eMarketer reports that video gamers are highly influential when it comes to persuading others about purchasing, not just video games, but also media and technology in general.

A survey of gamers, conducted for IGN Entertainment by Ipsos MediaCT, found that 39 percent of gamers agreed or strongly agreed – compared with 21 percent of non-gamers – when asked if friends and family rely on them for current technology recommendations.

Similarly, 37 percent of gamers said they were a source of news about movies, TV and entertainment, compared with 22 percent of non-gamers.

Hmmm… or are gamers just more arrogant than non-gamers? (Remember: lies, damned lies, statistics… and interpretations of statistics…)

Source: eMarketer, “Reach Gamers, and You Reach Their Friends”, eMarketer, October 31, 2008

A report from Point Topic indicates that China probably has more broadband subscribers than the United States right now.

In June 2008 the U.S. had a total of 76.9 million broadband lines, while China had 76 million. However, based on the growth rate of broadband uptake in China - compared with a decline in U.S. broadband uptake - Point Topic believes China’s broadband subscribers probably overtook those in the U.S. sometime in August.

Point Topic’s findings are based on statistics and estimates provided by the primary suppliers of DSL lines, cable modems, and fiber-to-the-home services, along with data from service providers that resell products provided by such primary suppliers.

Source: Enid Burns, “China Surpasses U.S. Broadband by Population”, The ClickZ Network, October 14, 2008

Want our firm, Kikabink, some other search engine optimization company, or someone on your staff to assist with your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts? Well, before you get your SEO program underway, it’s a good idea to have clear answers to these three (3) questions:

1. What is your goal?

Sure, it might be higher rankings… but it probably isn’t. It’s more likely to be increasing qualified traffic to your website, right? Unfortunately, some companies get sold on the promise of higher rankings… and indeed they get higher rankings… but for keywords that don’t generate any meaningful or qualified leads. Your best bet is to ensure your SEO provider understands what your true goal is, and not to be ‘wowed’ by meaningless promises of high rankings.

Sadly, SEO consultants and clients can often get caught up in details and metrics that, at the end of the day, are irrelevant to the true goal. Perhaps more than in any other area of marketing, it can be easy to fixate on rankings, click through rates, keyword density and other statistics, that guide us towards - but in no way signify our arrival at - our goal.

So before you get started with SEO, I suggest being very clear about what you (really) want.

2. When do you want to achieve your goal?

Once you’ve defined your goal, the next question is when do you want to achieve it. Depending on how competitive is your market from a SEO perspective, getting higher, meaningful rankings may take several months. Getting to the first page, or in the first few spots on the first page, may take several more.

Now it’s not unheard of for companies in highly competitive fields to leap from nowhere to the first page of results within 6 months. But there are all kinds of reasons for jumps of this magnitude, and it’s not wise to assume it will happen for your site. So, in general, it’s wise to view SEO as a long-term process that requires continued effort.

On the other hand, if you need desperately need more traffic, you may be better off using another means of getting it e.g. advertising, partnering or joint-venturing with others, etc.

3. What are you prepared to pay (not just in money) to achieve your goal?

You didn’t really believe SEO was free did you? Like anything worthwhile, there are costs involved - whether in terms of your (or your staff’s) time, the costs of engaging someone to implement the raft of activities that SEO involves, or other resources. And keep in mind that just because you hire an SEO firm, you may still need to do plenty of work yourself. In fact, it’s all too common for companies to hire SEO consultants who, as promised, give them plenty of advice on what to do - and how to do it - in order to achieve higher rankings. Problem is, those companies don’t have the resources to implement all that advice.

Someone has to optimize the website… someone has to install the analytics scripts… someone has to upload the optimized pages to the website… someone has to write the press releases and articles… someone has to distribute those press releases and articles… someone has to monitor the SEO performance.

And someone has to manage all these people and processes.

Are you going to do that? Is your SEO consultant going to do it? Apart from the budget required to get your SEO firm’s advice… do you have the budget to implement their advice?

All in all, when evaluating the extent to which you wish to pursue SEO - and the return on investment (ROI) you expect - keep in mind the costs involved.

Now for the good news: if you CAN answer each of these questions – and your answers indicate that SEO is well worth the effort - you are well on your way to implementing an unstoppable SEO ‘machine’. A machine that will consistently pump out the necessary content, attract the right back-links, and do everything required to lift your search engine rankings.

Research by MarketingSherpa reveals some interesting statistics about how many keywords search engine users tend to use.

Funnily enough, you can look at the research in two ways – either as validating the benefits of long-tail search… or validating the benefits of focusing on the most popular keywords.

In terms of the former, a significant 54 percent of searches comprise three words or more. But on the flip side, 67 percent of searches are three words or less.

Here’s how the numbers add up:

• 21.04 percent of searches are one word
• 24.35 percent of searches are 2 words
• 21.61 percent of searches are 3 words
• 14.48 percent of searches are 4 words
• 8.41 percent of searches are 5 words
• 4.54 percent of searches are 6 words
• 2.40 percent of searches are 7 words
• 3.17 percent of searches are 8 or more words

And here’s what the research doesn’t tell us: how many of those searches consist of the SAME words.

Of course, we can use our own keyword research for that. Chances are, however, that a significant number of those searches of 1-3 words are the same 3 words (that’s why we target certain keywords!)… while many of those 4-8 keyword strings are likely to contain different words and variations.

And that’s why I personally find the fact that 67 percent of searchers use 1-3 keywords more telling than the fact that 54 percent use 3 or more words.

Source: MarketingSherpa, “New Research Reveals What’s Working In Search: Telseminar Transcript, Slideshow, PDF”, MarketingSherpa, October 2, 2008

One of my favorite sayings is: ‘There are lies, damned lies, statistics… and interpretations of statistics”

I added the last bit. And here’s why: two people can take the same data and claim it has entirely different meanings.

And this is what seems to have happened with Technorati’s latest report on the state of blogging. Last week Technorati released its 5th Annual State of the Blogoshpere Report. While it apparently reported that the numbers show that blogging is now mainstream, tech blog ReadWriteWeb saw the numbers as painting blogging in quite a different light.

Technorati says there are now approximately 133 million legitimate blogs, up from 70 million in 2007, and dramatically up from the 4 million in 2004. Yet ReadWriteWeb points out that only 1.5 million (1.1 percent) of those blogs had been posted to in the last 7 days.

Actually, Technorati also says that 7.4 million blog posts were made in the last 120 days. If posting a blog post within 120 days - or 3 months - is considered ‘active’ that would suggest that only 5.6 percent of all blogs are active. And that’s being generous with the word ‘active’.

Why won’t anyone just come out and say it? The vast majority of people who start blogs probably do so with the best of intentions, but just can’t commit to writing blog posts on a regular basis… and then they just give up.

Nothing shameful about that. It’s probably similar to the number of people who start a diary or try to write a novel.

Anyway, check out the ReadWriteWeb article for some more interesting interpretations of the numbers. You can find the link to Technorati’s report there as well.

==> ReadWriteWeb on Technorati’s report

Source: Source: Marshall Kirkpatrick, “State of the Blogosphere 2008: Technorati Numbers Indicate Blogging Is Niche and Slowing”, ReadWriteWeb, September 22, 2008

While spending on online video advertising is certainly growing - by 55.9 percent between 2007 and 2008 according to eMarketer - slowing economic growth lies behind slower growth over the next year or so.

eMarketer expects growth in online video advertising to slow slightly to 48.5 percent in 2009 and 53.5 percent in 2010, before peaking in 2012.

Make no mistake, if eMarketer is right, these are all exceptionally high growth rates. But as I like to say: there are lies, damned lies, statistics and interpretations of statistics.

Source: eMarketer, “How Many TV Ad Dollars Can Online Video Advertising Grab?” eMarketer, September 12, 2008