Recommendations from people I know	92%
Consumer options posted online	72%
Editorial content such as a newspaper article	70%
Brand Websites	69%
Emails I signed up for	67%
Ads in newspaper	66%
Brand sponsorships	62%
Ads in magazines	62%
Ads on TV	61%
Ads on radio	61%
Ads before movies	53%
Billboards and outdoor advertising	53%
Ads served on Search Engine results	37%
Online video ads	33%
Online banner ads	24%
Text ads on a mobile phone	18%

Note: *participants responded that they trusted each tactic "completely" or "somewhat".
Source: Nielsen Online, "Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey," July 2009

According to research conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation and Yesmail, 27% of online shoppers who plan to both research and buy holiday gifts online this year will look for ideas about what friends and family want on sites such as Facebook. And nearly one-half (45%) will use social networks to research items, compare prices and look for offers.

About one-fifth of online holiday buyers are specifically looking to social networks for exclusive deals or free shipping.

Deloitte found that, overall, 17% of consumers would use social media during their holiday shopping. Just over one-half of that group was ages 18 to 29. 

Sixty percent of consumers who plan to use social media in their holiday shopping will be looking for discounts, coupons and sales, according to Deloitte, while just over one-half will research gift ideas and check out friends’ and family members’ wish lists.

Find discounts, coupons and sale information	60%
Research gift ideas	53%
Check the gift wish lists of friends and family	52%

Source: Delotte, "Annual Holiday Survey" as cited in press release, November 11, 2009

As a business owner of an e-commerce site, we want to believe that if we build our online store they will buy.  According to the latest statitics, more site visitors are putting information gathering at the top of their 'purchase funnel'.  Below are the top reasons Internet users visit e-commerce websites.

	April-June 2009
Learn / Information Gathering	38.6%%
Shop	21.9%%
Buy	17.2%%
Support	13.9%%
Other	8.4%%

Source: iPerceptions, "Retail/E-Commerce Industry Report Q2 2009" October 2009

Below are the locations/situations where US Social Media Users say they have accessed social media via Twitter - August 2009.

	August 2009
During work hours	56%
From the washroom/toilet	17%
While driving	11%
During class/lecture	9%
During live theatre performance	8%
During religious service	3%

Source: Crowd Science, "Social Media Insights: Twitter" September 4, 2009

Below are the top 5 Social Networking sites amoung US Internet Users...Ranked by Market Share of Visits for September 2008 vs September 2009

	September 2008	September 2009
Facebook	19.94%	58.59%
Myspace	66.84%	30.26%
Tagged	1.62%	2.38%
Twitter	0.15%	1.84%
myYearbook	1.76%	1.05%

Source: Experian Hitwise as cited in press release, October 9, 2009

What do industry giants like Disney, Microsoft, Intel, and American Express have in common?  They've all sought out the expertise of the "master of targeted opt-in e-mail," Jonathan Mizel!  Now you can, too!

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Ahhhh, warm weather is finally here. Let's say you decide you want to buy a pool. So you head to your computer, navigate over to www.google.com, type in the search box something like "pool nashville" (or whatever you local city is) and hit your Enter key. Presto! A whole list of local pool dealers in the Nashville area appears. Or maybe you wanted to be more specific. This time you type in pool with jacuzzi nashville. This yields a list of dealers in your area that specialize in pools with jacuzzis. These words that you entered to perform your search are called keywords or keyword phrases.

Keywords and keyword phrases are how people find your website when they go to a Search Engine. Which keywords you choose for your website will determine how well your pages do in the major search engines. One of the key areas for placing keywords is in Meta Tags. Your vistors will never see these tags on your site - Meta tags are only visible in the code. They contain specific commands and information, and keywords are one type of information you can place in Meta Tags.

Have you ever wondered why some web pages get higher search engine rankings than others? We want to let you in on 10 secrets used to help get web pages to rank high in the search engines.

10 Rules for using Keywords and Meta Tags

1. Use the right amount of words for a particular type of page. For instance, Service/Product Pages should be between 500 and 750 words. Article Pages should be at least 1000 words and not more than 5000 words.

With a Service/Product Page, all you are trying to do is sell a service or product. Visitors that make it to these pages probably already know what they are looking for. Your job is to convince them that your product is the right one.

If you have a really good article on your page, most people will read all the way through it. If not they are off to the next website in a flash. If you have more than 2000 words you may want to consider breaking the article into 2 pages.

2. Focus your page names on your primary keyword (the first one). You want your primary keyword to be an exact match with the file name of your page. This lets the search engines match up your keyword with your page and give your page higher relevancy.

3. Use only 5 keywords or keyword phrases in your meta keywords tag. Any more than that and the search engines might think you are keyword spamming and won't list your page. The search engines rank your keywords in the order that they appear. This makes the first one the primary keyword and the second one a secondary keyword and so on. You should line your keywords up in the order of relevance to the page.

4. Use all of your keywords in your meta description, with the primary keyword as close to the front as possible. The search engines don't read your description verbatim, but can find and match them with your keyword list. So try to use them all but don't repeat them if at all possible. If your meta description repeats your keywords too often the search engines might think you are keyword spamming and not list your page at all.

5. Meta Description should be between 100 and 200 characters. It is important to get a solid description of your page. Less that 100 characters and the search engine may not find it relevant enough to list. More than 200 characters and the search engines may truncate it. Truncated meta descriptions may leave searchers with the impression that your content will be too wordy. Too short a description and your visitors may think there is not enough information on your page and move on to the next result.

6. Line up your Keywords to resemble a sentence. Although search engines don't read your keywords as a sentence verbatim, it should reflect well what your page is all about.

7. Proofread your content twice. You need to look for things like spelling, grammar, placement and paragraph distribution. Once your page looks great, proofread it again with your focus on keyword placement and repetition. You want your keywords placed in your content sparingly. Over use of your keywords might result in the search engines thinking you are keyword spamming. We recommend 3 uses of a keyword for every 300 words. This lets the search engines know that there is a lot of supporting content for the keyword.

Once you feel your page looks great, have someone else proof read it. You’ll be amazed what others see that you’ve overlooked.

8. Put your Meta Description all on one line in your html code. This will ensure that the search engines reads it all. We have seen that some search engine results leave off the second line of a description. That may leave out some of your meta keywords if that happens.

9. Never use more than 4 words for your primary keyword and file name. People rarely search for a keyword phrase over 4 words long. Too many words in a keyword phrase and the search engines may not find enough relevancy to list your page in the results. Two words in a keyword phrase (and file name) is ideal.

10. Use your primary keyword in the first and last paragraph of your page. The search engines will give more relevancy to your page if they find your keywords at the beginning and the end of your page. Also your primary keyword should appear in the first 90 characters of your content.

As a business owner, you want to know where your clients are coming from, what they are looking for, and how long it takes to find you.  It is vitally as important that you know these same things about your website.  There are numerous paid services out there to track your site visitors, but we'd like to tell you about one that's available for FREE – Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is a service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website.  You can track everything from how many visitors you have to your site, the sites that referred them, and what they looked at once they got to your site.  If you are currently marketing your site, you can see patterns to know what’s working and what needs to be tweaked.  You can see the keywords people are using to find you so you can make necessary adjustments to your SEO campaign.

Everything you need to effectively market your website, is right there at your fingertips – for free.

We’d like to give you a grand tour of Google Analytics.  If On Digital Ground built your website, it’s likely that your site has Google Analytics built into it already.  During this free webinar, we’ll show you how to use this tool to take your business to the next level.  So, join us for some hands-on training.

Thursday – April 23 – 10am CST

Click here to sign-up...