| Searches for 'fuel watch' Surge by 75% |
Melbourne - 22 April 2008 - According to Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, searches for 'fuel watch' increased by 75% comparing weeks ending 12 April 2008 and 19 April 2008. Searches were prompted by the announcement of a national fuel watch scheme starting in December that will publish petrol station prices for the next day online. The scheme aims to maximize transparency in petrol pricing by informing consumers about where the best deals can be found.
The FuelWatch scheme in Western Australia has been cited as a precedent of a successful program. In December 2007 Fuel Watch WA (www.fuelwatch.wa.gov.au) achieved its highest rank over a 36-month period of 15th position in the Hitwise Automotive industry.
Consumer searches have trended strongly over the year, with the term 'fuel watch' increasing more than 5-fold comparing 4 weeks ending 21 April 2007 and 19 April 2008.
There are two predominant household groups with contrasting socio-economic backgrounds likely to visit Fuel Watch WA. Hitwise Lifestyle Mosaic 2008 Groups, "Privileged Prosperity" - the most affluent households in the most desirable locations, and "Family Challenge" - mixed families with stretched budgets in outer suburbs, have the highest representation amongst visits to Fuel Watch WA compared to other segments of the Australian population. This indicates that consumers who spend time searching for the best petrol deals online are amongst both the most affluent and financially stretched consumer groups in Australia.
MotorMouth (www.motormouth.com.au) is another example of a consumer website that monitors and reports fuel prices in Queensland, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. The website has a high representation of visits from Internet users in the ACT, Queensland and South Australia. MotorMouth is under-represented in visits by Internet users in the remaining states, particularly Victoria with a swing against the online population of -12% for the 12 weeks ending 12 April 2008.
Concern about fuel prices was also evident in searches for 'everydayrewards.com.au', an initiative by Woolworths that allows consumers to redeem fuel-saving offers stored electronically on an Everyday Rewards card. According to Hitwise Search Intelligence™ data, 'everydayrewards.com.au' ranked amongst the top 10 fast moving search terms during the 4 weeks ending 12 April 2008. Users in the 55+ age group were the most likely to visit the Woolworths Everyday Rewards website, 33.4% more likely than the population average.
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| Optimise, Don't Spam |
A common mistake made by in-experienced search engine optimisers, is to fill the title tags and meta tags of a web page with as many keywords as they can. While it is important to have your keywords in these tags to help your web page appear more relevant for those terms, having too many can harm your web pages more than you may think.
Google shows up to 65 characters of the <title> tag when users search for a query (this figure currently fluctuates anywhere up to 70 characters).
Example of a spam title tag (over 65 characters):
<title>SEO, Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Optimization, Search Marketing, PPC & Internet Marketing Services & Company in Australia</title>
Having extremely long title and meta tags will reduce the overall keyword density. This means that because you have put so many keywords in your tags, the really important and most relevant terms are diluted by all the other terms. So the search engine may not consider the web page to be as relevant for the terms you really care about.
Another downside is that search engines will identify the web page, or your entire website as containing spam content. Having a huge list of keywords in your title tags, meta tags or any other part of your website does not help users of your website. The major search engines all try to provide users with the best results possible, and if your content does not appeal to users, the search engines will be trying not to show it.
Example of an optimised title tag (under 65 characters):
<title>Search Engine Marketing | PPC & SEO Services in Australia</title>
The message from the major search engines is clear - make your content natural and relevant for the users, not the search engines.
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| Industry Search Terms Report for Entertainment - Nightlife |
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The following report lists the most popular terms typed into a search engine over the 4 weeks ending 12/04/2008 that resulted in traffic to websites classified by Hitwise within the 'Entertainment - Nightlife' industry. For example, the most popular search term was 'ministry of sound' representing 1.59% of all search terms that delivered users to websites classified by Hitwise in the 'Entertainment - Nightlife' industry.
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| 1. |
ministry of sound |
1.59% |
| 2. |
moshtix |
0.89% |
| 3. |
inthemix |
0.74% |
| 4. |
in the mix |
0.72% |
| 5. |
one love |
0.47% |
| 6. |
we love sounds |
0.36% |
| 7. |
heatseeker |
0.32% |
| 8. |
strike bowling |
0.25% |
| 9. |
future entertainment |
0.22% |
| 10. |
metro theatre |
0.21% |
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| The Government Of Tibet In Exile - www.tibet.com |
Traffic to The Government Of Tibet in Exile website (www.tibet.com) has dramatically increased after recent events, jumping in rank from 213 among Lifestyle - Politics websites on 15 March to rank 60 on 12 April.
'Google Australia' (www.google.com.au) was the most popular referrer of traffic for the week ending April 12, providing 34.85% of traffic, followed by Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) with 8.35% and Tibet.org (www.tibet.org) with 5.37%.
During the same period, the most popular search terms driving traffic to the website were 'tibet', followed by 'tibetan flag' and 'dalai lama', accounting for 37.57%, 6.45% and 4.73% respectively.
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| Travel - Transport |
| Businesses which supply transport and related services to individuals including business and holiday travel - car hire, for instance. Airports and boarding facilities are listed here. The data below is based on All sites » Weekly rankings for the week ending 29/03/2008 » Ranks by 'Visits'. |
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| 74.9% |
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of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.
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| 1. |
Computers and Internet |
53.01% |
| 2. |
Search Engines |
35.05% |
| 3. |
Travel |
21.17% |
| 4. |
Transport |
13.86% |
| 5. |
Aviation |
10.09% |
| 6. |
Commercial Airlines |
8.90% |
| 7. |
Business and Finance |
7.93% |
| 8. |
News and Media |
6.14% |
| 9. |
Email Services |
5.95% |
| 10. |
Portal Frontpages |
4.98% |
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| 1. |
Travel |
40.87% |
| 2. |
Transport |
25.14% |
| 3. |
Computers and Internet |
23.65% |
| 4. |
Aviation |
19.77% |
| 5. |
Commercial Airlines |
15.66% |
| 6. |
Business and Finance |
10.99% |
| 7. |
Search Engines |
9.06% |
| 8. |
Shopping and Classifieds |
7.02% |
| 9. |
Agencies |
6.31% |
| 10. |
Government |
4.78% |
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