Google Analytics announced a redesign of the administration panel. Not only does the new design have a more consistent look and feel, but it should also go a long way to helping users visualize the settings for an account, property and profile.
Facebook announced hashtags last week, giving validation to everyone who used the original Twitter function to drive home their point in a Facebook status update. What was once unnecessary is now helpful in discovering new content in Facebook.
Good news for webmasters who have been struggling to identify links and pages that have been trigger warnings in Google Webmaster Tools. Google will now include example URLs in their emails warning webmasters about manual spam actions.
SEO reporting has little to do with ranking reports. Ensuring strong analytical measurements is key to gain trust with your clients/company executives, because that transparency shows what is truly working, rather than managing based on “feelings.”
Text reminders, polls and surveys, sweepstakes, push notifications, social integration, and loyalty and membership programs are six mobile tactics to help you stay connected with your customers to generate and maintain customer love.
Small business owners who want to succeed in SEO should embrace diversity, moderation and consistency to avoid the extremes. The trick is to do real SEO that will last. And they must ignore silver bullets as they represent fairy tale thinking.
Image from: Roller Coaster / Shutterstock
Monthly traffic to theme park websites increased 28.5% as May welcomed warmer weather and summer vacation planning. Unsurprisingly, theme parks receive more online visitors in the summer months. The season trend starts in April or May and peaks in July before dropping off in August. This year, the number of Unique Visitors (UVs) actually declined in April, probably due to the long winter that most of the United States experienced. The season is off to a slow start; 8.2 million Americans visited theme park websites in May, about 700,000 fewer visitors than in May 2012.
Which theme parks experienced the largest traffic growth last month? Compete compiled a list of ten fast movers based on monthly UV change. Seven of the ten fast movers are parks located away from the coast: in the Midwest, Pennsylvania, or Utah. It makes sense that these parks would have the fastest growing traffic, as they are major destinations for Americans who do not have access to a beach–most of the parks include a water park.
CedarPoint.com and VisitKingsIsland.com each grew about 100% month-over-month (MOM). They were the two most visited sites of the Fast Movers as well as two of the ten most visited theme park sites overall. Both parks are located in Ohio and owned by the Cedar Fair Entertainment Company. Accesso.com was one of the top five incoming and outgoing traffic sources for both websites. Cedar Fair parks use Accesso’s software for online, in-person, and mobile ticket sales as well as their park apps. When purchasing tickets online, visitors actually purchase through the Accesso website in a pop-up window. The fact that so many visitors were leaving to go to Accesso.com is great news: it means that they at least started the check-out process.
Sevenpeaks.com was arguably the best performing site of the Fast Movers in May. Visitors to the site stayed for 11 minutes and 36 seconds on average–longer than any of the Fast Movers. The search keyword that referred the most traffic was not even the park’s name, but “pass of all passes”–responsible for 28% of all incoming search traffic. Seven Peaks offers a pass for unlimited access to its water park, as well as exclusive deals at amusements and sporting events in Utah year-round. The Pass-of-all-Passes is widely popular in Utah, where people flee to pools to escape the heat. In fact, the passes are so popular that Seven Peaks can’t keep up with the demand this year. Seven Peaks had 86,000 UVs in May, earning it the spot as the 26th most visited theme park website in the U.S..
Here’s a round up of our favorite digital marketing stories from around the web this week:
Retailers’ digital ad spending nears $10 billion this year. Retail spends more on digital advertising than any other industry; they already account for 22.3% of all digital ad spend. eMarketers forecasts retailers spending another $1 billion next year with the majority of spending going towards direct response ads–driving traffic to a sale, often through search. Financial services, travel companies, and consumer package companies are all expected to increase spending–while ad spend by healthcare and consumer electronics companies will grow at a slower rate.
Google is expected to earn 56% of the $16 billion mobile-advertising market in 2013. Facebook takes second place which is impressive considering Facebook didn’t make any money from mobile two years ago. Surprisingly, neither Yahoo! or Microsoft are the next big advertisers. eMarketer reports Pandora and Twitter are generating the 3rd and 4th most mobile ad revenue, bringing in $400 million and $310 million respectively.
Why Google wanted Waze: the local ad market is going mobile. Google officially announced it was purchasing the social driving app, Waze, for an undisclosed amount over $1 billion. Knowing exactly where people are in their cars is extremely valuable data to marketers–a person driving by a store is more likely to convert than someone sitting at home. The app will remain standalone, but Google is looking forward to incorporating its search data into Waze.
82% of ecommerce merchants not tracking mobile sales. A new study shows an alarming number of brands do not know how many of their sales are done on mobile devices. Despite that mobile sales are increasing, 49% of ecommerce merchants said that their sites are not optimized for mobile! They are missing out on sales by not having easy to navigate sites. Check out the full results of the study on Mobile Commerce Daily.
What was was your favorite digital marketing story this week? We’d love for you to share links in the comments.
Technology is changing the way users are searching and interacting with technology. Bing Ads Evangelist John Gagnon shares some unique patterns, strategies and techniques that can help you interpret big data to make smarter marketing decisions.
Local link building is often overlooked within link building campaigns. Here’s how to optimize links for local search by building great national industry links using geo-specific anchor text, and building great links from local authorities.
Search Engine Optimization | Vince Quattrin