Local internet marketing could be a "big winner" thanks to the rise of mobile data consumption, an industry expert has claimed.
Michael Boland is programme director for Mobile Local Media at the Kelsey Group and commented following the release of the company’s new report, which predicted that revenues from mobile local search advertising will go up by 130.5 per cent in the next four years.
Mr Boland said the "strong correlation" between mobile internet and local searches meant this section of the market was likely to do well.
"[It] will cause a good portion of the ongoing mobile application boom to focus on local," he explained.
The Kelsey Group report findings also stated that in the US, the proportion of locally-based mobile web searches is expected to rise from the current 28 per cent to 35 per cent in 2013.
This news follows research published this week by Pinch Media, which found that the potential for mobile internet marketing via apps could be targeted for best results due to the fact that only three in ten people use a purchased app the day after buying it.
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Males are more likely than their female counterparts to visit mobile websites, according to new internet marketing statistics.
A recent study by comScore studied habits of heavy and light PC users, and discovered that 58 per cent of the people who went on online mobile sites were men.
They were most likely to be aged between 18 and 44, the data showed.
Overall, it was found that light PC internet users – those viewing an average of 1,104 pages per month on a computer – were 30 per cent more inclined than heavy PC users to access the web via a mobile.
Heavy users were identified as people who looked at an average of 6,701 pages per month.
In addition, the information most commonly looked at via mobile internet by heavy users focused on regional and local content, entertainment and sports information.
Meanwhile, other information of potential interest to internet marketing firms was revealed this week by comScore.
It announced that tax websites were the biggest gainers in popularity during January 2009, alongside travel-related portals and career-orientated pages.
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Amid a volatile economic climate, online marketing was the subject of many advice columns this month as companies were told how they can improve their results.
Trends and analysis were also the focus for a number of companies during February, beginning with an Ernst & Young survey that forecast increasing growth for the search engine marketing industry.
It said internet marketing was likely to perform better than its television equivalent.
A poll by Adobe found that firms were still putting money into online campaigns despite the recession, with social networking and mobile marketing also on the agenda for many businesses.
Later in the month, comScore Marketer revealed that in the US, search terms were reflecting global concerns and producing certain keyword trends.
Statistics gathered by the group found that searches for terms such as "unemployment benefits" and "bankruptcy" were up compared to last year.
Finally, mobile marketing was the focus for more studies. ABI Research discovered that the number of consumers using a handset to access a search engine had risen since 2008.
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Users are able to distinguish web advertisements from other types of links and this could help pay per click services formulate other keyword-based marketing strategies, a new report states.
Research conducted by Penn State and the Queensland University of Technology analysed over seven million cases to discover if there were any patterns in click-throughs on non-sponsored and sponsored links.
Jim Jansen, assistant professor of information science and technology at the college and one of the team undertaking the project, said they specifically investigated behaviour when both types of ads were presented on the same page.
Although he expected a high click-through rate for the sponsored ads, Mr Jansen discovered this rate was just 15 per cent.
Moreover, 35 per cent of queries resulted in no clicks from users.
"The result seems to show that web searchers are smart," he explained.
More studies into ad mechanisms and effective marketing should follow the results of the research, Mr Jansen concluded, suggesting that the open "the door to other forms of keyword advertising".
The news follows a recent tip from Microsoft adCenter, which advised pay per click services managers to set themselves apart from competitors by including any discounts or offer information in ad text.
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Online marketing potential via mobile internet may be more lucrative than ever after it was revealed usage went up in 2008 by 14 per cent.
According to a study by ABI Research, seven in ten respondents used a search engine to surf the web on their handset last year, representing a year-on-year increase for this trend.
Jeff Orr is a senior analyst at the company and said not only were numbers up, but the rise in people using mobile searches was almost double that of the increase in people generally accessing sites on mobiles.
He explained this is because mobile search gives users a utility to find any type of information at any time – a fact that may be vitally important for internet marketing campaigns.
"With a few keywords, one can quickly identify movie times, the discography of a musical artist, recommendations for a local eatery and so much more," Mr Orr added, going on to say that phones have become crucial for more than just making calls.
ABI Research’s report follows statistics published earlier this week from The Nielsen Company, which said viewing video content on mobile devices and the internet had "reached new heights".
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For many small businesses, getting great ranking on the SERPs, even for competitive keywords, has always been possible. However, SEOBook’s Aaron Wall, has today posted about the rise of big name brands on the Google SERPs.
Google’s aim, if what Eric Schmidt said about brands is correct, is to try to remove some of the dross which haunts the top SERPS for far too many terms. However, correcting this problem by making the assumption that big name brands are going to provide the quality content seems to be a tad short-sighted. Many of the real gems on the Internet, whether products, services, insightful content, or brilliant discussions, are not found on the big brand name websites.
This appraoch leaves the small businesses, start ups, and many non-top level brands down in the second or third (or below) pages of the SERPS, making their content ever harder to find, and the SEO job that much harder. Yes, we can all go after the long tail terms, or increase our budgets to those of Fortune 500 companies, but the reality is that this latest Google update may be depriving many Net users of the quality content they are actually seeking, and therefore access to some of the providers of that quality content. Has Google perhaps taken its eye off the ball on what users really want?
It is potentially funnelling customers and prospects into those companies large enough to be seen as ‘brands’ or household names, and depriving customers of the choice to buy from or research easily the many smaller players.
If your client is a brand name, then you should already be pleased to see an increase in ranking on major keywords, but if you are an SEO whose clients are amongst the millions of SMEs in this world, it could be a tough time ahead. Or if you are an SME hoping to break into the ranks of the top SERPS pages.
Our thoughts at the moment: start building a brand for yourself, and hope that you are in a sufficiently unique niche to maintain your rankings. And if your niche is highly competitive, then it may be time to consider more than just basic SEO to market your business. There are thousands of other techniques for online marketing which are often overlooked in the rush to satisfy the search engines, and now is the time to investigate them, practise them, and gain results from them.
We would also recommend taking a long hard look at your conversion rates once you have attracted visitors to your website. Even a few percentage points increase in conversions can make a phenomenal difference to your return on investment.
Changes made to the Google AdWords display policy have not been welcomed by many in the internet marketing sector, it was claimed this week.
The modification, which means all URLs within an ad group should share the same top-level domain, was announced at "short notice" and may therefore cause some advertisers to hastily amend their accounts, said Patricio Robles of Econsultancy.
He suggested that some in the internet marketing industry who have what are now classed as non-compliant URLs will have to act quickly if they want to avoid having their adverts suspended.
"Many are especially upset with the short notice," he added.
Google said it made the changes to this system with the intention of producing a higher standard of quality and more relevant results for users.
It also said on its official AdWords blog that where multiple display URL domains do exist within one group, they are separated into groups for different domains.
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Other websites linked to one’s own are good for search engine optimisation (SEO) even though some people have concerns about this, says one expert.
According to a post on the SEOmoz blog by Rand Fishkin, some companies worry outbound links can cost PageRank, damaging reputation and search engine rankings in the process.
However, these are "largely unfounded" worries that can actually end up benefiting the website owner, because as long as URLs do not link to anything suspicious such as malware installations, they can create positive relationships and enhance trust on a domain-wide level.
"It makes great sense to leverage the power of the web – the power of links – to create an easy, scalable path to making your site’s experience better and more rewarding for those who visit," the SEOmoz blog stated.
Although the writer said it can affect PageRank, this is not necessarily a bad thing given the potentially positive outcomes of the above.
Google’s official blog also discussed the topic of linking out in recent months.
It said this "natural" process is nothing to worry about and can help readers to access a "unique commentary".
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Words and phrases related to the economic slowdown are being looked for online a "dramatic" amount more than one year ago, according to new search engine optimisation research.
Analysing Americans’ search behaviour, comScore Marketer discovered terms such as "unemployment benefits" and "coupons" were sought more than double the number of times in December 2008 compared to the same month in 2007.
"Unemployment benefits" searches went up by 247 per cent, "unemployment" increased by 206 per cent and "coupons" by 161 per cent.
Other terms included "bankruptcy", which was looked for 156 per cent more times than in December a year prior.
It was also found that those aged between 45 and 54 were making the biggest share of searches for the word "unemployment", followed by consumers aged 35 to 44.
"Search volume using terms relating to the economy has ballooned over the past year," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. "Online behaviour has come to reflect the interests or concerns of Americans."
Meanwhile, earlier this month saw the company announce the results of its Core Search Report, which discovered Google sites handled 8.5 billion US searches out of 13.5 billion in total in January 2009.
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Companies have been adapting their online marketing processes to fit in with the growing usage of high-speed internet services.
At least that is the opinion of digital marketing research firm eMarketer, which notes that businesses are using techniques such as zoom features and virtual fashion models in their internet marketing strategy.
This comes as the industry analyst indicates that the number of UK homes to use broadband is set to increase in 2009.
More than 17 million households will have high-speed internet this year – a 6.5 per cent increase on the previous 12 months when 16.1 million homes had the technology.
Senior analyst at eMarketer Karin von Abrams said: "Broadband is increasingly vital for UK consumers as they make the most of what the web has to offer."
Earlier this year, her company predicted that UK online ad spending would reach £3.58 billion in 2009.
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