Category: Website Stats

More interesting research is out this week, once again from Hitwise. It shows the continuing growth in traffic of Twitter. UK visits to the micro-blogging service have gone up 6 times this year, and are up an amazing 32 times between March 2008 and 2009.

Here’s a nice graph:

This is despite the fact that other research has found that 60% of Twitter users leave in the first month.

Twitter has now entered the top 50 websites in the UK, outranking major players such as he Daily Mail, RightMove, MSN UK Search, Directgov, and all retail websites – with the exception of eBay, Amazon UK, Play.com and Argos.

Even though it has had such strong growth, Twitter is still only ranks the 5th most popular social networking site.

But where is the traffic coming from? Its perhaps an indication of the increasing interconnectedness of social networking platforms, that Twitter’s largest source of traffic is actually Facebook, which makes up almost 20% of all its’ visits. Its possible to ‘tweet’ from your Facebook page, and you can also update your Facebook status from twitter too.

But once people arrive on Twitter, they’re also following links they find there in order to move on: twitter is the 36th biggest source of traffic to other UK websites.

The top four downstream categories of websites from Twitter are Entertainment, Social Networks, News & Media and Lifestyle.

Are you tweeting? Do you want to follow WebEden on twitter? Do you see the point? Leave us a comment below.

Last month saw the controversial launch of Google Street View. But whatever your view of the privacy issue, there’s no doubt it has been a source of increased interest in Google maps. Since the launch on the 19th March, traffic has gone up by a whopping 41%, making Google maps the 20th most visited site in the UK.

The amount of time people spent on the Google maps also went up. ‘Time on site’ is a good measure of whether or not people like what they find on a website, and want to engage with it. Average ‘time on site’ for an informational site like Google maps is usually around 2 to 3 minutes. Following the launch, average ‘time on site’ jumped from an already strong 5 min 28 secs to 7 min 6 secs.

All data is thanks to Hitwise UK.

Here’s a graph showing the increase in traffic:

So for Google, was it really worth all the negative publicity? I think the numbers speak for themselves. But what do you think?

Hitwise, the online traffic measurement company, has produced some new research indicating that visitors to online retailers dropped for the first time in the month of March.

In the UK 8.6% of all Internet visits were to online retailers, as opposed to 9.7% for the same month in 2008.

Whilst it’s normal to see a traffic drop in this sector in Jan and Feb, which follows the retailing binge of Christmas, March normally shows a healthy bounce back in traffic.

According to the research, the traffic dropped as consumers adapted their shopping behaviour to the global recession. Since more people are feeling the pinch, they decided to spend less time shopping and more time doing other things.

So if overall traffic to online retailers is down, which traffic source specifically is in decline?

Paid search traffic dropped from 28% to 23% of the total, compared to a year earlier, which shows that online retailers are investing less of their revenues back into pay per click search marketing.

Since overall Internet traffic hasn’t declined, what are people doing instead? Well one beneficiary of the change in behaviour are social networking sites, which took an unprecedented 9.8% of all visits in the same month.

Hitwise director Robin Goad said: “The growth of social networking, online video and the continuing popularity of news websites has meant that an increasing proportion of consumers’ online time in the UK has been devoted to online media.”

Do you sell products on your website? Have you seen a traffic drop in March? And as a consumer do you think you’re shopping online a bit less that you used to? Leave us a comment below.

There’s some interesting research out this week from Nielsen Online, a website monitoring firm.

According to them, most people who join Twitter don’t stick around: they leave inside the first 30 days, never to return.

Twitter is undoubtedly the Internet phenomenon of 2009, thanks in part to celebrity twitterers Barack Obama, Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross. But as 60% of people move on in such a short space of time, is it a case of ‘tweet today, gone tomorrow’?

It highlights a problem that Twitter has, and raises a question of the micro-blogging service, namely: What’s the point? This is certainly a view shared by other WebEden users after we announced WebEden had joined Twitter a couple of months ago.

“Twitter faces an uphill battle in making sure these flocks of new users are enticed to return to the nest.” said David Martin of Nielsen Online.

However there may be light at the end of the twunnel (!) The retention rate for those people who are coming back the following month is actually going up – from 30% to 40%. That’s still way down on the 70% enjoyed by services like Facebook and Myspace, but its going in the right direction.

“To be clear, a high retention rate doesn’t guarantee a massive audience, but it is a prerequisite. There simply aren’t enough new users to make up for defecting ones after a certain point,” Martin added.

For our part, Twitter seems like a great service if you are a complete fan of someone, a band or a company, and you want to have a personalised dialogue with them. But as far as we can see, Twitter is just being jumped on by companies looking for a cheap way to reach new customers. And there’s an awful lot of tweeting going on, but is anyone actually reading those tweets?

If you fancy getting involved you can always follow WebEden on twitter.

Do you see any point? Leave us a comment below.

Building a website feels like a non-harmful activity doesn’t it? You’re doing something creative, pulling in your ideas, and thinking about things.

Unfortunately, there is an energy cost for everything to do with the Internet. Quite apart from the energy that your own PC or Mac uses, there is of course the servers that you connect to on the Internet.

Every website and web based application sits on a server in a data centre somewhere. (A data centre is basically a large room or warehouse with racks and racks of servers, and a very fast Internet connection). Not only do servers consume a lot of energy themselves, they also require lots of other supporting equipment, such as air conditioning. And of course they’re on 24/7. It was recently claimed that every Google search uses as much energy as boiling a kettle.

Whilst that myth was dispelled, there’s no doubt that web based activities require a lot of energy – in fact recent estimates say that the Internet uses up to 5% of all the world’s electricity.

In fact, some of the biggest Internet firms use eye-watering amounts of servers and power.
 
Google itself is said to have between 35 and 40 data centres with around 1 million servers. Whilst we don’t know how many Microsoft have, they are said to be increasing their servers by around 20,000 per month.

The more servers you put in a data centre, and the more densely you pack them, the more air conditioning you need to keep everything the right temperature. The amount of energy a large data centre (DC) needs is equivalent to that of an aluminium smelter. Microsoft have just completed a $500m DC near Chicago requires three electricity sub stations to keep it going.

Such are the cooling needs of large data centres that their location is now almost always decided by a source of cheap power. This is why so many locate next to the Columbia River, whose flowing water can be used as a source of power and cooling.

In what is a logical next step, Microsoft itself is scouting locations in Siberia so it can make use of the freezing temperatures. And maybe now due to its banking collapse, Iceland is marketing itself as perfect DC country due to its geothermal energy supply and a chilly clime.

WebEden for its part is run on servers located in a data centre in Paris. Not much chance of help from the weather there! And in terms of environmental impact, we offset the carbon emissions from the energy used by all WebEden websites using COCO2 carbon offset system.

Does any of this change the amount of time you want to spend online or building a website? Leave us a comment below.

Hitwise UK produced some research at the back of last year that broke down Internet use in the UK by city, county and region.

I’m not sure if you’ll be surprised by this – I certainly was – but the data indicates that people living in the country spend more time online than their urban counterparts. The activities that they out-participate city dwellers in are online shopping and social networking.

I had always made the assumption that people living in cities would spend more time online. First of all, I thought that ‘new’ things came to cities first, and whilst the Internet isn’t new then at least urban people would have had a head start in all things ‘online’. Also people living in cities are exposed to a lot more advertising (free newspapers, public transport, outdoor). And since advertising is often packed with technology – the UK’s biggest advertisers are often technology companies such as telecoms giants – that this would drive greater use. Then last of all is the physical reality of getting a broadband connection. If you live in the city you’ve got the option of adsl, fibre, free wi-fi or 3G, Not many rural places can boast all of those.

Hitwise analysed user behaviour for a four week period and found that city populations were least likely to visit an online retailer, whilst those in Wales and the South West showed the greatest propensity. And when it came to social networking, London was the most under-represented. The keenest social networkers were residents of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.

On reflection, this sort-of fits. People living in cities live right by shops, so why bother shopping online? And in living in proximity to so many people, maybe they’re less keen to socialise online too? There’s no doubt that city people keep longer work hours, so maybe it just comes down to a plain old lack of time.

What does this research mean if you’re building a website? Well I’m not sure I can find anything for you. I would love to be able to deliver an easy conclusion; for example, make your shopping site appeal to the sensibilities of a villager. But what are those sensibilities? I’m sure I could only come up with a few stereotypes.

Of course, whilst the urban population might be under represented as website visitors, they still outnumber rural dwellers by a huge margin. So like it or not: your website visitors will still most likely be living in a town or city.

Are you just targeting one or other group? How has that influenced your web design? Leave us a comment below.

Here in the UK we’ve long since got used to the dominance of Google in all things search engine related. With Google powering around 85% of UK search queries, there’s no doubt about the love we Brits have for the big ‘G’.

In the US its been a bit of a different story. Yahoo has long been the homepage of choice for web users, and has therefore also been in control of much more of the searches that people carry out.

Yet Google continues to erode that market, and research out this week by Hitwise, as reported over on Search Engine Land, underlines the increasing dominance of Google in the US search market.

In March, Google’s market share rose to 72.39%, up from 72.11% in February. Both Yahoo and  Microsoft Live Search saw declines. Comparing the numbers annually, Google is up 8% over March 2008 whilst while Yahoo and Live Search are down 19% and 17%, respectively.

And as for Ask.com, they increased 8% between February and March, but with such a small market share any change looks significant for them.

Here’s a table that splits it all out:

Which search engine do you favour as a website builder, and why? Do I really need to ask?!

Here’s a good news economic story to cheer up Alistair Darling.

And good news for website builders in the midst of this recession. Whilst the national news rakes over the budget and  talks of doom and gloom, of industries and sectors in decline with thousands being made redundant, online advertising still growing. Whilst advertising is just one way that online businesses make money, its continued growth can provide cheer to any in the sector.

The figures this time, as reported on Search Engine Land, are from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB). They say that in 2008, online advertising grew 10.6% to reach $23.4 billion. Within online advertising, the niche showing highest growth is search engine advertising, which now makes up 46% of the sector.

These graphs tell the story visually. First off, the annual growth of online advertising from 2007 to 2008.

And here’s the same info going back a bit further, check out that growth!

Of course online advertising can mean lots of different things: it could be search engine, banners advertising, or any other commercial messages which you see on a website. So where is the money spent?

So one thing is clear: If you’re building a website, and business model involves selling advertising, then there are plenty of reasons to feel positive!

How has the downturn affected your business, revenue, or even website traffic? Leave us a comment below.

Search queries – the words that we type into the search box on Google (or Yahoo, or MSN) – are getting longer, according to research from Hitwise.

Whilst this data is US specific, the same factors apply here in the UK.

In previous years the vast majority of searches were single, two or sometimes three word combinations. These days searches of four words and up are on the rise. In fact, more than 50% of searches are now at least three words long. And a third are four words or longer.

Here’s the table:

From this, you can see that 1 and 2 word queries are actually becoming less common.

Hitwise say the trend for longer search queries is ever increasing. These longer search queries are often referred to as the ‘long tail’ of search terms.

What does this mean if you’re building a website? At the most basic level, people using search engines are getting a lot more specific about what they’re looking for. This is possibly because Google is getting better at delivering results that are more relevant to them.

This has a significant impact in terms of both your Search Engine Optimisation efforts and also your Pay Per Click activities. (We’ll be producing a Pay Per Click guide soon – so keep reading).

The main action you need to take is to make sure your website is optimised for keywords that are very specific to your business. People who are using very specific (and therefore longer) search queries are more likely to carry out an action when they arrive on your site. They have a clearer idea of what they want, have moved along from the ‘research’ phase of their searching, and are ready to take the next step. If they find what they want on your website then they will buy / leave their details / make an enquiry.

For example, a few years ago if you ran a bed and breakfast in Somerset you might have wanted to focus your efforts on keywords such as ‘b&b’, bed and breakfast’, ‘West country.’. When your website popped up in the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs) you would have had to rely on those people who were looking for a B&B in the West Country to pick out your website.  These days it might make more sense to look at longer tail keywords such as ‘b&b exmoor’, ‘cheap b&b somerset’, or even (and of course only if its relevant), ‘award winning bed and breakfast near horse riding’.

Whilst the number of visitors won’t be huge, those that do arrive your website will be highly relevant to your site, and therefore more likely to carry out an action when they get there.

Have you had any direct experience of changing your keywords that you can feedback to other readers? Leave us a comment below.

One of the most interesting – and important – bits of information to find out about your website is how many visits it receives. Within the WebEden website making system there is a really simple tool called Sitecounter that lets you do this. Sitecounter also displays the number of visits a website has recieved to all those people visiting it. You can add Sitecounter to your website in just a few moments. Follow the instructions below:

Have a go adding a Sitecounter and leave us a comment