| Australians Finding Online Government Services More Useful |
According to Hitwise, government website visits were up 10.4% year-on-year in March 2009. Australian visits to government websites also outstripped US and UK usage in their respective markets in March 2009.
However, Government agencies need to ensure that the Online delivery of their services is meeting the needs of the community, particularly as the Internet becomes a primary point of contact between organisations and users.
As times get tough during the economic downturn, government will play an increasingly important role in providing vital services to the community. The effective delivery of these services through the online channel can result in cost-savings for government and potentially improve community well-being.
Some key findings from the recent Hitwise Online Government report include:
- Government Agencies should benchmark their websites against similar departments and industry players. The Bureau of Meteorology was the leading Government - National website with an overwhelming 44.8% share of visits in March 2009, and was also the leading News and Media website ahead of major publishers.
- Search Engine Optimisation should be used by government websites to compete effectively with the commercial sector. Searches around the Victorian bushfires demonstrate that the community was more likely to turn to News and Media websites than Online government services for vital updates, appeal information, and education around bushfire safety.
- Social Media can be used by government to connect with a broad spectrum of the community. Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Wikipedia all ranked amongst the top websites visited by Australians in March 2009, with each network displaying different audience strengths.
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| Hitwise Launches Internet Measurement Service for Canada |
Hitwise recently announced plans to measure Internet usage in Canada. Hitwise will report on 85,000 Websites across more than 160 industry categories based on the Internet activity of 100,000 Canadian Internet users from all provinces and territories. The Hitwise Canadian data sample comes from partnerships with Internet Service Providers and opt-in panels.
"In order to grow and protect market share, businesses must have sound data to base decisions on," said Chris Maher, president of Hitwise. "Hitwise provides the most timely and comprehensive intelligence about Internet usage and will now help marketers better understand the specifics of the Canadian market. And as in all our markets, Hitwise clients will receive the service and support they need to go beyond the data, take action and generate immediate return."
The Canadian service will provide clients with data on Web sites traffic rankings, clickstream, search terms and demographic segmentation. Clients also will have access to additional tools to create custom categories, search term portfolios and customised dashboards.
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| Uncover Underutilised Segments with Hitwise Lifestyle Tools |
The comparison feature within the Hitwise Lifestyle tool enables a company to highlight key audience segments that its competitor currently receives a greater percentage of its traffic from compared to its own make-up of visitors. This insight is invaluable for gaining a competitive edge over your direct competitors and targeting key segments that may currently be underutilised.
In the following example, Honda (www.honda.com.au) receives 8.71% of their traffic from the Mosaic Australia group 'Academic Achievers', whereas this group only accounted for 5.20% of Toyota's (www.toyota.com.au) traffic in the 4 weeks ending 02/05/09.
Next month we'll show you how you can use this insight to drill down further and uncover the niche industries and websites that the deficient Group frequents.
To learn more about Hitwise Lifestyle, download the Hitwise Lifestyle Fact Sheet or contact Customer Support.
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| 1. |
H- Provincial Optimism |
13.75% |
9.01% |
| 2. |
I - Faming Stock |
9.82% |
7.77% |
| 3. |
E - Family Challenge |
13.69% |
11.45% |
| 4. |
D - Pushing the Boundaries |
7.32% |
6.37% |
| 5. |
K - Community Disconnect |
13.72% |
12.69% |
| 6. |
F - Metro Multiculture |
11.11% |
11.27% |
| 7. |
C - Young Ambition |
3.97% |
4.13% |
| 8. |
A - Priveleged Prosperity |
7.72% |
8.72% |
| 9. |
J - Suburban Subsistence |
10.29% |
14.74% |
| 10. |
G - Learners & Earners |
3.41% |
5.14% |
| 11. |
B - Academic Achievers |
5.20% |
8.71% |
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| Reducing Barriers to Entry: Development and Optimisation of Landing Pages |
In last month's Search Marketing Feature we looked at the possibility that in tough economic times optimising your on-site conversion rate may increase profitability more than just increasing traffic alone. One aspect of conversion optimisation is reducing barriers to entry on websites.
Development and optimisation of landing pages is a key element to increasing your conversion rates. For example, if a user types the term 'mothers day flowers sydney' into a search engine and clicks on your Pay Per Click ad, what page are you going to land the user on? You have two choices, send them to a generic landing page or send them to a specific landing page that addresses their requirements.
There are several key insights the user has already given us about their needs and intent in the above example:
- Mother's Day - they are after a gift for their mother;
- Flowers - the gift they are looking for is flowers; and
- Sydney - they are concerned with either delivery to or possibly a pickup from a location in Sydney.
Using this information we can construct a landing page that addresses these requirements directly and therefore is much more likely to convert to a sale.
An appropriate landing page may include:
- Specific Mother's Day offers or specials;
- A selection of different flower arrangements and price points;
- Clearly stated delivery and/or store locations along with delivery times (e.g. Same day delivery to Sydney CBD);
- You may also wish to create urgency through a time limited promotion (e.g. Order today and receive a 10% discount).
The key is in testing various versions of the same page to establish the best performer; sometimes the results can be surprising, then using these insights in future landing page development. With this approach your conversion rate will continue to lift over time and your marketing spend will become more efficient.
In our next article we will examine Calls to Action - how important they are to the conversion rate of your site and how to get them right.
For more information on this topic or about Hitwise Search Marketing Services please email search.csm@hitwise.com.
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| Entertainment - Books and Writing |
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The following report lists the most popular terms typed into a search engine over the 4 weeks ending 23/05/2009 that resulted in traffic to websites classified by Hitwise within the 'Entertainment - Books and Writing' industry. For example, the most popular search term was 'stephanie meyer' representing 0.98% of all search terms that delivered users to websites classified by Hitwise in the 'Entertainment - Books and Writing' industry.
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| 1. |
stephanie meyer |
0.98% |
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love poems |
0.83% |
| 3. |
fanfiction |
0.77% |
| 4. |
mothers day poems |
0.74% |
| 5. |
harry potter |
0.50% |
| 6. |
stephenie meyer |
0.39% |
| 7. |
fanfiction.net |
0.32% |
| 8. |
word games |
0.29% |
| 9. |
midnight sun |
0.28% |
| 10. |
sydney writers festival |
0.27% |
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| FlyBuys - www.flybuys.com.au |
The FlyBuys website (www.flybuys.com.au) jumped 43 places and increased its weekly market share by 106% in the Shopping and Classifieds industry for the week ending 23/05/2009.
The website for the promotional and marketing tool FlyBuys, enables users to check the balance of their points online, receive information of rewards on offer and become a member.
The current Coles 'Giant Gift Card Giveaway' promotion is likely to be driving traffic to the website, as customers need to be a FlyBuys member in order to enter the competition. The Coles website (www.coles.com.au) drove 5.34% of traffic to the FlyBuys website for that week and followed only Google Australia (www.google.com.au) and Windows Live Mail (mail.live.com) in being the top upstream website.
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| Sports - AFL Football |
| This category encompasses the websites of football clubs and fans, as well as sites which provide anything related to Australian Rules Football. All data below is based on All sites » Weekly rankings for the week ending 23/05/2009 » Ranks by 'Visits'. |
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| 98.4% |
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of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.
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| 1. |
Computers and Internet |
53.17% |
| 2. |
Computers and Internet - Search Engines |
30.18% |
| 3. |
Sports |
23.49% |
| 4. |
Sports - AFL Football |
12.61% |
| 5. |
Computers and Internet - Social Networking and Forums |
11.83% |
| 6. |
Entertainment |
11.40% |
| 7. |
News and Media |
9.00% |
| 8. |
Computers and Internet - Portal Frontpages |
5.45% |
| 9. |
News and Media - Print |
5.39% |
| 10. |
Sports - Fantasy and Tipping |
5.29% |
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| 1. |
Sports |
40.90% |
| 2. |
Computers and Internet |
28.61% |
| 3. |
Entertainment |
24.99% |
| 4. |
Sports - AFL Football |
17.71% |
| 5. |
Sports - Fantasy and Tipping |
11.99% |
| 6. |
Entertainment - Games |
10.67% |
| 7. |
Computers and Internet - Social Networking and Forums |
9.24% |
| 8. |
Computers and Internet - Search Engines |
9.01% |
| 9. |
News and Media |
8.49% |
| 10. |
Business and Finance |
5.55% |
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| Sale Propels Jetstar to Top of the Airline Rankings |
Jetstar (www.jetstar.com) was up 61% on its market share comparing the weeks ending 02/05/2009 and 09/05/2009, propelling it into the number one position in the Hitwise Australia Aviation - Commercial Airlines category. The search term 'jetstar sale' was a key traffic driver to the site surging from the week prior, highlighting the possible effect of an offline advertising campaign. People were also more willing to stick around for a bargain, with time spent on the site increasing by over 50%. Now You Know.
Visit the Hitwise To Go website for regular updates.
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