Alan Long, Research Director, recently examined the online trends, around the rise of the exclusive member shopping clubs. These online clubs function differently from other member-based shopping websites as they offer limited time, members only private sales, offering up to 80% off RRP on selected items.

The Ozsale website (www.ozsale.com.au) share of visits skyrocketed in the week ending 13/03/2010, propelling it to the number one position in the Apparel and Accessories category. The same week saw the rise of another exclusive members club, BuyInvite (www.buyinvite.com.au) which in the week ending 27/03/2010, sits just behind brandsExclusive (www.brandsexclusive.com.au) - making the top three websites in the Apparel and Accessories category all exclusive members shopping clubs.

The rankings within this category have always been relatively volatile as can be seen by the rankings table below and the three new entrants have immediately challenged the traditional brands and existing online players.

To read the full article, please visit Experian Hitwise Analyst Weblogs.

Are you ready to communicate and converse with your customers online?

Join us at the 2010 Experian Hitwise Digital and Social Media Insights Forum and engage with your customers.

Camilla Cooke the digital strategist behind Kevin07 and Peter Applebaum, Managing Director at Tick Yes, will discuss insights and emerging digital trends for government and business to create and build interactive relationships with their customers, in the lead up to the next Federal Election.

We will also review:

• The influence of digital and social media on consumer and business attitudes;
• Upcoming digital and social trends over the next year; and
• Most importantly, you'll have the opportunity to chat, share thoughts and ask our panel of experts, your social and digital media questions.

Seats are limited, register today to secure your place.

Experian Hitwise has been in the online space for many years and has learnt through clients and industry experience that there seem to be many 'cowboys' offering SEO services, ultimately promising the world, only to leave clients disillusioned and with no real results in sight.

So to avoid all the heart ache, expense and frustrations, we have put together the top 11 questions you should be asking an SEO agency before signing anything plus the answers they should be giving you!

Following are the second in our three-part series of questions:

Question 4: Do You Focus on rankings or delivering ROI by focusing on the right search terms?

It really does depend on the nature of your business. If you are an e-commerce based business, your agency's focus ought to be on building traffic on top converting keywords. For a lead/quote based business, the emphasis would be placed on building traffic of top converting or lead keywords. Finally, if your business is based on traffic (e.g. a publisher), your agency should be giving the focus and attention to rankings. After all, it is very rare for people to look any further than page one on Google!

Question 5: Which industries have you done SEO work in?

The foundations of a sound SEO practice are easy to find in any decent agency, but experience within your specific industry sector can be more difficult. Each industry has its own eccentricities and it is always ideal to have your SEO provider know and understand these. Different fluctuations in your market, seasonality, market share and growth opportunities in your area of expertise are all elements that your SEO agency should be well versed on.

Question 6: How many clients have you done SEO for?

SEO is an ongoing project which cannot be quickly 'switched on' and forgotten about. While important to acknowledge how many businesses your SEO provider has worked with, it's far more vital to look at how long they have kept these relationships going. The longer the relationship, the better understanding you will have of how satisfied their current clients are.

Question 7: How experienced are the actual people that will work on my SEO?

It is important to look for SEO providers with a team that come from a solid marketing background - so they can understand where SEO will fit into your integrated marketing mix and how to best leverage their involvement to make your business a success. It is also important to keep an eye out for SEO providers who employ people with international experience. While Australians are hot on the heels of our UK and US counterparts in SEO and the Internet in general, these countries have been leading the way in online technology and marketing for many years.

For more information about SEO please email search.csm@hitwise.com or call 1800 816 997.

Customise and report on what matters to you most.

In an effort to save time, allow greater reporting flexibility and choice, the Dashboards and Charting reporting functionalities in the Competitive Intelligence product have been upgraded to include;

Dashboards:

• An easy way to record those all those important statistics that have been created along the way, by being able to create and add any chart or report you may be viewing, straight to a dashboard;
• Ability to edit titles and add notes to dashboard reports - great for presentations.

Charting upgrades:

• Charts that can profile a website's Paid vs Organic traffic over time;
• A wider range of date selectors for your charts;
• Customisable charting colors and styles to match your brand;
• Search Engine Share charts;
• New search term variation charts, showing the total volume of a given keyword or term's variations;
• Event reporting within charts to help you understand causes behind traffic shifts;
• Customisable category industry traffic charts;
• Ability to export chart data to CSV.

Whether running reports to help with business planning or just wanting to keep informed on how your competitors are performing, the aim is to provide you with easy access to actionable data and insights.

For more information on the Competitive Intelligence product, please contact Hitwise Customer Support at support.ap@hitwise.com or 1800 816 997.

The following report lists the most popular terms typed into a search engine for the week ending 24/04/2010 that resulted in traffic to websites classified by Experian Hitwise within the 'Entertainment - Radio' industry. For example, the most popular search term was 'triple j' representing 1.34% of all search terms that delivered users to websites classified by Experian Hitwise in the 'Entertainment - Radio' industry.

Subway Australia's competition for the release of Avatar has attracted an increase of new visitors to it's website (www.subway.com.au), and as a result, became a fast mover in the Food and Beverage category, moving 33 places to rate 29th for the week ending 24/04/2010.


Subway's website, which provides information regarding their franchise locations, nutritional facts, menus, and employment opportunities, automatically directs visitors to a homepage that has been re-skinned with Avatar branding to promote the competition, and contains different gaming applications such as, 'Become an Avatar' and 'Put yourself in Pandora'.


Overall, 90.06% of visitors to Subway's website were new visitors, and interestingly, DIY Surveys (www.diysurveys.com.au), who provide an application where visitors can 'vote for their favourite sub', were the top website to receive downstream traffic from Subway Australia (week ending 24/04/2010).


The most highly represented Mosaic Australia Groups to visit the website were: Metro Multiculture, Learners & Earners and Suburban Subsistence (4 weeks ending 24/04/2010).