Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim |
| Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide Posted: 11 Jun 2008 08:31 AM CDT Today, Internet Retailer released their annual Top 500 Guide that chronicles the online retail industry in general and the top 500 online retailers in particular. As I am listening to their presentation of the report, I am typing these highlights. Total E-Retail revenue hit $166 billion in the US in 2007, representing 6.3% of total revenue. The top 500 online retailers accounted for 61% of the total E-Retail revenue. Total retail growth was at 3.8% last year while E-Retail grew at a much healthier 21.8%. The fastest growing categories in 2007 online were jewelry (36%), books/other media (32%), mass merchants/dept. stores (31%) and apparel (24%). The slowest growing categories were health and beauty (11%), flowers/gifts (11%), food/drugs (12%), and hardware/home improvement (13%). Internet Retailer segments online retailers into four categories—retail chains, web only companies, catalogers, and manufacturers. Strangely, catalogers grew the fastest at 30% and the retail chains grew the slowest at 18%. This is interesting because retail chains are in the best position to capitalize on the multi-channel advantage. Amazon dominated in 2007 with $14.8 billion in revenue and growth at 38.2%. QVC.com grew 50% and Apple saw growth of 33.3%. The big players with the biggest declines in sales? Palm shrunk 45%, Sharper Image dropped 33% and Gateway lost 33% (Wow!). There are many other nuggets in the report that I will get to later. Pilgrim’s Partners: Learn More From Your Web Form Submittals. Collect valuable marketing data w/ each submittal. Best Contact Form - Recommended by Andy Beal! |
| Lack of Quality TV Pushing Consumers to Online Entertainment Posted: 11 Jun 2008 07:55 AM CDT Here’s a shocker–the majority of shows on TV are boring and cable is expensive. It’s no wonder then that consumption of online video has gone up significantly as less and less people watch TV. Ipsos MediaCT conducted a study involving 1,102 early adopters who currently stream and download video online. From February 2007 to February 2008, video consumption from television went down 7 percent in just one year among this group. Video consumption online went up 72% in the same time period. What is surprising about this study? The phenomenon of turning online for entertainment is not isolated or driven by a few select demographic groups, but rather is relatively consistent across all age groups and genders. Now the bad news. Online media doesn’t pay. According to an article done by the Silicon Valley Insider, YouTube paid one of the most successful artists in YouTube’s partner program just $1600 for over 2 million views. So although being a YouTube celebrity may be fun, it’s not going to pay the bills at this point. Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com - Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz! |
| Pilgrim’s Picks for June 11 - Beach Edition Posted: 11 Jun 2008 06:02 AM CDT After threatening to do it for years, today my wife and I head to the beach for a day trip. It’s a 2-hour drive, hence such early posting today. Don’t worry, you won’t be left out. No, you can’t come with me, but our fantastic team of writers will ensure you get your fill of internet marketing news for the day. Starting with these Picks:
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| Google Trends Takes Baby-Step Towards Being Useful Posted: 11 Jun 2008 05:51 AM CDT When Google first launched Google Trends–a tool for view the popularity of search terms–it was greeted as a fun gimmick, but hardly a serious research tool. Yesterday, Google Trends took a baby-step towards being something of value. Here’s what was added:
Google’s Heej Hwang explains the scales in more detail: You’ll notice a number at the top of the graph as well as on the y-axis of the graph itself. These numbers don’t refer to exact search-volume figures. Instead, in the same way that a map might "scale" to a certain size, Google Trends scales the first term you’ve entered so that its average search volume is 1.00 in the chosen time period. So in the example above, 1.00 is the average search volume of vanilla ice cream from 2004 to present. We can then see a spike in mid-2006 which crosses the 3.00 line, indicating that search traffic is approximately 3 times the average for all years. Here’s an example:
Anyone care to guess why Google would introduce these new features? Of course, it does help us with our keyword research–and we all know Google would love for us to identify hot-trend keywords, then bid on them at AdWords–but is there another goal here? Maybe it wants to compete with KeywordDiscovery, or perhaps event Compete.com. Any other ideas? Pilgrim’s Update: Save 34% off Andy’s new book - Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online |
| Is Google Sick of Flash Web Sites? New Feature Encourages Users to “Skip Intro” Posted: 11 Jun 2008 05:41 AM CDT There’s long been a debate about the value of Flash, when it comes to search engine optimization. Personally, I have no problem using a small amount of Flash in any web site, it’s those pointless Flash intro screens that bug me. There’s nothing more satisfying than clicking "skip intro." Apparently Google agrees. Philipp Lenssen reports on a sighting of a "Skip intro" link appearing alongside certain Google search results.
At first glance, you might think it’s being triggered because it’s the only initial link on the Flash landing page. However, upon review of the actual web page, the link text actually says "Entrez"–it’s a French site. This suggests that Google is algorithmically detecting homepages that are all Flash, and taking it upon themselves to help you skip the intro. What do you think about this? Great for searchers, but taking liberties with a site owner’s right to display a page as he intended? Pilgrim’s Partners: Is a blogger attacking your company without you knowing? Monitor your online reputation with Andy Beal’s Trackur–try it for free! |
| Is this the Complete Guide to SEO Optimization for WordPress? Posted: 10 Jun 2008 10:56 PM CDT If this is not the complete guide to optimizing a WordPress blog then I have not seen it yet. I am not saying there is not a better free guide out there and I challenge anyone who knows of one to link it in the comments of this blog post and share with us what we all have been missing. In my mind however Joost de Valk has come thru with an extremely useful and detailed guide showing how to effectively optimize a WordPress blog. The Guide covers seven major topics plus it provides a conclusion all of which are worth reading. The seven major topics are:
The majority of the sections listed above also contain subtopics, which explain additional tasks that should be performed to achieve the best return on a bloggers optimization efforts. Each of these additional tasks contain some fairly logical suggestions but in some cases the simplest directions can also be the most challenging to complete as well as extremely time consuming. Just because someone can tell you what to do in one paragraph does not mean it will be a simple task even when the recommendation is easily understood. Along with a lot of great unique content, Joost references a number of must read articles that dig deeper into the theory of performing some of the more detailed optimization techniques. Plugins are also a major point of emphasis for efficiency in optimization. In fact there are more than ten different plugins that are recommended in the guide to make the life of WordPress optimizers easier. I can say without much hesitation that there are plenty of niche resources that cover one of even a few of these topics, but having a central point of reference for all of these items I believe will be a boon for not only experienced bloggers but for more casual bloggers as well. Anyone who wants to achieve greater SEO success with a WordPress blog should spend the time to review the work done by Joost.
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| Report from Internet Retailer 2008 Posted: 10 Jun 2008 04:53 PM CDT I am at the Internet Retailer conference in Chicago this week. You do not hear much about this conference in the blog world for some reason. That is strange considering that there are 5,000 attendees and practically every major company in internet retail is represented here. There is always a lot to learn from this conference, though you have to look for the nuggets. The keynote and major presentations are from leaders of major retailers. In my opinion, the chance of a retailer standing up in front of 5,000 competitors and giving away too much information is pretty slim. But at least, you can get a feel for where the industry is heading. The keynote address this morning was by Mike Boylson, Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer at J. C. Penney. He spent most of the time telling us how great J. C. Penney is and showing commercials of their new brands. Their main site, jcp.com, did $1.5 billion in sales last year, making it the 15th largest online retailer. According to him, jcp.com is the top priority of J. C. Penney. If you believe that (I only half believe it), that is quite a statement considering their huge investment in infrastructure for their mail order and retail stores. Here is an interesting takeaway that would make me uncomfortable if I was an apparel retailer. He stated that a huge percentage of their sales online come from obscure SKUs that they would not sell in their stores—extended sizes, etc. In other words, their product selection is far greater online than offline. Here is the significance of that statement to me. Up until now, online retailers have been encouraged to niche to avoid competition with the big boys in retail. The problem is that the big boys are now figuring out that they can carry far more SKUs online than offline. That takes away much of the niche advantage from the small player. This is why what Amazon is doing is so powerful (and scary). While Wal-mart might carry tens of thousands of SKUs, Amazon can carry tens of millions of SKUs if they want to. If they want to carry 100 different brands of baby pacifiers, what is to stop them? Tough luck for the baby pacifier niche sites… Here is one more thing that will make apparel niche sites sweat a bit. Boylson also mentioned that J. C. Penney has a budget for $1.4 billion to spend on marketing initiatives and hinted that most of that money would go to jcp.com. Ouch! Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com - Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz! |
| Posted: 10 Jun 2008 02:56 PM CDT I still say we need a linky goodness theme song. Yes?
‘Kay, maybe Alice Cooper won’t be singing the linky goodness theme song. Any volunteers? Pilgrim’s Partners: Is a blogger attacking your company without you knowing? Monitor your online reputation with Andy Beal’s Trackur–try it for free! |
| YouTube Pranks: A Legal Remedy? Posted: 10 Jun 2008 02:36 PM CDT You could probably name at least one prank that you’ve seen on YouTube that was filmed specifically to get attention on the video sharing site. In the last year or so, it seems that some of these pranks have gone from mostly harmless hijinks to blatant violence and criminal activity. Who hasn’t seen clips from the beating of a cheerleader by eight of her classmates on the evening news? USA Today reports that one judge in Florida had a case in this vein before him recently and included a very interesting sentence—one that hopefully has these same “pranksters” thoroughly chagrined. Also interesting in the case was just how the boys were caught. The original prank and YouTube video was of a car of teens in a drive thru. After receiving the drinks they ordered and paying, the cashier returned to the window with their change. The boys yelled “Fire in the hole!” and threw a drink into the drive thru window. Like most pranks, this is only funny if you’re a teenage boy (and even then, this doesn’t exactly rank up there with the great pranks of all time). Apparently the boys conceived of the prank for the purpose of creating a hilarious YouTube video (and apparently this was the best they could do). The cashier at the window, 23-year-old Jessica Ceponis, later had other customers inform her of the reason for the prank—YouTube stardom. Jessica made the Internet her ally, tracking down the video of the prank on YouTube and tracing back to the boys’ MySpace accounts. There, she friended them (and obviously they didn’t know who she was) and confirmed that they were behind the attack. The final step was some old-fashioned detective work—looking them up in the phonebook and calling their mothers. The driver, 16, and the cameraman, 15, were charged with two counts of battery and one count of criminal mischief. It sounds as though they worked out what we call ’round these parts a “plea in abeyance”—an agreement to enter a guilty plea now, but not have it recorded, then fulfill the other conditions of the sentencing to have the charges removed from your record. The conditions of their sentencing include community service, a fine paid to the restaurant, letters of apology and (this is the good part) writing, editing, creating and uploading a video of apology to YouTube, featuring the image of face down as if handcuffed on the hood of a car. There’s one judge that knows how to hit ‘em where it hurts. On the other hand, it makes you wish that the more serious and violent pranks posted for fame on YouTube carried the same sentence.
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