2006

According to the Pew Internet Project, 63% of American adults now go online, or approximately 126 million people. According to Pew, 88% of those with internet access use a search engine to find information or 111 million people.

This is why the cost per lead using search is $0.29 while the cost per lead using the Yellow Pages is $1.18, according to US Bancorp Piper Jaffray. As more and more marketers — particularly at small and medium businesses — discover this fact, they will shift a much larger share of their marketing dollars into local search marketing !!

The statistics overwhelmingly support …White papers are a powerful sales and marketing tool:
MarketingSherpa has reported that 69% of prospects download a whitepaper as part of their buying cycle, and 36% of those pass along the white paper to a supervisor.
IT Toolbox has reported that about 70% of large companies rely on white papers, compared with only 59% of smaller companies.
TechTarget revealed that 86% of IT professionals rated white papers as effective information sources AND that they read between 10 and 24 white papers each year.

Marketers should consider the high degree of correlation between search activity and buying intent when planning their Web collateral in order to driving on and offline sales, the report said.
Here are the key findings of the research:
– — Thirty-nine percent of online U.S. adults have performed a search for consumer packaged goods online. This puts the category in the same rank as real estate and financial products and services. — Women were more likely than men to search online for seven of the 11 consumer packaged goods product categories presented to survey respondents. Footwear and apparel was the most popular category among both male and female online searchers. — Research into special offers and looking for coupons that can be used in stores were the most frequently cited reasons for searching for consumer packaged goods (60 percent and 52 percent, respectively). Furthermore, about two-thirds or more of those who search for nearly all types of consumer packaged goods indicated they would buy the product type somewhere – either online or offline. — Searchers make nearly equal use of search engines (67 percent), retailer Web sites (61 percent) and product/company sites (61 percent) to search for consumer packaged goods online. Only 26 percent go to shopping comparison sites and only 19 percent go to product ratings sites. Rochester, NY-based Harris surveyed 2,345 U.S. adults Sept. 19-21, 2006. Of the group, 1,071 respondents search for consumer packaged goods online.

Create a list of things to check for a particular process related to your business’s topic. Eg: checklist for creating a web site, skin care survey.

Create an ebook of text transcripts of a related recent event. It can be a seminar, speech, class, interview, etc.

Publish dictionary of terms relating to your specific business industry or subject matter > in your Resources section.

Offer a live chat help feature were you can give your web site visitors advice on your business products & help select a product or service you offer .

Create ready-made plans for a particular project your target audience wants to accomplish. It could be business plans, healthy lifestyle plans, etc.

Offer printable, ready-made forms your visitors or customers would use regularly. It could be product category forms, etc.

Publish timely e-mail reports that contains new research discoveries, surveys, and statistics about your related industry.

Finally,Update your web site frequently with fresh content so that every time your visitors come back, they will have something to read on your site. This is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors, but this is also the least carried out one because of the laziness . No one will want to browse a site that looks the same over ten years, so keep your site updated with fresh bites!

Andy Alagappan VP marketing & business development USA , The Graphics Co (Epromotionz LLC) www.SEOhoustonweb.com >Top Rated SEO Services 875+ projects done globally ! we also manage over $3.5 million of our clients PPC campaign budgets ! www.eSMBwebdemo.com >1-STOP > Hundreds of custom web projects done !

RESTON, Va., December 6, 2006 – comScore Networks, a leader in measuring the digital age, today released a report on consumer online non-travel (retail) spending at U.S. sites for the 2006 holiday season, from November 1 through December 3, compared to the corresponding days last year. comScore’s data reveal that online sales reached $12.42 billion during this period, an increase of 25 percent versus year ago. This gain is being driven by a 17 percent increase in the number of online buyers, coupled with a 7 percent increase in the average dollars spent per buyer.

Online Spending Drivers

Excludes Auctions and Large Corporate Purchases

Holiday Season to Date (Nov. 1 – Dec. 3, 2006) vs. Corresponding Days in 2005

Source: comScore Networks

Percent Change

E-Commerce Spending
up > 25%

Number of Buyers
up > 17%

Dollars Per Buyer
up > 7%

“Clearly, comScore’s data are confirming that more and more consumers are becoming comfortable buying online,” said Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore Networks. “But, an accentuating factor is that online spending per buyer is also increasing – as a result of more buying transactions and an increase in higher-ticket purchases.”

CNN, CNBC, The Wall Street Journal and virtually every major business publication in the world has reported on it. Internet usage among U.S. adults has skyrocketed from 9% in 1995 to 77% in 2006, according to a new poll from Harris Interactive. This growth in Internet usage is driving online retail sales to exceed $229 billion by 2010.

Online retail to continue its growth 25% in 2006
Online retailing is the fastest-growing segment of the overall U.S. retail industry and will continue to expand. Consumers are now very comfortable with making purchases online and, as a result, are shopping more frequently and buying bigger ticket items. Web retailers are feeling particularly upbeat about their financial performance for 2006.

A recent Internet Retailer Web-based survey on Web site profitability reveals that 40% of 216 merchants who responded expect their sales to grow by more than 30% this year, with 33.5% also expecting to grow their annual net income by more than 25%.

Professional Internet services enable SMBs (SMB = Small andMedium Sized Business )and mid-market enterprises to capitalize on online marketing, advertising and e-commerce sales tool benefits, resulting in greater return on investment for their marketing strategies and increased leads and revenue.

Yet most SMBs lack the time, technical expertise and Internet marketing skills to establish and maintain a professional Web presence on their own. The SMB sector represents a $154 billion market opportunity for professional Internet services in 2007, a 17 percent increase over 2006, according to Yankee Group (USA Market)

Web-hosting market revenue will rise from $4.4 billion in 2005 to $5.4 billion by 2010.
The web-based services market will grow from $2.9 billion in 2005 to $4.1 billion in 2010.
Online marketing and advertising spending will grow from $1.3 billion in 2005 to $9.3 billion in 2010.

Study: CMOs look beyond traditional agencies for online marketing

Cambridge, Mass.—More than half (52%) of CMOs responding to a recent survey by digital agency Sapient said traditional, large advertising agencies are ill-suited to meet their online marketing needs. The survey of about 100 CMOs and senior marketers in the U.S. and U.K., conducted by Evalueserve, found 49% believe traditional ad agencies have difficulty thinking beyond print and TV.

Free shipping is the No. 1 offer that customers look for and will respond to in an e-mail, per online marketing firm eROI Inc. in its 2006 holiday e-mail marketing survey.

The study interviewed consumers and found that free shipping is important because it gives online shopping a competitive advantage.

“Online is the place to go for a bargain because it’s easier to comparison shop, but the price of shipping can negate the cost of the savings,” said Jeff Mills, analyst at eROI, Portland, OR. “And so many retailers offer it, that consumers expect it.”

In fact, the survey shows that the majority of respondents prefer free shipping over discounts.

The study found that a discount by itself is not necessarily the most important thing in an e-mail. Also, more than one-third of those surveyed felt that if they cannot quickly see what an e-mail is about, they will delete before even getting to the offer.

Discounts are somewhat significant, though. EROI found that 31 percent of people surveyed prefer a percentage off, with only 22 percent favoring a dollar amount off.

According to Mr. Mills, this is because people are willing to trade higher savings for flexibility. Respondents favored getting 10 percent off any purchase over getting 15 percent off a purchase for a specified amount.

While nearly one-third of respondents say that e-mails are for sales, 42 percent say that improving customer relationships is the most important aspect this holiday season.

This was troubling to Mr. Mills, because he said that it made retailers seem focused only on building a customer relationship around the holidays when they are likely to spend money.

“I think that this is a reactionary thing, because retailers want consumers to spend more with them,” Mr. Mills said. “We are such a society of short lifespan, where the retailer isn’t thinking about the future, but wants consumers to spend their money now.”

Associate Editor Dianna Dilworth covers e-mail marketing,www.dmnews.com

Chicago—Marketing budgets are on the upswing, with 62.7% of b-to-b marketers planning to increase their marketing budgets next year, according to BtoB’s “2007 Marketing Priorities and Plans” survey.

The survey of 569 b-to-b marketing executives was conducted online during the last two weeks of November. It found , Of those marketers that plan to boost their marketing budgets next year, nearly one-third (31.6%) said they plan an increase .

The biggest boost will be seen in online marketing, with 75.6% of marketers planning to increase their online budgets in 2007, the survey found.

The survey also found that b-to-b marketers’ primary goal next year will be customer acquisition (picked by 62.3% of survey respondents), followed by brand awareness (19.5%) and customer retention (11.0%).

What am I trying to accomplish with email marketing ? What is your goal for your email marketing efforts? Did you achieve what you set out to do? Did you measure the results? Is your email marketing adding significant value to your organization?

Did I send consistent, high-value email communications? email marketing, gives you a great opportunity to stay connected with your customers. Did you communicate with them as often as you intended to? Did you spend the time you needed to create compelling content with information that they would value and find useful? What was your open and click-through rates ? How can you improve your e-mail communications next year?

Which of your email campaigns got the best or worst results and why? Look at your email campaigns you sent and identify the “winners” and the “losers.” What can you learn from them? What topics were your readers most interested in or not interested in? What did you do (promotions, subject matter, etc.) that, judging by the response, you should do again? What day and time worked best? You can take these learnings and incorporate them into future campaigns. Get a new plan that includes what you want to do more of and what you won’t do again.

Best Regards
Andy Alagappan
VP marketing & business development USA , The Graphics Co (EpromotionzLLc)

www.SEOhoustonweb.com< Top Rated SEO Services 785+ projects done

www.eSMBwebdemo.com < 100’s of web projects done !!

Off : 281-556-8319 , 281-570-5804 – cell

It’s not about just BEING online, it’s about being FOUND online !!

Why you must implement organic search engine optimization

Useful & Relavent Web Content
More web pages of useful & relavent content = more relavent search engine traffic

Here’s why:

Adding pages to your site is like putting out extra nets to catch relavent prospects.
Search engines see bigger web sites as more prestigious and reliable and useful
The more content you have, the more reasons you give other sites, particularly bloggers, to link to your site spontaneously, without being asked.

Few Studies indicate people click on results from organic search engine optimization. For example, one study found that search users are up to six times more likely to click on the first few organic results than they are to choose any of the paid results (1), while an eye tracking study (2) showed that 50 percent of users begin their search by scanning the top organic results. Other studies have shown that only 30 percent of search engine users click on paid listings, leaving an overwhelming 70 percent who are clicking the organic listings (3). And a 2003 study found that 85 percent of searchers report clicking on paid links in less than 40 percent of all of their searches, and 78 percent of all respondents claim that they found the information they we searching for through sponsored links just 40 percent of the time (4).

Value to prospects

Organic search engine results tend to be seen as non-biased, and they therefore are able to provide visitors that are more valuable. The overall conversion rate, or the rate at which searchers take a desired action on a site, is 17 percent higher for unpaid search results than the rate for paid (4.2% vs. 3.6%) (7). Trends also have shown that more of the sales that result from search engines originated in organic search listings (8).

Relevant and usefulness

Prospects also have rated organic search engine results as more relevant than paid results. On Google, 72.3 percent felt that organic results were more relevant, while only 27.7 percent rated paid results as more relevant. Yahoo offered similar results, with 60.8 calling organic results relevant compared to only 39.2 percent for paid (13).

Few Conclusions

organic search engine optimization has some advantages over pay-per-click advertising. However, there are certain situations and scenarios where pay-per-click advertising makes more sense for niche marketing .Above all remember that More web pages of useful & relavent content = more relavent search engine traffic

Sources

1.Oneupweb study
2.Enquiro, July 2005
3.Are Corporate Web Sites Optimized for SEO? by Paul Bruemmer, Search Engine Guide, 4.August 2005
5.WebAdvantage.net 2003 Survey
6.eMarketer, April 2003
7.eMarketer 2003
8.Marketing Sherpa, August 2005
9.Are Corporate Web Sites Optimized for SEO? by Paul Bruemmer, Search Engine Guide, August 2005
10.Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2005
11.Performics, 2005
Ibid
12.Jupiter Media, June 2003
13.iProspect, Survey Sampling International, WebSurveyor, and Stratagem Research, April 2004

www.SEOhoustonweb.com< Top Rated SEO Services 785+ projects done

www.eSMBwebdemo.com < 100’s of web projects done !!

Off : 281-556-8319 , 281-570-5804 – cell

It’s not about just BEING online, it’s about being FOUND online !!

Offer them Value Added Incentives to sign up for info >> useful info for them !!

For many consumers, it is an acceptable win-win
scenario to give up data marketers want for
information or content they want. This results in
marketers knowing more and more about their
target audience and how to anticipate consumer
tendencies in the future. A carrot goes a long
way in today’s marketplace, where few
companies offer up anything to attract
participation at a personal level that gives
consumers a tangible reason to provide their
email address.

Consider this response in a recent poll given by
TRUSTe and TNS. Seventy-one per cent of users
claimed they did not like registering because
they had to give personal information, but would
do so to obtain content or information they really
wanted. To date, many marketers haven’t acted
on this easy fix. How easy? Simply rework
existing site content into:

– Top 10’s
– Hints and tips
– Product news
– Notification updates
– Best practices
– Discount and sales notices
– Contest and sweepstakes

Consider these responses to a poll
commissioned by DoubleClick, focusing on
consumer willingness to respond to email.
Some 67 per cent of respondents expressed
that relevant information increases the chances
that they would respond to an email, while 73
per cent said that what they are looking for
was information based on interests specific to
that company…relevance with a capital.

In today’s highly competitive marketplace,
consumers are most likely to pay attention
to relevant messaging that reaffirms what
they want.

Keywords Should Reflect Your Web Site’s Goal’s & Objectives

Selecting your keywords is like writing a short marketing plan.

Ask yourself :

What is the site’s Goal’s & Objectives ?
Why is the site’s information valuable & to whom ?
Who is your main Target audience?

These answers will help you select targeted keywords because they force you to
think about how your site serves its Target audience.

You can also ask clients and prospects what words they would use to find you, and don’t limit your keywords to your services & products. Some people visit your site looking for information first then they will come back to buy your products and services !

1. It’s very important because fresh content keeps the search engine spiders coming back to see you

2. Users truly appreciate fresh, unique content – and more important than spiders visiting your site, you want the users to keep coming back. If you put up fresh content every few days, they’ll come back every few days . If you update the site weekly, they’ll come back weekly, maybe. Consumers are looking for up to date information.
And lets not forget – today’s fresh content becomes tomorrow’s authority piece on a topic as it ages and links to it increase.

3. start a blog & post articles in your area of expertise !!

my Blog >> http://emarketing4u.blogspot.com/

(it is linked inside both my sites www.SEOhoustonweb.com & www.epromotionz.com )

Study says Search Engines still most efficient by far at acquiring customers
At an average cost per acquisition of $8.50, Internet search was shown to be more than twice as efficient as the next-best marketing channel in a study of five channels by Piper Jaffray & Co.

The study, “The New eCommerce Decade: The Age of Micro Targeting,” which was released earlier this month, compared the customer acquisition costs of search, Yellow Pages, online display ads, e-mail and direct mail.

Yellow Pages came in as the second-most efficient at $20 per customer acquisition, followed by online display ads, $50; e-mail, $60; and direct mail, $70.

In other matters related to search, the study found that consumers are becoming more likely to use Internet search to find products and services, rather than going to online marketplaces. And with the growth of local search, the current number of 700,000 online advertisers could reach 2-4 million over the next five years.

Search Engine Usage in North America

Question 3:

Regarding search engines, which of the following statements is most applicable to you?

1. I usually find what I’m looking for on the first search >> 37.90%
2. I usually have to do 2 searches >> 30.92%
3. I have to do 3 or more searches >> 24.18
4. I often give up because I cannot find what I’m looking for >> 3.99%

The great news for the search engine industry is that search actually works. Most people do eventually find what they are looking for using search engines, with less than 4% of all users ‘giving up’ because they can’t find what they want.

Copyright Enquiro Search Solutions

Increased Interest in Organic SEO

While PPC costs rise, there is also a trend that no doubt disturbs the engines that offer PPC programs. Sixty-six percent of consumers “distrust” paid search ads.[3] Up to 85% of searchers say they “tend to ignore the paid listings”[4], while 87% of commercial clicks take place “on the natural (not sponsored) search results.”[5] Three times as many marketers who outsource the management of their natural SEO to search engine marketing firms and who also participate in pay per click advertising recognize a higher ROI from their search engine marketing services than from PPC.[6] These facts, coupled with the fact that Google has recently announced that it will begin to take the relevance of pages into consideration when deciding in what order the ads will appear (which will mean that effective PPC campaigns will need at least some basic organic SEO), point to one obvious result–an increase in the number of companies that investigate organic SEO programs, whether internally generated or provided by outside search engine marketing firms.

3 eMarketer
4 Marketing Sherpa study, 2005
5 Jupiter Research, 2005
6 iProspect

Why should a company bother to use SEO if it can buy pay-per-click ads?

A company can always buy pay-per-click (PPC) ads on search engines. These ads appear whenever users query specific keywords. However, JupiterResearch has found that the average company gets about 80 percent of its commercial search engine referrals from organic results and the rest from PPC ads. So while PPC ads can complement organic search results, particularly when doing seasonal promotions, they are no substitute.