New Year’s Resolutions

December 28, 2008

Its quickly becoming that time of year again – the time when people begin to reflect on their past year’s accomplishments while looking forward to and setting goals they want to achieve in the new year.

Google Trends Insight for Search illustrates just how predictable and recurring searches for “New Year’s Resolutions” are year after year.

New Year's Resolutions

New Year's Resolutions

Not surprisingly, searchers don’t appear to have any interest in New Year’s Resolutions at any other time of the year other than around the end and beginning of each year.

Based on the Google’s Search Volume Index, searchers from the state of Utah appear to have the highest degree of interest in New Year’s Resolutions followed by searchers from Kansas, Iowa, Michigan, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Ohio, South Carolina, Minnesota and Missouri.

State Search Interest New Year's Resolutions

State Search Interest New Year's Resolutions

Conversely, relatively few if any searchers from Arkansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, West Virginia, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine have expressed any interest in, ie. searched for the term – “New Year’s Resolutions”.

What if any conclusions can be drawn from regional search interest or a lack thereof  in any one particular word or phrase like “New Years Resolutions”?

Hawt Post

December 27, 2008

Each day, 100 WordPress blogs out of millions receive the Top Post designation.

Top Posts are the most popular blog posts ranked according to a special WordPress.com formula.

As far as I can tell, the most popular daily blog posts also get placed on the WordPress.com home page under the Hawt Post position..

This Search Marketing Communications blog had the 27th most popular WordPress Hawt Post on – of all days… Christmas Day 2008.

Hawt Post Christmas Day

Hawt Post Christmas Day

2008 Amazon.com Holiday Best Sellers

December 26, 2008

Amazon.com has published its 2008 best sellers list (based on units ordered November 15th – December 19th) in addition to noting its 14th holiday retail sales season was its best ever.

December 15, 2008 was Amazon’s peak sales day.

On December 15th (Two Mondays before Christmas and not Cyber Monday – Max Monday?),  Amazon processed orders for 6.3 million items, which was a record-breaking average of 72.9 items sold per second.

Accordingly, Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com said, “We are extremely grateful to our customers,” and “We wish everyone happy holidays and the very best for the coming year.”

From Amazon.com:

— In toys, top sellers included the Eyeclops night vision stealth goggles, Blokus classic board game and Wild Planet’s Hyper Dash.

— Top sellers in consumer electronics included Samsung’s 52-inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV with RED Touch of Color, the Apple iPod touch 8 GB (2nd Generation) and the Acer Aspire One 8.9-inch netbook (1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB hard drive, XP Home, 6 cell battery), sapphire blue.

— Nintendo Wii dominated the top sellers in video games and hardware including the Wii console, the Wii remote controller and the Wii nunchuk controller.

— In DVDs, top sellers included “Wall-E,” “The Dark Knight” for Blu-ray and “The Dark Knight.”

— Top sellers ordered from Amazon Mobile web and TextBuyIt include Monopoly Here and Now World, the Nintendo Wii and “Wall-E” (three-disc special edition + digital copy and BD Live) for Blu-ray.

— In software, the top sellers included Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Norton Antivirus 2009 and Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition.

For their complete list of 2008 best sellers visit Amazon.com.

Search before Google?

December 25, 2008
Santa Claus

Santa Claus

Merry Christmas!

Find Restaurants and Stores Open on Christmas Day

December 24, 2008

Looking for stores like Walmart to see whether they are open or not on Christmas Day but don’t know where to start?

Trying to find restaurants like iHop on Christmas?

Simply type your location and a business name or category into the Google Maps search box and local results will appear on the map, complete with store hours, addresses, telephone numbers, reviews, and more.

Search Google Maps to get a list of local stores and restaurants to call before you leave to verify which ones are open for business on Christmas Day.

Santa Search and Norad Santa Tracker

December 23, 2008

Searching for Santa?

Search no further than Google Earth this Christmas.

Google Earth Santa Tracker

Google Earth Santa Tracker

In anticipation of the 2008 Christmas Santa searching and tracking season, The Google Lat Long blog reviews Google’s history with NoradSanta.org and the evolution of Santa Search over the last several years.

NORAD – an acronym for North American Aerospace Defense Command – is a joint organization of two countries in North America – the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty and defense for North America except Mexico.

I am sure when it was founded in 1958, NORAD’s founders probably did not envision the day would come when the world would be filled with billions of interconnected computers and mobile phones whose owners could each track Santa’s location from the comfort of their home or car with a digital 3D map product called Google Earth… yet indeed today we can.

With Google providing the equivalent of a Santa Radar and a Santa Cam via desktop computers and mobile phones combined with Santa sighting commentary offered in six languages (German, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese) children and adults worldwide should be able to get all of their “Where is Santa?” questions answered on Christmas Eve December 24, 2008 unlike at any other time in history.

Airport Codes in Google Maps

December 22, 2008

Traveling by air and not sure exactly where a particular airport is located?

From Google Maps:

Airport Codes Lookup Map

Airport Codes Lookup Map

To see exactly where any airport in the world is located, simply enter its three digit airport code into Google Maps .

Here is a sample Google Maps search for: LAX

LAX Map

LAX Map

Google Maps also provide international airport code lookups and satellite views of the airport where available.

Google Maps Satellite view of London Heathrow (LHR)

LHR London Heathrow Satellite View

LHR London Heathrow Satellite View

Inputting an airport code into Google Maps to locate a final air travel destination should make planning ground transportation to and from the airport easier for both the inexperienced and experienced traveler.

Small Business Search Engine Marketing Too Costly, Time Consuming and Complex?

December 21, 2008

Microsoft adCenter conducted a survey of 400 small businesses with 250 employees or less to gauge small business sentiment toward search marketing and advertising.

Among the participants’ chief concerns, most cited the common misconceptions of cost, time and complexity as major hurdles to conducting search marketing campaigns for their businesses.

Key small business concerns regarding search engine marketing from the Microsoft adCenter study:

  • Nearly nine in 10 (89 percent) feared keywords may become too expensive.
  • 81% questioned if paid search marketing is the best use of their marketing budgets.
  • 25% of respondents believe paid search marketing is too complex.
  • 21% thought it would be too time-consuming.
  • 35% felt they would need an agency to help set up a search marketing campaign.

The most surprising finding from Microsoft’s adCenter Study? 7 in 10 small-business owners who participated revealed that they would rather try to do their own taxes than start a paid search marketing campaign!

The Microsoft study also revealed that 59 percent of small businesses with Web sites don’t currently use paid search marketing, and of those, 90 percent have never even attempted it.

Will search engine advertising providers like Microsoft ever overcome the general small business perception that search engine advertising is too costly, time consuming and complex?

Not until the small business advertiser has been convinced and shown otherwise that search engine marketing is inexpensive, quick and easy.

Google Conversion Room Blog

December 20, 2008

Google has launched their newest blog: “Conversion Room – The place to visit for tips on tracking and improving conversions online”.

The Conversion Room blog was started on December 18, 2008 and prior to my subscription had 11 subscribers.

Google Conversion Room Blog

Google Conversion Room Blog

Search marketers interested in learning more about the terminology and process of tracking and improving online conversions should find Google’s Conversion Room blog helpful.

From the 2nd entry on the Google Conversion Room blog:

What is a goal/conversion?

In order to track your website ROI, it is important to define goals or conversions. A goal is an action you wish your visitors to complete when they visit your site. Examples of goals include: a completed purchase, the download of a document or a subscription to a newsletter.

How to set up goals?

You can easily set up goals within Google Analytics and measure how often visitors reach these goals (or convert on your site). What proportion of users who reach your home page, for example, then go on to buy from you? You can also specify steps that lead to a goal (e.g. purchase or lead) and measure how many visitors follow these steps, called a funnel. You can create up to 4 goals per profile in your Google Analytics account. Once you have activated your goal you will begin to see data appearing in your Google Analytics account under the ‘Goals’ report

Sign up for the Conversion Room blog to get regular tips for increasing your website’s conversions and return on investment.

Top eBay Searches: Pulse.eBay.com

December 19, 2008

eBay Pulse provides a Top 10 list of the most popular searches from 33 main product categories within eBay.

Most popular Top 10 search lists can also be generated for  “All Categories” and then “Everything Else” on eBay.

eBay’s most popular searches are available from the following categories:

All Categories
Antiques
Art
Baby    Dolls & Bears
Boats
Books
Business & Industrial
Cameras & Photo
Cars
Cell Phones & PDAs
Clothing, Shoes & Accessories
Coins & Paper Money
Collectibles
Computers & Networking
Crafts
DVDs & Movies
Electronics
Entertainment Memorabilia
Gift Certificates
Health & Beauty
Home & Garden
Jewelry & Watches
Music
Musical Instruments
Pottery & Glass
Real Estate
Specialty Services
Sporting Goods
Sports Memorabilia, Cards & Fan Shop
Stamps
Toys & Hobbies
Travel
Vehicles & Parts
Video Games

& Everything Else…

With the Christmas shopping season in full swing, the “All Categories” list is dominated by familiar brands and products although one item made the list I hadn’t yet heard of: Bakugan.

Top eBay Searches

Top eBay Searches

The eBay Pulse search tool is a great way to get a quick overview of each category’s top searched for and more than likely top selling items.

eBay Business Industrial Category

eBay Business Industrial Category

From within each product category,  search popularity can be further refined via the category’s drop down box.

eBay Business Industrial Searches

eBay Business Industrial Searches

You can then drill down to see the list of product typess available for further searching from within each respective subcategory.

Businesses Websites For Sale

Businesses Websites For Sale

Click through to see all of the items eBay has listed within the specific category.

Websites For Sale

Websites For Sale

From a search marketer’s perspective and from someone who has never bought or sold anything on eBay, by providing this type of organized search data I am much more likely to use eBay’s service now than ever before.