E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0980 May 23, 2006
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem at gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
----------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] Search Engine Algorithms
[3] Fighting High Gas Prices
[4] Art, Wall Decor, Picture Frame and Custom Framing Markets
---------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Greetings.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Hi All:
Remember the old days when we used all kinds of tricks to fool the
search engines - like white on white lettering, words on a page that
were meaningless, links to/from the site, etc. Well things have
changed. Now search engine engineers use human logic to work, if you
can believe they could copy the human brain. Check out 2 below to learn more.
If your store is suffering from loss of business due to high gas
prices, i.e., people don't want to drive as much now, then you need
to see the tips on dealing with high gas prices. Interesting links.
Pam Danziger is doing a new study on Art, Wall Decor, Picture Frame
and Custom Framing Markets. If you are in that arena, you may want
to sponsor part of the study. Unity Marketing studies are always first class.
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, LLC
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
----------------------------------------------------------------
[2] Search Engine Algorithms
----------------------------------------------------------------
Jennifer Laycock is Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Guide, an
industry site focused on helping small business owners understand the
ins and outs of search engine marketing. She also serves as
Administrator of the Small Business Ideas forum, where small business
owners come together to exchange ideas.
She wrote an excellent article on understanding how search engines
now operate.
Originally, search engines focused on mathematical formulas. What
percentage of a page was a keyword or phrase? How many links does a
site have? Where on the page does a keyword appear? What shows up in
the Meta Tags? The problem with mathematical formulas is that they
can be deciphered and they can be cheated. The proper keyword density
could be reached even if every other word on the page was garbage.
Links could be purchased or traded for with sites that had nothing to
do with each other. In other words, you could meet all the criteria
without having a very "good" site.
Then came linking. Search engine engineers discovered that if they
looked at not just how many links pointed to a site, but also at
where those links came from, what the content of those sites was and
even how many links pointed to those sites, they could start to make
a better judgement about the quality of those links (or votes). At
the same time, search engines realized that they could tell if a link
was a one way link or a reciprocal link and made the obvious
judgement that a one way link probably made up a bigger vote of
confidence than a traded link did. In other words, search engines
started to "learn" how to make judgements more like a human does,
which made for better search results.
Moving forward, the same is and will hold true for things like
keyword placement and copy writing. With more focus on the long tail
effect, the shift toward search engine copy writing with a more
natural language style is really coming into play. Add in latent
semantic indexing and search engines will continue to improve in
their ability to read and judge copy like a human. Ultimately, search
engines want to be able to read the content on your page in a way
that lets them understand that an "automobile" a "car" and a "Volvo"
are all related.
This is why it's becoming important for search engine marketers to
understand concepts like usability, accessibility and even user
intent when they are developing pages. While many within the industry
have long talked about the need to create pages that are 'search
engine friendly' instead of 'search engine optimized' the day really
is coming where web site owners will find themselves learning to
shift their focus from algorithmic math to creating a strong user
experience on a search engine friendly web site.
Details at...
http://smallbusiness.miva.com/resources/best/seo/algorithms.html
----------------------------------------------------------------
[3] Fighting High Gas Prices
----------------------------------------------------------------
For those of us who may be losing sales because customers don't want
to drive any more than they have to, you may want to post this to the
door of your store. While we can't bring down the skyrocketing price
of gas, these can help you find the lowest gas prices in your area,
improve your fuel economy, and learn other ways of combating higher
fuel costs. Our thanks to Earthlink newsletter form providing this
information.
As an aside, my wife owned a Jag and after one year, she decided that
the cost of operating was a bit too much (lousy gas mileage and the
need to high test). So she traded it in for a Honda hybrid and now
gets 45 MPG (more, yes more, if city driving). Her weekly gas bills
went from $70 to $20.
1. Find the cheapest gas prices near you. http://gasbuddy.com/
2. See which cars are the most (and least) fuel efficient.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bestworst.shtml
3. Need a big car? See the most fuel-efficient SUVs.
http://www.autobytel.com/content/shared/articles/templates/index.cfm/article_id_int/148
4. Hybrid cars are hot. Learn all about hybrid vehicles.
http://www.autobytel.com/content/research/channels/index.cfm/channel/Hybrid
5. Learn about tax incentives for qualifying hybrids.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/tax_hybrid_new.shtml
6. Why is it so #@%! expensive? Here's a quick primer on how gas
prices work. http://money.howstuffworks.com/gas-price.htm
7. Find out about fuel economy from the U.S. Dept. of Energy and the
EPA. http://www.fueleconomy.gov/
8. See how you can avoid traffic and burn less gas. http://www.traffic.com/
9. Here are 13 ways to improve your gas mileage
http://www.autobytel.com/content/shared/articles/templates/index.cfm/article_page_order_int/2/article_id_int/890
George
----------------------------------------------------------------
[4] Art, Wall Decor, Picture Frame and Custom Framing Markets
----------------------------------------------------------------
In 2005 the typical luxury consumer's spending on art and antiques
declined by nearly 40 percent, down from an average of $14,671 in
2004 to $8,962 in 2005. Because the luxury consumers (household
incomes of $75,000 and above) represent the primary market for
today's art and framing marketers and retailers, Unity Marketing is
undertaking a new consumer insights study to discover how the total
market for art and framing is changing in light of emerging
competition for consumers' discretionary spending.
The traditional market for art is shifting as consumers find better
quality art reproductions more widely available in home furnishing
and discount department stores at very attractive prices. On the
other hand, affluent consumers are trading up to original art from
cheaper reproductions, as they view the art they display on their
walls as a collection, rather than simply decoration.
In the world of custom framing, new competitive pressures are also at
work. Craft and hobby stores have encroached upon the lucrative
custom framing market with a vengeance. They offer discount prices
for custom framing services that consumers perceive as too expensive
in the small 'mom-and-pop' custom framing stores that used to
dominate the business. Further, ready-made frames in an expanded
range of sizes and designs are giving consumers' permission to
do-it-themselves.
All these factors are coming together to make the business of selling
art reproductions and custom framing more challenging. Unity
Marketing plans on conducting a new consumer insights study to
understand the new trends in this market and is calling for companies
to sponsor this important research study.
For more information, click this link:
http://www.unitymarketingonline.com/reports2/art/art_insights_reg.html
Methodology
A quantitative survey among 1,000 recent purchasers of art, wall
decor, frames and custom framing will be conducted. The sample will
be selected to be representative of the U.S. population in terms of
income, age and gender.
Research sponsors will provide input for topics of investigation in
the survey and review the survey questionnaire prior to
fielding. Their key product categories will be included in the
survey questionnaire, as will their brands and key competitors'
brands in the brand awareness and usage section of the survey.
Upon completion of the survey fielding, sponsors will receive a
topline summary of the major findings which will include a cross tab
report of all questions reported by gender, age, generation, and income.
Sponsors will also receive a final copy of the Art, Wall Decor, Frame
and Custom Framing Report as soon as it is published.
Unity plans to conduct the research and publish the report during
June-August 2006.
Pam Danziger,
President
Unity Marketing
717-336-1600
----------------------------------------------------------------
Links to follow
----------------------------------------------------------------
GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.gapent.com/
E-Tailer's Digest http://www.etailersdigest.com
Interim Help http://interimhelp.com
Sophisticated Me http://sophisticatedme.com/
Marketing Your Web http://www.gapent.com/myweb/
Automated Press Releases http://www.automatedpr.com