Cyber forces

As we come down off the high from Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we’ll no doubt be looking at some exciting preliminary figures for commerce online. But it’s not time to kick up our feet quite yet. According to data cited by Google, 48 percent of shoppers will do their shopping in early December. Additionally, due to the last-minute gift rush, December 21 and 23 were shown to be the best in-store shopping days aside from Black Friday in 2013. The forecast continues to look good this year in terms of online shopping. The National Retail Federation reported that more than half of U.S. consumers planned to make at least some of their holiday purchases online this year. The purchase journey online will consist of multiple devices, as expected. According to the 2014 Pre-Holiday Retailer and Consumer Study by Shop.org, people are using their smartphones and tablets specifically to: Research products (42 percent smartphone, 53 percent tablet) Look up store contact and hours … [Read more...] about Mobile SEO & E-Commerce Growth Beyond Black Friday & Cyber Monday

Ladies and gentlemen open your wallets — and start your smartphones. The holiday shopping season is upon is. This year more than ever there are scores of sites, apps and online tools to direct you to the right product at the best price. It can all be a bit overwhelming in fact. Below I’ve tried to highlight some resources that may be helpful as you search for gifts over the long weekend and beyond. But before we get started let me first ask the naming gods to next year revisit and banish “Cyber Monday” from the tech lexicon — or dare I say “texicon.” And maybe we need yet a third day (or at least third phrase) after Black Friday and Cyber Monday to acknowledge the role that mobile shopping is starting to play in the whole process. The big search engines Of course all the search engines have shopping sites. Yahoo offers a wealth of resources including a holiday gift buying guide and Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals guide. As part of that you get … [Read more...] about Search Tips For Black Friday & Cyber Monday

Promote Black Friday & Cyber Monday Offers With AdWords Structured Snippet HeadersNov 11, 2015 by Ginny Marvin The extensions can start showing starting the week before Cyber Monday. JustWatch Claims Google’s Anti-Piracy Efforts Haven’t Hurt Streaming SitesNov 11, 2015 by Barry Schwartz Google’s Piracy Update has worked well removing torrent sites but not so well with illegal streaming sites, says a study. Yahoo Updates Search Experience For Firefox Users On DesktopNov 11, 2015 by Matt McGee Yahoo introduces new carousel of image and video content, says changes will eventually make their way to other browsers, too. Europe Turns Antitrust Attention To Google Maps For AndroidNov 11, 2015 by Greg Sterling The antitrust investigation (or enforcement action) against Google in Europe is currently focused on shopping search. There’s an earlier stage, but parallel investigation of Android is now taking off. Comments from regulators and European politicians … [Read more...] about AdWords SMS Promotions, Google TLS Warnings & Yahoo Firefox UI

At SMX East last week, three panelists each shared their own tips for success, and all shared similar stats that reinforce the importance of being ready early: 25 percent of holiday shoppers started buying in October. 48 percent had completed most shopping by Cyber Monday last year. Sophie Newton, BrainLabs’ head of innovation, was up first and covered four things you should watch closely when the holiday sales start: budgets, hourly tracking, URL checking and messaging. Not surprisingly, BrainLabs has AdWords Scripts to help them with all of these. Being a founder of Optmyzr, where one of our core products is Enhanced Scripts, I’m happy to hear how a successful agency is using these to be more effective during one of the busiest times of the year, when things can change dramatically from one day to the next. If you need help with scripts, be sure to read Daniel Gilbert’s posts on this site, where he frequently shares code that you can copy and paste into your own … [Read more...] about 3 Experts Share Their Secrets For PPC Success During The Holidays

Five years ago, Avinash Kaushik famously described the sequence of the typical unsatisfied website visitor: “I came, I puked, I left.” There is a little less puking these days, but after clicking on an ad, far too many visitors are still squinting, yawning, shrugging their shoulders, or having trouble connecting their needs and wants with the information and offers they’re seeing on landing pages. Below, I provide seven examples of how to tighten that connection. In today’s fickle world, average online experiences just aren’t good enough. Before getting started, pages should be in peak form. In general, you want pages to be clear and easily absorb-able so testing and changes are not done in vain. Consider the following about your pages: Employ basic testing Do some user testing to ensure pages are intuitive and visitors can navigate them easily. You’re specifically looking for areas where people get confused about the next action they’re … [Read more...] about 7 Tips To Avoid High Bounce Rates On Landing Pages