Posts tagged Study
How the Web Uses Anchor Text in Internal Linking [Study]
Apr 24th
Internal anchor text can significantly impact search visibility. This research includes data from more than 3,000 ecommerce and non-ecommerce domains and examines more than 280,000 internal links and their corresponding anchor text.
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Majority of SMB Websites Fail to Provide Social Links, Contact Info [Study]
Apr 18th
New data from SMB DigitalScape points to a number of glaring problems (and opportunities) as less than 20 percent of SMB sites are linking from their website to a social presence. An astonishing 60 percent are missing a phone number on the homepage.
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
[Study] Phone-Shopping Habits in a World Going Mobile
Apr 16th
Google has released a new study of how people shop for phones. It’s a helpful category to understand, since a phone purchase is a critical decision for consumers in the digital age. Online information, especially while mobile, is making us pickier. It’s also driving us to buy. But the biggest single influence in a phone purchase is still what happens in the store.
Due Diligence
The biggest new trend demonstrated in this study is that consumers are using the Web to do their homework. Subjects in the study used online tools more than any other resource throughout the process of researching a new phone. Search dominated the process, which is nice news for Google.
The study also found that 60% of research sessions begin two or more weeks before purchase. 41% of consumers considered two different phone models, and 16% considered four or more. More than half of shoppers visited five or more sites while researching.
The one exception to this trend was online retailers. People rely on in-person recommendations from family and friends more than retailer sites. They also go directly to the OEM and carrier websites more than to a retail site like Amazon or Best Buy.
Old-School Ads
Consumers are using the Web to guide their own research process. They aren’t as interested in being interrupted by ads during the process.
Google tried to spin its findings about the way consumers recall ads. Its header is “Online resources leave a lasting impression.” (We’ve changed the title in our version.) But what the chart shows is that phone shoppers are almost twice as likely to remember a TV ad than an online ad. Non-video Web ads, email ads and search listings take the consolation prize, but TV is still the dominant ad vehicle for phone purchases.
There’s another fact that’s painful for Google hiding in plain sight. The two worst-performing ad categories were mobile and tablet ads. The data in this study shouldn’t be applied across the board, but phones are important purchases, and this data shows that consumers just don’t care about mobile ads for them.
Reaching potential customers on mobile is going to bug Google, Facebook and other ad-driven Web businesses until they figure out a new way to engage.
The Moment of Truth
Even though shoppers have gotten comfortable doing their homework online, the decision to buy still happens mostly in person. Google wants to highlight the “influence” of online information on the purchasing process, but its findings show that the in-store experience is still the dominant factor.
While a healthy 25% of phone purchases take place online, and another 24% of purchases are influenced by online research, 45% of cell phone purchases last year were still entirely in-person transactions.
The Web has made roughly half of phone shoppers into more discerning customers, but the rest are still making their buying decisions offline. TV is still the ad medium with the biggest impact. But the message to the industry is clear: People have begun to guide their own shopping decisions and do their research.
Lead photo courtesy of Shutterstock.
Charts 2 and 3 © 2012 ReadWriteWeb
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Resume SEO: Study reveals how job recruiters see your resume with eye-tracking … – Daily Mail
Apr 11th
 Daily Mail |
Resume SEO: Study reveals how job recruiters see your resume with eye-tracking …
Daily Mail By Jennifer Madison In the job market, your resume has little more than six seconds to make a good impression, according to a new study. A survey using eye-tracking technology has shown the areas job recruiters spend the most time looking – and … |
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The 5 Ws of Social Media Marketing: Industry Survey & Insights [Study]
Apr 9th
A lengthy survey of 3,800 social media marketers reveals dozens of insights on how and why marketers use social to promote their businesses and reveals that 68 percent plan to increase their use of search engine optimization in the coming year.
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Pinterest Now 3rd Most Popular Social Network [Study]
Apr 9th
Pinterest is now the third most popular social networking site in the U.S. and could help foster “meaningful connections” between retailers and consumers. That’s according to a lengthy new 2012 Digital Marketer report from Experian.
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
5 Facebook Timeline Brand Page User Insights and Tips for Marketers [Study]
Apr 5th
Facebook fans enjoy your company history, expect your Page to stay current, and may not pay much attention to your cover image, a new study by SimpleUsability finds. They offer five tips to help brands better engage fans with Timeline brand pages.
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Google: Paid Search Ads With Associated Organic Result Have Higher CTR [Study]
Apr 4th
A Google study examining the impact of organic listings on ad click incrementality finds that the click-through rates of ads with associated organic search results are higher and that the CTR increased the higher the organic result was positioned.
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Eye Movement Study Reveals Six Must-Know Things About Facebook Brand Pages
Apr 3rd
The Facebook Timeline that brand pages were forced to switch over to last week is “flawed,” according to an eye movement study of six brand pages by SimpleUsability, with many of the new features going unnoticed or being misunderstood.
“The average user doesn’t fully understand the new layout, or interact with it in the way intended,” said Guy Redwood, managing director of SimpleUsability. “This will likely change over time, but as the mechanics of obtaining ‘Likes’ has become more difficult for brands, they now need to drive engagement more than ever.”
The study tracked user eye movements when visiting the Web-based brand pages of American Express, Pizza Hut, Coca-Cola, Gap, Coldplay and Manchester United. In addition to pointing out problems with brand pages, the study found certain features on the pages as currently designed were more important.
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What follows are the six big takeaways from the study for brands still working on configuring their timelines.
Cover Photos Aren’t As Important As You Think
Facebook has made a point of insisting brands can use their cover photos as opportunities, and a whole cottage industry is springing up on helping companies design cover images. But users in the study either ignored the cover images entirely or disregarded it as “advertising space.”
They also didn’t pay much attention to the profile picture or apps directly beneath a cover page. In most cases, a user’s first action when landing on the page was to scroll down and get themselves oriented with what they were viewing.
Timeline is Actually a Valuable Feature
Timeline’s biggest benefit for brands, according to the study, is the ability to tell a brand’s story. The Timeline design is particularly effective in accomplishing this online, but users also liked the ease of finding the “About” button on brand pages. In many cases, users said it was easier to learn about a brand than it was on a corporate Web site.
The Timeline Only Works if It’s Current
Users got confused if a timeline appeared to be outdated. While there is benefit in going back and filling in a corporate history, most users in the study did not look beyond one month in the Timeline’s reverse chronological hierarchy.
Users Notice When Their Friends “Like” or Interact With a Brand
The best way to get a user to interact with your brand is to get that users’ friends to interact with your brand. Users are more likely to interact with a friends’ comment about a brand that they consider timely.
More Data Needed to Measure the Effectiveness of Pinned Posts
Brands can get around the problems presented by Timeline’s reverse chronological hierarchy by “pinning” a post to the top of their Timeline. But so far, few brands are using the pin feature and, when they do, they have little impact on users, according to SimpleUsability.
Users Rarely, if Ever, Interact With Apps
That could change over time, as users get more familiar with the Timeline layout. But for now, very few users are even noticing the customizable app buttoons. When they do, it’s almost exclusively to look at photos.
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Combining Professional & User-Generated Videos Drives More Sales [Study]
Mar 29th
A new study by comScore and EXPO has found that professionally-produced video content and user-generated product videos are “highly synergistic.” In other words, they drive higher levels of sales effectiveness when used in tandem.
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
