11.30.2010

Cyber Monday Sales Up 19.4%

CNet


According to Coremetrics, a division of IBM, online sales yesterday were up 19.4 percent, compared to Cyber Monday 2009. The average consumer's online order value was $194.89, representing an 8.3 percent gain over the average order value of $180.03 in 2009. Coremetrics also found that luxury goods sales were up 24.3 percent, compared to Cyber Monday 2009.


Coremetrics also reported that total sales on Cyber Monday were 31.1 percent higher than Black Friday's online sales. However, the research firm stopped short of saying exactly how much revenue online retailers generated on Cyber Monday.



Black Friday's promising numbers for the online community were again strengthened by Cyber Monday's 19.4% increase over last year. People are shopping online more often, but they are also spending more than they did previously. I was most surprised by the fact that luxury items have increased 24.3% over last year, despite the world economic situation.


For those still asking themselves whether or not search engine optimization is a viable idea for your company - ask yourself this question instead; How do you personally find products and services online? Odds are, you're using Google, Bing or Yahoo! in which case, getting your business to the top of the list so it can be found by consumers should be a top priority - and we have the seo team to get you there.

11.28.2010

Black Friday Sales Dramatically Up Online

I love Black Friday. Not for the sales, but for the sales data that comes from the event. This year, Black Friday is bringing joy to business owners everywhere - so long as your business is online.


BBC


The 0.3% increase in sales on Black Friday followed a 0.5% rise last year.

"This means the American consumer has adapted to the economic climate over the last couple of years and is possibly spending more wisely as the holiday season begins," said ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin.

Online payment service PayPal reported a 27% increase in volumes on the day, compared with Black Friday in 2009.

"The tough economy has made shoppers more price-conscious, and this year's Black Friday results show that they're going online to find the best deals," PayPal's Amanda Pires said.


WXEL


In a survey of shoppers over the weekend, 16.3 percent said that they paid for their purchases with credit cards, down from 30.9 percent a year earlier, according to consumer research firm America's Research Group.


San Jose Mercury News


PayPal today announced Black Friday shopping results, showing a rise in online and mobile sales on what is traditionally the biggest shopping day for brick and mortar stores. The company reported approximately a 27 percent increase in total payment volume on Black Friday 2010, compared to the previous year.

Other PayPal results from Black Friday 2010 included:


  • PayPal found that the official holiday shopping season began on Monday, November 15, 2010.

  • On Black Friday 2010, consumers shopped most frequently between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. PST.

  • Black Friday 2010 resulted in 21 percent more total payment volume compared to Thanksgiving 2010.

  • PayPal saw 19 percent more payment volume on Black Friday 2010 compared to an average Friday in 2010.

  • PayPal processes 16.5 percent of U.S. eCommerce and 15 percent of global eCommerce.


Not only are people shopping online more often, they're also more reserved about the purchases they make. This year, shoppers are shying away from large credit card purchases and looking for holiday items on a sensible budget. Paypal's twenty seven percent increase in sales revenue provides a great indication of how the average consumer has seized the power of online shopping. In contrast to online sales being up nearly 30%, brick and mortar sales only went up by a third of a percent over last year's sales. Having a dominant online presence is more important now than ever. We'll help you get there with organic search engine optimization.

11.08.2010

HTML5 SEO

A lot of buzz has been generated on HTML 5 to the point where our SEO clients are beginning to ask us if our methods will have to be changed to deal with the new markup. After looking into HTML 5 in great detail, we can say with certainty that it will yet again change the search engine optimization market, but only by a little bit.


HTML5 provides SEO specialists with a better breakdown of each web page through it’s code. Instead of labeling each separate unit of the web site’s code as a “div id”, each segment of every page is named according to what it really is. Currently web sites are structured using a heading format, where each heading is assigned a corresponding value according to its weight on the page. With HTML5, search engine specialists are able to tag each piece of the page to accurately represent what is being seen by surfers.


New HTML 5 labels



  • header tag

  • section tag

  • article tag

  • footer tag

  • audio tag

  • video tag


Flash Goes Extinct in HTML5


The new audio and video tags allow for flash-free animations as well as flash-free video. In the past we have spoken out against flash based web design. It is nearly impossible for search engines to index as entire web sites can be built on one line of visible code. As you might imagine, that doesn’t give search engines much to determine what your site is based upon. Currently, flash is best left for page attributes - though we feel it will slowly go the way of the dinosaur now that a better solution has filled it’s niche.

Page Load Speed Increases


We have focused our efforts on creating clean code since day one. HTML5 makes this practice semi-standard through offline web application storage. HTML5 does this by storing programs needed to load each web page in your browser’s cache. Since your computer will only have to load the content of the site and not animations, video, etc. the loading speed of each page.


HTML5 Makes Your Web Site Prettier


Past the code improvements, HTML5 allows web designers to dig a little deeper creatively allowing for much easier use of decorative touches like:


  • Multiple backgrounds

  • Direct web fonts

  • Wrapping to the text

  • Stroke and shadow to the text

  • 2D transformation to the object, animations

  • Gradients

  • Opacity

  • HSL and HSLA color

  • Background clipping

  • Outline

  • Box resizing

  • Box shadow

  • Top-right- left-bottom navigation

  • Attribute selector

  • Overflows x and y