quite quickly, have a read below:

Why is Tim Kopp Leaving and Where is he off too and When?

Tim Kopp has made a decision to pursue other opportunities outside of WebTrends. Tim will continue to work with WebTrends through the end of the year to ensure a smooth transition with our organization, customers, and partners.

Does Tim leaving have anything to do with WebTrends' Parent Company or the executives who left a couple of weeks ago?

To clarify, there is not a “parent company” for WebTrends, Francisco Partners is a majority investor and holds two positions on the WebTrends board. Together, Tim and the board determined that it would be best to have someone on the ground in the Portland office aligning and working with the team to ensure superior service to both our customers and partners.

Who is the new interim CMO?

Kathleen Brush has joined WebTrends as the new interim CMO. She has been the senior marketing executive at several enterprise software companies including WatchGuard Technologies, Stamps.com, Websense and Computer Network Technologies. She has also served as CEO/General Manager of Rogue Wave Software, a division of Seagate Software and Fisher EDI. With a Ph.D. in Management and International Studies, Kathleen has been a professor of international business and marketing and is a published author on business and marketing strategy. Her leadership in the marketing organization will be invaluable to WebTrends as we continue to drive our product direction and meet the needs of our customers.

What is the new CMO's initial strategic plans for WebTrends?

“My initial focus is to make sure that the team continues to focus on meeting deliverables for our customers. At the same we will be working with our customers and partners to make sure that our future product plans remain aligned with customer requirements.” said Kathleen Brush.

Labels: WebTrends

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Online traffic to Black Friday advertising websites is rising earlier in 2007 compared to 2006, Hitwise reported today. Online traffic to a custom category of Black Friday advertising websites increased 52 percent for the week ending Nov. 10, 2007 compared to Nov. 11, 2006.

Online interest in Black Friday is taking place earlier this year and becoming more widespread than the past two holiday seasons. Searches on the term "black Friday ads" are up 91 percent compared to last year and have increased 954 percent since 2005. This is a continuing trend as searches for the same term were up 452 percent in 2006 compared to 2005.



Wal-Mart received the most traffic from Black Friday advertising websites for the week ending Nov. 10, 2007 among a select group of brick and mortar stores. Sears and Best Buy received the second and third most U.S. traf