SEARCH CLINIC

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) will radically increase the number of domain endings from the current 22.The global internet regulating body has voted to allow the creation of completely new website domain suffixes- the biggest change for the online world in years.

Internet address names can now end with almost any word and be in any language.

Icann will begin taking applications next year, with corporations and cities expected to be among the first.

“Icann has opened the internet’s addressing system to the limitless possibilities of the human imagination,” said Rod Beckstrom, president and chief executive officer for Icann.  “No one can predict where this historic decision will take us.”

There will be several hundred new generic top-level domain names (gTLDs), which could include such addresses as .google, .apple, or even .searchclinic.

There are currently 22 gTLDs, as well as about 250 country-level domain names such as .uk or .us.

However the process will not be simple or cheap. It will cost £114,000 to apply for the suffixes, and companies would need to show they have a legitimate claim to the name they are buying.

The vote completes a six year negotiation process and is the biggest change to the system since .com was first introduced 26 years ago.

Icann said it was beginning a global communications programme to raise awareness of the new domain names.

New applications will start on 12 January 2012.

New research has shown the importance of Google’s search results rankings- especially in one of the top three organic positions, as these spots receive 58.4 percent of all clicks from users, according to Optify.
Websites ranked number one received an average click-through rate (CTR) of 36.4 percent; number two had a CTR of 12.5 percent; and number three had a CTR of 9.5 percent. Being number one in Google, according to Optify, is the equivalent of all the traffic going to the sites appearing in the second through fifth positions.

Here’s Optify’s look at Click Through Rates of the top 20 sites’ rankings:
Basically, Optify concludes that moving up to the top spot in Google from second or third could triple visits to your website.

Optify’s study of U.S. Google search engine results pages, conducted in December 2010, analyzed organic keyword visits for B2B and B2C websites. Optify analyzed data from 250 randomly chosen sites and an initial set of 10,000 keywords.

Here are some of Optify’s other findings:

The average CTR on Page 1 of Google was 8.9 percent, but the average CTR on Page 2 was 1.5 percent. Ranking first on Page 2 had a slight benefit over ranking in the last spot on Page 1 (2.6 percent vs. 2.2 percent CTR).

Optify concludes that, because predicting which position your site will appear in Google is basically impossible, your SEO efforts should first focus on getting on Page 1, and then on investing in working your way up to one of the top three spots. Also, ranking beyond Page 2, while good for tracking trends, has almost no business value, Optify noted.

Optify’s study defined head terms as keywords with more than 1,000 monthly Google searches and long tail terms as keywords with less than 100 monthly searches.

Head terms had a higher CTR (32 percent) in the number one position than long tail terms (25 percent). However, long tail terms had a higher overall CTR on Page 1 of Google than head terms (9 percent vs. 4.6 percent).

Optify concluded that you won’t see “huge benefits until you get to the top few positions” with head terms. However, long tail terms can see decent CTR almost anywhere on the first page, though there is less benefit of moving up to higher positions.

Bottom line: let your business goals shape your SEO strategy.

The research was analysed at: Top-Google-Result-Gets-36.4-of-Clicks-Study

Apple, is planning to revolutionise the way people listen to music with the launch of a new online system to be branded the iCloud.
Steve Jobs, the company’s chief executive, is set to unveil a new way for people to access their personal music collection almost anywhere without having to actively download the tracks onto a portable device.

The invention may sound the death knell of the traditional record collection.

Music lovers will no longer have to store their favourite tracks on an iPod or computer.

Instead an Apple database will hold records of individuals’ personal musical tastes allowing users to access the songs at will through the internet.

Similar systems have been launched in recent weeks by Google and Amazon but Apple is said to have secured exclusive deals with the world’s biggest record labels giving its users access a vast catalogue of music.

Under deals reportedly reached late last week, the record labels are expected to get the vast majority of the revenue generated, with Apple taking about 18 per cent.

But the move would further consolidate the company’s dominance if the digital music market.

Users of Apple’s iTunes service will be initially able to use iCloud free of charge but could eventually pay around £15 a month.

Having cornered the online classified search market, Google is now targeting online display advertising.

Google’s vice president of display advertising products Neal Mohan has been tasked with emulating the company’s unrivalled success with online search in the digital display market.

Neal Mohan is known as Google’s $200 (£125) billion man.

The $200bn figure, he says, is a forecast of the potential size the global online display advertising market could reach. He, and the digital display sector – currently worth about £15 billion annually – have a long way to go. But the goal is open.

Broadcasters, print media companies and marketing services groups also have an eye on digital display as a potentially lucrative revenue source to offset declining offline advertising income.

By helping to grow the digital display market, Google would be giving media companies a leg-up as well, he says. “I truly believe that $200bn is the opportunity. We think there is a tremendous opportunity not just for Google but for the [media] industry.”

However, altruism aside, Google has its own obvious motivation for eying up the digital display market. In 2010 Google had revenues of $30 billion (£18 billion), with display estimated to have contributed just $2.5 billion (£1.5 billion).

Last year in the UK, Google’s second largest market, the total display advertising sector grew by a staggering 27.5% year on year to £1bn while search grew just 8%, albeit to £2.35bn, with much of it lining the US company’s pockets.

Enders Analysis reckons that Google UK made £100m in display advertising last year – a small sum compared with total net UK revenues of £1.53bn, but a 65% year-on-year rise.

Mohan, who joined Google in 2008 when it made the $3.1bn acquisition of DoubleClick that marked its entry into the display ad market, argues it can overcome a “big barrier” in the sector to the mutual benefit of all parties.

“The world is extremely fragmented, with the proliferation of devices, mobile apps and websites, there is infinite fragmentation,” he says. “A lot of media dollars are destroyed through fragmentation and inefficiency, there is a lot of wastage and campaigns are less effective. Our approach is how to be an end-to-end platform in the market.”

This potential alternative would draw on Google’s experience with online search – a one-stop digital shop that agencies could use to buy ad space across different devices, in real time, basing their decisions on constant feedback on viewing behaviour.

Speed Kills- so say the road safety brigade, but the adage also applies if you have a slow website.

Recent research published by the Financial Times highlights just how impatient internet shoppers are becoming.

The amount of time customers are prepared to spend waiting for a website to respond to their clicks has reduced significantly over the past few years.

Six years ago in 2005 people would be prepared to wait eight seconds for a retail page to load.

Three years ago this patience had declined to four seconds.

Now forty per cent of people will not wait longer than three seconds and nearly half- 47 per cent expect a website server response in less than two seconds.

It’s not just a slow website which will kill your online marketing.

If you are donating to buy Google shareholders champagne at their AGM aka AdWords pay per click marketing and you have a slow website you are also killing your wallet.

As one of the four key determinant factors that Google use to rank the position of your ads is the download speed of your landing pages which you are trying to drive traffic towards.

You can check the download rate of your website with this free speed checker.

Dr Search summarises by emphasising the adage- because like running a traffic camera your wallet will lose out in the end if you ignore your speedomoter.

The internet now accounts for a quarter of all advertising spending in the UK according to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).
UK online advertising has bucked the recession with strong growth of 12.8% on a like-for-like basis in 2010 to reach a new milestone of £4,097 million, according to the bi-annual advertising spend study from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC.

With total UK advertising spend in 2010 valued at £16.6 billion, this takes the internet’s market share to a record high of 25% (23% in 2009), meaning that £1 in every £4 invested by advertisers is spent online.

These findings demonstrate that, despite the recession, online advertising is in rude health.

Significantly, marketers are increasingly using online channels to drive their brand building campaigns. Consumer goods and retail advertisers increased their investment in online to become two of the top four big spenders in display, capitalising on the medium’s core strengths of reach and engagement as well as accountability.

In 2010 the biggest gain was display advertising, thanks to a nearly 200% surge in display advertising in a social media environment (on a like-for-like basis)* and 91% year-on-year (absolute growth) in video formats. Expenditure on pre-, mid- and post-roll video advertising nearly doubled to £54 million (£28 million in 2009). Overall display grew by more than a quarter (27.5%) on a like-for-like basis to a new high of £945.1 million, representing 23% of total online spend (up from 20% in 2009).

Consumer goods manufacturers became a top three display spender in the first half of 2010 with 12% share, jumping to 13% in the second half. The top spender in online display is finance with 15.2% share, indicating that as the economy recovers, finance brands are seeing their marketing budgets re-emerge. Finance market share has overtaken entertainment and media, which has dipped slightly to a 14% market share.

Paid-search continues to perform strongly with growth of 8% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis to £2,346 million, representing 57% of total online spend (61% in 2009).

Mobile advertising has experienced a staggering 116% year on year growth (on a like for like basis), up from 32% in 2009. Advertisers spent £83 million on mobile advertising in 2010, led by the entertainment and media sector, but with encouraging growth from finance, telecoms and consumer goods advertising.

The UK is still glued to social media– Social networks now account for 25% of the time spent online in the UK. This is reflected in the growth of display advertising spend as brands are able to tap into the social nature of the web.

The research is published at http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/adspendbreaks4billionmilestone280311.mxs

U.K., France, Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands lead in retail website visits and activities
In January 2011, 270.6 million unique visitors in Europe visited sites in the retail category, representing a market penetration of 74.5 percent of Internet users, up 8.5 percentage points versus last year.

Retail sites also showed high penetration in individual markets, reaching at least 75 percent of the total online audience in 7 out of 18 European markets. In 2010, approximately one out of every ten Internet sessions in Europe included a visit to a retail site.

Retail penetration in Europe
In the United Kingdom, the Retail category reached 89.4 percent of the total online audience (up 6.3 points from last year), the highest penetration of any European market.

France ranked second with a reach of 87 percent (up 10.5 points), followed by Germany at 82.1 percent (up 9.0 points).

Ireland and the Netherlands round out the list of markets with highest penetration, with Retail reaching 80.7 percent in Ireland (up 15.8 percentage points) and 80.2 percent in the Netherlands (up 4.9 percentage points).

Ireland and Russia experienced the highest growth in Retail penetration in Europe, with both markets posting gains of 15.8 percentage points.

With 40.6 million visitors coming to retail sites in January, Germany remains the largest European market for this category, followed by France and the U.K. with 36.6 million visitors and 34.6 million visitors, respectively.

Reach of Retail Sites in European Countries
January 2010 vs. January 2011

Percent Reach of Internet Users
Jan-2010     Jan-2011     Point Change
Europe                              66.0%            74.5%             8.5
United Kingdom                83.2%            89.4%             6.3
France                              76.4%            87.0%          10.5
Germany                          73.1%             82.1%            9.0
Ireland                             64.9%            80.7%          15.8
Netherlands                      75.3%            80.2%            4.9
Spain                                68.4%            76.7%            8.3
Denmark                           68.2%             75.1%            7.0
Sweden                            73.8%            73.6%          -0.2
Norway                            66.7%            73.4%            6.7
Belgium                            71.7%            73.3%            1.6
Switzerland                      70.3%            73.2%            2.9
Poland                              N/A                72.4%           N/A
Austria                              61.3%           71.4%           10.1
Italy                                  67.4%             69.5%           2.1
Finland                             63.8%             66.5%           2.7
Portugal                           60.2%             65.9%            5.7
Russian Federation          43.1%         59.0%           15.8

In January 2011, visitors from the U.K. led in engagement with the Retail category, with an average of 84.1 minutes spent on retail sites. France followed closely with an average of 83.2 minutes, with Turkish visitors coming in next at 73.0 minutes.

Across the board, Europeans spent a collective average of 52.4 minutes, or a little under an hour per visitor, on retail sites in January.

Top Retail Categories in Europe
Within the Retail category, the subcategory with the highest market penetration was Comparison Shopping, which reached 31.6 percent of the European market in January 2011, buoyed by Bing Ciao and Shopzilla Sites. Apparel ranked second with a 28.4-percent reach, followed by Consumer Electronics with a 27.1-percent reach.

Ranking the subcategories by engagement, Apparel sites ranked first, with European shoppers spending an average of 23.3 minutes on these sites in January. Apparel sites also had the highest percentage of page views within the Retail category, accounting for 21.6 percent of Retail pages viewed that month.
Top Retail Categories in Europe by Percent Reach
January 2011
Age 15+ – Home and Work Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Category     % Reach     Average Minutes per Visitor
Comparison Shopping     31.6%     5.9
Apparel     28.4%     23.3
Consumer Electronics     27.1%     14.1
Computer Hardware     20.2%     17.4
Computer Software     15.9%     6.3

The research was complied by comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world.
http://www.comscore.com/Retail_Websites_Now_Reach_75_Percent_of_European_Internet_Audience_Each_Month

The sharp drop at MySpace follows a further round of major redundancies at the start of 2011 and the continued growth of Facebook, which now has 30 million registered users in the UK.According to the latest comScore figures, Rupert Murdock’s MySpace lost 10 million unique users between January and February of this year, going from 73 million to 63 million in a matter of four weeks.

This time last year, when site began the first in a series of major relaunches, MySpace attracted 95 million unique users.

Parent company News Corporation is reportedly still trying to offload the ailing social network – which had hopes to reinvent itself through its streaming service, MySpace Music and its renewed focus on entertainment content.

At the start of the year Mike Jones, MySpace’s chief executive announced that the company was making 500 staff members redundant and slashing its international operation to a skeleton staff.

The site, which is owned by News Corporation, has been struggling to keep up with Facebook for the last two years.

However, despite having made a major round of redundancies last year, which saw its US workforce reduced by 400 jobs to around 1,000 and its international operation reduced from 450 to 150 personnel, more cost cutting has been needed to make up for its big financial losses.

The troubled site, which saw its UK audience halve to 3.3 million monthly visitors in July 2010, is pinning its hopes of renewed success with a return to its music and content roots.

News Corporation bought MySpace for £373 million in 2008. The website was briefly valued at £7.7 billion when News Corp attempted to merge it with Yahoo in 2007, but it’s value- as well as it’s traffic has been heading south ever since.

There are  a number of ways of using Twitter to maximise traffic and revenue for your website. As Google and Bing now count tweets, Facebook posts, and other social media activity in their search results, search engine optimisation is more important than ever.

Your profile is the starting point to any successful profile.

Firstly register an account using your most important keyword phrase. For example the Search Clinic has two Twitter accounts: http://twitter.com/searchclinic and http://twitter.com/seo_services_

Then use as many keywords as possible, because when a Twitter profile shows up in search results, Google may use the bio portion of the profile for the description.

Hashtags (#) are an easy way to implement keywords.

Marketing campaigns now create customized keywords for events and many people add keywords at the end of their tweet.

This is useful when the blog title or content you are sharing doesn’t list any relevant topic keywords.

Including hashtags that are broader and name the industry may make tweets easier to find. Additionally, naming specifics as hashtags in generic titles can also help.

Try to choose hashtags that are the most important keywords in the tweet and overall content that is being promoted. Hashtags make it easy to search by topic and will increase search result frequency and relevancy to the target audience.

Twitter had its fifth birthday yesterday- 21 st March 2011.And in it’s five years it has helped to transform the world- with it’s simple communications channel being cited by the protesters in Egypt leading to the overthrow of President Mubarak and the subsequent political reformation.

Since its first ever tweet by co-founder Jack Dorsey in 2006 (“Just setting up my twttr”) the social media website has grown to become one of the most important online marketing and communications tools of a generation – which many people claim is second only to Facebook.

It now hosts more than 1 billion tweets a week and is estimated to be worth around £6 billion.

Dr Search recounts some of the landmarks in its five year history:
* March 2006 First tweet posted by co-founder Jack Dorsey
* November 2008 Barack Obama thanks supporters via Twitter after winning the US presidential election.
* January 2009 Twitter users break news about a plane crash landing in New York’s Hudson River, with pictures.
* April 2009 Universal Pictures, Virgin Media and Gorrilaz among first brands to launch commercial services on the site.
* June 2009 Showbiz website TMZ breaks story about Michael Jackson’s death on Twitter.
* September 2010 Twitter receives more UK visits than MySpace for the first time.
* September 2010 Twitter overhauls home page design and partners with YouTube, Yahoo! and Flickr to embed content on site.
* October 2010 Dick Costolo replaces co-founder Evan Williams as CEO.
* December 2010 Twitter valued at £2.3 billion after fresh investment.
* December 2010 Twitter says more than 25 billion tweets were sent in 2010.
* January 2011 Over 40% of all Twitter posts are made by a mobile phone, says Costolo.
* February 2011 Costolo says Twitter is “already making money”.
* February 2011 Charlie Sheen becomes the quickest tweeter to reach 1 million followers (achieving this in 25 hours, 17 minutes).