Posts Tagged ‘research’

Successful Twitter strategy: Tweet less

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but according to one blogger, the key to getting more website traffic from your Twitter account is to tweet less frequently. Of course, Dan Zarrella is not just any blogger – he’s a self-proclaimed social media and viral marketing scientist. That’s a pretty cool title.

Twitter birds - eHarbor eCommerce BlogIn his blog entry, “Want More Clicks? Tweet Less,” Zarrella made the bold statement, “If you want your Tweet to get noticed and ReTweeted, you should slow down your posting rate.” Twitter is all about speed, though. It’s an instant message service. Why would a smart blogger suggest you slow down your tweeting?

According to this study, Twitter users who only tweet one link an hour have a much higher rate of getting that link retweeted than those who post two, three or 13 links an hour. The same is true for days. One link a day gets a better click-through rate and more retweets than multiple links a day.

What does all this mean? I’ll try to interpret. I think it means Twitter users can tell the difference between people sharing genuinely interesting news, ideas or offers and robots or marketers who are just trying to sell their products through Twitter. Twitter users like people who listen as well as share. That’s called a conversation, and it’s what customers expect more and more from ecommerce companies in our current marketplace.

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the Social Media Blog on Submit Solution on December 7, 2009. That blog entry is called, “Tweet less to gain more success.” The photo of the birds on a fence is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Sister72. Keep coming back to the eHarbor Blog for great discussions like this.

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Posted in Social Media | 1 Comment »

Twitter downtime worse than other social media

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Twitter has come a long way since 2007. It exploded in popularity in 2009, though it still has yet to reach the heights of either Facebook or MySpace in terms of monthly visitors. You can read more about this in my Submit Solution blog entry, “MySpace is 3 times as popular as Twitter.”

Not only has Twitter gone from having less than 1 million visitors a month to nearly 20 million, it has also improved its downtime. Alas, just like its number of visitors, Twitter is far worse than every other major social-media site in its total amount of downtime per year. It’s getting better, but Twitter still suffers from frequent crashes. Remember the big one earlier this year?

I read some fascinating analyses of Twitter’s downtime in two Royal Pingdom articles: “Twitter growing pains cause lots of downtime in 2007” and “Social network downtime in 2008.” Check out this chart of the major social-media sites’ downtime, in hours:

Social network downtime in 2008

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the Social Media Blog on Submit Solution on November 30, 2009. That blog entry is called, “Twitter goes down 7 times more than Facebook, MySpace.” The Social Network Downtime graph is the copyright of Royal Pingdom. Keep coming back to the eHarbor Blog for great stories like this.

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Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

Which Web browser is the best?

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Google Chrome is the best Web browser by far, according to a study by Jacob Gube, the founder and chief editor of Six Revisions. Chrome v. 3 beat Firefox v. 3.5, Safari v. 4, Opera v.10 and Microsoft Explorer v. 8. Take a look at the results below.

Web browsers ranked by performance

You should definitely check out the whole chart by clicking on this link to the blog entry, “Performance Comparison of Major Web Browsers.” Fascinating stuff. I’ll discuss some of the highlights and their impact on ecommerce and Internet marketing.

I’m a Firefox user, myself, so some of this study’s results came as a surprise to me. I’m not sure if they will change my mind about which browser I use right now, but it’s definitely helped me think more about why I prefer one over the others. Here are some of the highlights of the study’s findings:

JavaScript Speed

Chrome won this competition with an average download time of JavaScripts in just 542.3 milliseconds. Safari was No. 2 with 863.9 milliseconds and Firefox was No. 3 with 1,230.6 milliseconds. Explorer was last with a comparatively long download time of 6,305.5 milliseconds.

JavaScripts are important because they are heavily used on websites like Digg, as well as in Gmail. It’s no surprise Google is the leader in this category because it definitely wants people to be able to quickly use its own applications.

You can read the rest of this blog entry in the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog on November 16. It will be entitled, “Google Chrome is the best Web browser.” The graph of the results of this study is the copyright of Jacob Gube and Six Revisions.

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Posted in Web Design | No Comments »

The most colorful pie chart you’ve ever seen

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Do you want to see a pie chart that is full of colors. I mean Full. Of. Colors. You might have seen some colorful pie charts and graphs before, but I’m positive you haven’t seen one this colorful. I’ll show it to you at the end of this blog entry, but first I want to wish you a happy Halloween in two days!

eHarbor Inc. will have its annual Halloween party tomorrow at noon. I wrote about it in a blog entry, “eHarbor Halloween party to showcase culinary talents,” a few weeks ago. This will be a fun event. We’ll have a chili cook-off (hence the title of my previous blog entry) with several eHarbor employees vying for the title of best chili. Yum yum.

I think I’m most looking forward to the creative costumes people will wear. We’re having a competition for who wears the most creative costumes.

This is where the colorful pie chart comes in.

Each month, I send out a poll to my fellow eHarbarians to ask them about different topics. I then include the results in pie-chart form in the next issue of the eHarbor ePort, our monthly newsletter. We have another issue coming out at the Halloween party, so I’m excited about that. Anyway, for the October issue, we asked people what was the best Halloween costume they ever wore or saw someone else wearing.

And these are the responses we got.

There were so many different ones that I considered not putting them in a pie chart at all. But it looked so nice I just had to do it. Usually, there’s a clear winner followed by a few other responses. In this one, almost every answer only got one vote, offering a variety of results. Feast your eyes on the creative minds of eHarbor’s employees.

Keep coming back to the eHarbor Blog for company updates, and go to the Submit Solution Internet marketing blogs for the latest insights into free search engine submissions and other SEO and PPC topics.

October eHarbor, Inc. pie chart on Halloween costumes

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Posted in Fun, eHarbor | 2 Comments »

Internet marketers brace for Google Caffeine changes

Monday, October 5th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Google could soon change the rules of keyword Internet marketing with the debut of its new Google Caffeine search engine. Right now, Google is not doing a good job of searching through social-media sites, like Twitter and Facebook. So the company is working on a new version of its popular search engine that will add them to the mix and shake up other sites’ rankings for certain keywords.

Upside-down YouTube video

The online marketing firm 360i released a study a little while back in a blog entry on Digital Connections, entitled, “6 Things to Expect if Google Decaf Gets a ‘Caffeine’ Boost.” In the post, SEO Group Director Mike Dobbs and SEO Analyst Martha Mukangara noted some pretty surprising findings.

They included 40 retail keywords in their study of the differences between the first three pages of regular Google search results and Google Caffeine search results. The 40 keywords are made up of 10 major brand names (keywords), 10 retail head terms (single keywords), 10 retail torso terms (two-word phrases), and 10 retail long-tail phrases (four-word phrases).

They pointed out six ways the new search engine will dramatically affect online marketers’ strategies. For instance, 15 percent of all first-page rankings were different for the 40 keywords used in the study. Amazingly, the single keywords and two-word phrases saw 50 percent of their first-page results change with the new search engine.

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the Submit Solution SEO Blog on Monday, October 12, 2009. The photo of the upside-down YouTube page is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of engineroomblog.

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Posted in SEO, Search Engines | No Comments »

What to do before you hire a Web designer

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Do you feel lost when it comes to Web design? You don’t need to be an expert on HTML, Ruby or other programming languages to end up with an effective design for your ecommerce website. You can use Magellan Commerce’s custom-design services to handle the actual design part.

Blue dogBut there are several steps you can take before you go to the experts to make sure your site does precisely what you want it to. These steps come from an Examiner article entitled, “Website design starter plan for clients.” That article has horrible spelling and grammar, but it has a few good ideas I want to share, so I’ll cut its author a little slack.

Anyway, here are two of the steps you should take before requesting help from a Web designer:

1. Look at what your competitors are doing. Plagiarism is illegal, but finding good practices and Web-design ideas is perfectly legal. This will give you a good starting point to see which elements of a website you would like to use in your own. Try to stick to general ideas, such as navigation, structure and what subjects are covered in the text.

2. Once you have an idea of what others are doing, start mapping out your website’s outline. Start with the main pages, such as home, services, products, about us, etc. Then add subpages under the main pages to build on more specific topics. Fill in as much detail as you can about what information and messages you want those pages to contain. This will help the designers be more precise in meeting your needs.

You can find the rest of the steps in a blog entry on the new Web Design Blog on Submit Solution. The new Submit Solution website is now online, and it will get most of the Internet marketing blog entries from now on, while the eHarbor Blog will mostly be about topics related to eHarbor, Inc.

The photo of the blue dog is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of lepiaf.geo.

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Posted in Web Design | No Comments »

Paid search about to get complicated

Monday, June 1st, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Here’s an interesting trend online marketers should pay close attention to: the increasing length of search queries. That’s right, online users are Googling more search terms at a time to find specific topics and products. And they are clicking on paid listings less often than before.

Complicated wiring in India

This is big news because it represents a shift from business as usual.

The number of words per search grew from 2.8 in January 2007 to above 3.0 in March 2009, according to comScore, a top source of online research. This change might seem insignificant, but it is actually quite large, statistically speaking.

I read about this shift in search queries in a WebProNews article, entitled “Longer Search Queries Hurting PPC Clicks?” The author of that article suggested online marketers who use paid search in their marketing campaigns will have to adapt and be much more creative in their selection of search terms.

When people used fewer keywords in their searches, it was easier for marketers to choose good ones with low competition to get their paid-search listings on. Now, however, people are using so many keywords that a growing number of search-results pages do not include any paid-search listings because they have gone unnoticed.

The world of pay-per-click might become extremely complex in the near-future as marketers awaken to these facts. A seemingly endless number of keyword combinations could make the task of reaching the right customers more difficult but also more effective at the same time.

People who use more search terms are usually more intent on finding and buying a product than those who type in one or two keywords. It will be interesting to see where this trend leads.

If you would like help with creating an effective paid-search campaign, I recommend contacting Submit Solution or Real Estate Promoter. These eHarbor, Inc. affiliates are industry veterans and they will able to help you.

The photo of the complicated wiring is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of challiyan.

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Posted in Pay-Per-Click | 3 Comments »

Strong sales attract retailers to ecommerce

Friday, May 8th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Let’s face it, consumers have cut back tremendously on their spending. Profits are down for many companies, and it doesn’t look like things are improving swiftly.

Water drop flips imageUnemployment is expected to keep increasing, even after the overall economy improves. We shouldn’t expect people to make a whole lot of purchases when they’re not sure if they’ll have enough income to pay for them.

Now is a good time to change our thinking on how to market to our customers.

I read an article on ZDNet, entitled “Forrester: e-commerce ‘better suited to withstand economic downturn’,” which gives some exciting information about the growth in the ecommerce industry, thanks, in part, to the economic downturn.

Ecommerce is a less-expensive way to do business because it doesn’t involve most of the usual costs of doing business in a mall or other shopping center. Plus, it’s cheaper to advertise online than in traditional media, as newspapers have painfully learned.

Most of their online spending is on email campaigns. Social media is also becoming a popular avenue for businesses, although search engine optimization is another way to reach targeted audiences. We had a seven-part series on search engine optimization that might be helpful in successfully implementing it on your website.

This topic is building on ideas I introduced back in March when I wrote back-to-back blog entries on the ecommerce industry: one about how retailers are investing in ecommerce and Web advertising, and the other on how consumers are spending more online.

In the second blog post, I pointed out that ecommerce sales will likely dip slightly in 2009 before increasing again in 2010. However, in the ZDNet article, the author says they might grow by 11 percent to $156.1 billion. Whichever study you look at, it appears ecommerce is outperforming nearly every other retail industry.

Profit attracts competition, so be mindful of how you enter into this market. Be sure to put your best foot forward by using eHarbor, Inc.’s affiliates to guide you through your website design and other important steps.

The photo of the water drop is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Gaetan Lee.

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Posted in Ecommerce | 3 Comments »

5 reasons to smile today

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I recently read a blog entry on Copyblogger (a great blog if you want to improve your online writing skills), entitled “Warning: Contents are hot.” In it, the author recommended writing about a topic you’re passionate about in order to create some interesting content that people will love reading. I thought I’d follow that advice.

Laughing kittenThe eHarbor Blog has been going strong again for three weeks. I’ve been focusing on eHarbor, Inc., ecommerce and I’m right in the middle of an informative series of blog posts on using search engine optimization to improve your ranking on Google and other search engines. I thought I’d take a little break from online marketing topics and write about something a little more spontaneous to remind myself and my readers of much that is right in the world.

I’m not much for creating controversy, but I do like talking about things I love. I also really enjoy bringing others happiness. It’s tough to feel happy or positive when you read so much bad news every day. There are plenty of news articles about the global economic recession, real-estate downturn, stimulus packages and every other challenge going on in the world. To combat these emotional drains, I would like to suggest five reasons to smile today.

1. Despite the trouble in the economy, Forrester Research predicts ecommerce will grow, in terms of both sales and market share, from 2009 to 2013. eCommerce sales increased 13 percent to $141.3 billion in 2008 and they are expected to grow another 11 percent in 2009. Online sales should even surpass $200 billion by 2012, according to their estimate. Now that’s some great news.

2. I’ll bet you didn’t know that today, February 23, 2009, is International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day and Play Tennis Day. This is your opportunity to give your dog a treat as you play a few sets with a friend.

3. George Frideric Handel, composer of beautiful musical pieces, including “Messiah,” was born on this date in 1685. Several years ago, I got to sing the tenor part of “For unto us a Son is born,” and boy is that some high-pitch music. I admire anyone who can sing well because good music always uplifts me and makes me smile.

4. On this day in 1940, Disney’s “Pinocchio” was released in movie theaters. While it’s not my favorite Disney movie, “Pinocchio” does have one of my favorite songs: “When you wish upon a star.” I told you I love movies.

5. One more reason to smile is that life feels a lot nicer when you can lift your head up and smile at whatever comes your way. Even if you can’t control everything that happens to you, you can control how you react to it, so try to stay positive, and focus on what you can accomplish right now.

The photo of the laughing kitten is from Flickr and it is the copyright of d u y g u.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Fun, Movies | 8 Comments »