Yahoo has released top searches in Yahoo Search as well as Mobile Search. The interesting fact is that only two of the top searches match what people were searching for on their PCs and Mobile.
Michael Jackson tops Yahoo’s overall searches for 2009 and actress Megan Fox tops in the mobile search.  Those were the only search terms to make it into both the top 10 mobile and PC searches.

Here are the top 10 mobile searches and overall searches according to Yahoo:

1. Megan Fox
2. Mobile Games
3. Michael Jackson
4. Movies
5. Rihanna
6. Mail
7. Lady Gaga
8. NFL
9. Ringtones
10. iPhone

Here are the top 10 overall searches for 2009:

1. Michael Jackson
2. Twilight
3. WWE
4. Megan Fox
5. Britney Spears
6. Naruto
7. American Idol
8. Kim Kardashian
9. NASCAR
10. Runescape

Combine your Strategy:

Many companies keep their search and social strategies separate. If they can work out a strategy to combine their Social Media and
Search Strategy they can easily acheive their goals.

Generally Companies use Search for increasing the increasing leads/ sales whereas they use social media for branding
and customer engagement. If you can combine the Search and Social Media Strategies, it can produce great results.

From my experience, companies that has a clear strategy and optimize their social media content drive targeted traffic,
build relationships and reach customers.

Common Mistake:

People often make mistake by thinking social media as a direct merketing tactics. Measuring ROI from Social Media is not the right
approach as social media is just a platform. The use of a platform determines the results, not the platform itself.

Conclusion:

If your goal is to increase your revenue, you must look at ROI not Social Media. But if you want to improve customer relationships,
branding, and visibility you can target Social Media.

Google featured Mahatma Gandhi’s image in its logo celebrating 140 th Birthday of Gandhiji.

Google 11th Birthday

Search Engine major, Google celebrates 11th Birthday on Sep 27 2009. Google has changed its logo (L to 11) to show its 11th year celebrations to Google users (Lovers).

Bounce Rate

Not many care about the Bounce Rate of their site; the most predominant factor that influences your site’s performance is the bounce rate. Bounce rate in simple terms means the percentage of people who come to your site, then immediately leave without viewing any of the inside content pages. Bounce Rate is usually used to measure visit quality – if the bounce rate is high it means that the landing page is not relevant for the users coming to the site. Low bounce rate indicates that the visitors are engaging and exploring the site. So what constitutes a good rate? This is a very hard question to answer, but if you do some research, most say it needs to be under 50%. It also will depend on the type of site that you have. For example, if you have a news website, many times a visitor will come to your site to read the latest updates then leave. Thus more often a News Website will have a higher bounce rate than a “normal” site as there is no need for them to go any deeper.

How can you improve your bounce rate?

1. Track the bounce rate of your site over a period of time

2. Also check the time spent by visitors on your site

3. Check the Traffic Sources – Identify which source contributes bulk of your traffic. Is the traffic coming from Direct Links, Search Engines or Social Networking Sites

4. After getting your Statistics rate, Start making changes in the landing page

5. Make sure that you showcase prominent links that will pull the visitors interest

6. Make the site Navigation more user friendly

7. Check for the load time of the site – check in different browsers. Make sure your site loads quickly 8. Change one thing at a time and keep an eye on the bounce rate and check if there is improvement.

Follow the basic principles said above and ensure your visitors pass the home page and read the content inside the site thereby increasing the stickiness of the visitor. I have also read that it plays a big role in search engine algorithms. Sites with less Bounce Rate get better rankings.

This is the second edition of the event and the first edition happened during 6th & 7th of October 2007, at Tidel Park, Chennai. SearchCamp will feature workshops, debates and keynotes on the present state and evolution of Search Engine Marketing.

Check the wiki for more details : www.searchcamp.in

Search Camp'09 Chennai, India

Mobile SEO

Lot of buzz is happening in the industry for Mobile SEO, probably you would have heard many “experts” advising you to optimize your site for mobile phones, or to create a “mobile” version of your site and optimize that for “mobile search.” This process is defined as “Mobile SEO”. I heard lot of misconcepts and misleading discussions on Mobile SEO, so i thought let me discuss:

There are few things we should consider while creating a Mobile Site:
1. There is no need to purchase a .mobi domain name for creating a Mobile Site, you can use a .com domain name which is more than sufficient for creating a Mobile Site (You can also use the other domain extensions also).

2. Use the same URL for both Mobile and Traditional Site, so that users need not remember two URLs for your site.

3. Using one URL can also avoid content duplication.

4. SEO best practices for traditional sites are best valid for Mobile Sites also. But in addition we need to take care of few  more stuffs while doing Mobile Sites:

 a. It is good to have basic accessibility standards like W3c Complaint, XHTML code check etc.,
 b. Create Mobile Dynamic Pages by combining Websites Content DB.
 c. Submit your site to Mobile Search Engines
 d. Apply the Traditional SEO techniques – Relevant Page Titles, Effective Page Descriptions and Quality Links.

If you check the Search Results in Google through mobile its almost the same as we see in the PC, so there is a clear indication that there is no preference given for mobile sites. In conclusion its better to create your site accessible in all browser versions, make sure its readable in any screen resolution and ensure it loads fast instead of creating an “Mobile” site. Mobile Technology is developing day by day so there will not be more requirement to create additional sites for Mobile instead we can create our site more mobile friendly.

But the web, and analytics, changed the game. So how should you be using your web analytics to grow your audience, and your business, online?

Track Everything

With web analytics on your site you can track:

Where your traffic is coming from by
   – The referring website and page
   – The search engine and keyword used

Your website visitors by
   – Their location
   – Their operating system, browser and monitor resolution
   – Their network

Visitor behavior and actions by
   – Duration of visit (time on site)
   – Pages per visit (number of pages viewed)
   – Bounce rate (percentage of users who viewed only one page before leaving)
   – Conversion rate (percentage of users who completed a preset task)

If you’re planning on doing any kind of web marketing, be it through search engines, email or advertising on other websites, information on your past and current traffic is crucial. Not to mention you’ll want analytics in place so you can properly track the new traffic your promotions will, hopefully, bring in.

Tie Your Traffic Sources to Your Users’ Actions

When looking at your analytics data the behavior and action metrics mean little by themselves. If the bounce rate of your site overall is 75%, what does that tell you? Well, this is a pretty high bounce rate – you should at least be shooting to have a bounce rate lower than 50%. But does this tell you exactly what is wrong?

Likewise, if you have secured advertising or a listing on another website, the number of visits coming in from that site only gives you part of the picture.

Tying your bounce rate to a specific traffic source, on the other hand, can tell you a lot.

If a given traffic source is generating a bounce rate of 85% or more, for example, this indicates that users are not being satisfied. There are a few possibilities as to why:

The users may not be well-qualified – or the site where you are listed or advertising might not have the best audience for your content/offer.

The listing/ad may promise something that the entry page does not live up to (or, at least, the promise is difficult to locate once the user arrives at your site).

Your site is simply not usable, is unattractive or unprofessional, causing users to leave immediately (and most don’t come back)

Your users are not connecting with your content/offer.
There are other possibilities, but you’ll want to find the most likely answer here – and try to fix it. Then, using the same metrics (traffic source + bounce rate), you can see whether things improve moving forward.

Using metrics like these you can also get a sense of which advertisements are bringing you a return on your investment and which aren’t. With goal tracking in Google Analytics, for example, a conversion rate is added to just about every traffic metric, including referring websites. If you’re finding that a website is sending you plenty of traffic but none of it is converting, re-examine the referring website’s audience, how your site is being presented and the user’s experience when they click through.

The Point

Your website is more than a brochure. It’s an interactive tool for your users. The only true way to find out how they’re using it (or not using it) is to get web analytics set up properly on your website (including setting goal points to track conversions).

And the best way to improve your website in the aim of building your business is to use the information your web analytics give you.

If you aren’t tracking everything, taking time on a regular basis to understand what the data reveals about your users and adjusting your efforts based on this information, you’re missing an opportunity to optimize your advertising and get a better return on your budget.

Google Analytics updates

Google announced some major updates to Google Analytics today:

Advanced segmentation (public beta, being rolled out gradually)
A Google Analytics API (private beta)
Custom reports (public beta, being rolled out gradually)
Motion charts (public beta, being rolled out gradually)
AdSense integration (private beta)
Improvements to the administrative interface

I believe that the most advanced free tool available as of today is Yahoo! Web Analytics. I knew Google was planning to release some improvements like advanced segmentation, but they hadn’t at the time so I couldn’t say anything. Users of Google Analytics can now wait to make the switch to Yahoo!