SEO Werkt!

It’s interesting to watch the impact that the mobile device explosion has on various industry verticals, and especially so in e-commerce – a market that has yet to take full advantage of the platform by offering mobile-friendly websites and apps. But that’s not stopping people from shopping on mobile by any means. According to new data from e-commerce technology company Monetate, top e-commerce websites receive 3.31% of their total visits from Android smartphones, which is up from 1.76% last year. iPhones, on the other hand, account for 5.41% of those sites’ total traffic, up from 2.45% a year earlier.

But even though the iPhone base delivers more visitors, it’s Android users who convert better. 1.26% of Android users convert as compared with 1.00% of those on iPhone.

Here’s another figure to throw into the mix: on tablets, Android users again are converting at higher percentage points, with 3.58% converting compared with iPad’s 3.19%. However, the iPad is driving the most tablet traffic to these sites. 88.31% of tablet visits to these e-commerce sites are from iPad, while Kindle Fire and other Android tablets now account for 10% of the market share. Seeing the chart below, you can tell that Android has made some headway into eating into iPad’s dominance here.

We asked execs at Monetate why they thought Android users were converting better (percentage wise), and they noted that the difference between the platforms was nominal, but interesting. They’re not sure why it’s the case, however. Could it be that iOS users have other means to shop, such as through native apps? Monetate CMO Kurt Heinemann hedges a guess.

“Android devices come in many different configurations whereas the iPhone only comes in one size, he says. “A large portion of Android devices that have been released over the last year have had larger screens and provide a better web surfing experience than a smaller iPhone. With a larger screen and the ability to display more website real estate the user has a more comfortable and less frustrating experience which results in higher conversion.”

In case you’re wondering what websites we’re talking about here, Monetate can’t talk in specific out of respect for its customers’ privacy, but it aggregates data from its top  150+ e-commerce customers and samples from over 100 million shopping experiences to reach these figures. Its customer lineup includes QVC, Urban Outfitters, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Best Buy and Brooks Brothers, to give you an idea of what types of sites may be included in this study.

While Apple and Google battle for market share in terms of traffic, the company’s report found that mobile is one of the fastest-growing customer segments today, and it’s now suggesting to its customers that they experiment with offering alternative ways to allow visitors to checkout without having to pull out a credit card. For example, try PayPal, Monetate tells its customers. It’s also stressing to its e-commerce customers that they need to invest in both web analytics and usability testing to make their sites work better for mobile shoppers because, by doing so, they have a real opportunity to increase their average order value significantly.

What are your plans for the weekend? If you’re looking forward to spending some time on your blog, then this weekend’s posts might help.

Improve blog security and control

Today, we help you boost your blog’s security, and gain more control, with a tour of WordPress user roles.

This is an often-overlooked area of WordPress blog security, so if you have a clear hour to dedicate to reading and implementing the advice in this post, your blog will be the better for it.

Boost your blog’s searchabilty and rank

Tomorrow, we’ll present the learnings of one blogger whose blogs suffered the effects of Google’s panda update. Her tips and advance provide a solid to-do list that you can use to improve the quality and search-appropriateness of your blog.

The time it’ll take you to implement this advice is up to you—you can take it as far as you like. But a couple of hours should be enough to let you make some headway with the key tactics that are presented.

What’s your weekend project?

With a family of four and five days a week to devote to my blog, I tend to keep my blogging to a minimum on the weekends now. The most I usually do is check emails.

But when I started out, the weekends were my blogging time. They gave me valuable headspace to write, experiment, plan new ideas, and implement some of the advice I’d read during the week.

If you’re in this camp, I’d love to hear what you have planned for your weekend of blogging. Let us know in the comments.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Two Weekend Blogging Projects

I’m always amused when someone proudly describes what they are or do by using the term, “serial entrepreneur.” The more technology companies I encounter, the more founders and C-level folks waive that banner as if it’s some sort of badge of honor.

I suppose if you’ve created and sold a number of companies for lots of money, being a serial entrepreneur is a good thing. But most people who use the term (at least to me) have only started several companies. They’ve never sold them.

What they’re really saying by “serial entrepreneur” is one or more of the following:

• None of my ideas have worked
• I can’t raise money
• I have no attention span
• My passion is about getting lucky and making a wad of money

A friend of mine calls himself a serial entrepreneur. He helped build one company as a young man and made a meager profit as a vested employee. He then started his own company, spent 10 years building it and sold it for low seven-figures. He’s now on his second company that he started with only himself and his former business partner as an investor. They’ve been at it six years now. He’s in his 50s.

When someone that age and with that history tells me he’s a serial entrepreneur, he’s saying:

• I know how to build a company
• I know how to sell a company
• I’m focused on my business
• My passion is about building something of value

It’s a different spin and it’s not subtle.

If you’re calling yourself a serial entrepreneur and you have as many companies or ideas as you have zits, you’re not impressing anyone. In fact, you may be hurting your chances of making headway toward becoming a real one.

Food for thought. Yours are welcome in the comments.

The age of the tablet is definitely upon us: figures out today from Gartner forecast that by the end of 2016 there will 665 million media tablets in use worldwide — a counterpoint to the sluggish sales we have seen in PCs in the last couple of years. This year, Gartner says there will be sales of 118.9 million tablets, growth of nearly 100 percent on a year ago.

But while the tablet market is picking up some momentum from competitors like Amazon and its Kindle Fire, and Samsung and its many sizes of Galaxy Tab, it looks like the day will continue to belong to Apple and its iPad.

Apple will continue to be the single-biggest vendor of tablets for the next four years, holding on to more than 45 percent of the sales in that time — although that represents a significant decline from the 83 percent market share that Apple had in 2010 and the 61.4 percent that Gartner estimates Apple will take this year.

Android’s share, meanwhile, is steadily growing. Android tablets will account for 31.9 per cent of media tablet sales in 2012, with that number rising to 37 percent by 2016 — getting close to, but not overtaking, Apple. The main issue, says Gartner, is that Android tablets still do not have the same breadth of applications as the iPad. Amazon’s appstore, for example, currently has around 34,000 apps, compared to the hundreds of thousands for the iPad.

Microsoft, with the introduction of tablet-friendly Windows 8, will make some, but not much, headway in tablets. By 2016 it will not have more than 12 percent of the market, Gartner predicts. That’s still growth from 4.1 percent this year.

One opportunity ripe for the taking — not just by Microsoft but others, too — is the enterprise market. Gartner says that 35 percent of all tablets will be sold for business use by 2015, although many of those purchases will be in the vein of “BYO” devices, meaning that those sales will be done outside of corporate channels. “More of these tablets will be owned by consumers who use them at work,” the analysts say.

In all, it looks like Gartner is being very bullish on sales of the iPad. Gene Munster from Piper Jaffray believes that Apple will sell 66 million iPad tablet this year, but Gartner is putting the figure closer to 73 million worldwide:

What about usage? One noteworthy fact is that for the moment tablets are proving to be more like smartphones and less like PCs in terms of their disposability: Gartner says that about half of all tablet owners replace their devices within 24 months of buying them.

In terms of actual apps — developers should take note here — there is a very strong correlation between smartphone and tablet apps: Gartner’s analysts have found that 40 percent of apps that users have are actually the same on both devices. In other words, if you are making an iPhone or Android smartphone app, you might find you have an easy sale in the form of a corresponding tablet-optimized app.

[photo: hawaii, Flickr]

While PC sales growth has been slowing down, it looks like they will continue to be stronger than tablet sales for the next several years. According to the most recent figures from Gartner, from January 2012, the PC market will see sales of 536.3 million units in 2015, counting both desktop and laptop PCs. A spokesperson tells us that it’s actually releasing more up-to-date PC forecasts this Thursday, and these might give us more insight on how 2016 might look.

Windows Phone has been picking up steam lately, launching the platform in China just yesterday and making headway as one of Nokia’s primary partners.

But when it comes to buying Windows Phone, the big hesitation for just about everyone is apps. Both the Android Market and the App Store have surpassed half a million apps each, but today Microsoft has an exciting (albeit smaller) bit of good news to share.

The Windows Phone Marketplace has topped 70,000 apps. That’s up from 50,000 in December and 60,000 in January.

Microsoft knows that variety and quality of apps will be a huge competition point for the platform, and has acted accordingly. The company’s BizSpark program courts developers from all over the world, and the Mobile Acceleration Week specifically ensures that quality apps being built for Windows Phone 7 get as much publicity and attention as they should.

It also doesn’t hurt that Windows Phone is generally being seen as a more legitimate platform as great device makers like Nokia and HTC put their efforts behind it. Plus, Microsoft has said before that the company is more focused on quality than quantity when it comes to apps.

[via Sina]

Head over to your neighborhood coffee shop if you want to get that novel finished or make major headway on your project. A new study suggest the ambient background noise or buzz of conversation in public places can fuel creativity. More »

Join Caleb Elston, Robert Murray, Wayne Sutton and myself as we have great conversations around:

• Facebook buys Gowalla.  What was the real purpose?
• Is Path.com the new mobile app to beat?
• If you have a whim to do something, Whim is the mobile app you need.
• Are we too far ahead of the adoption curve of the normal user?

Join Liz Money, Corvida, Sarah Perez and myself as we dig deep into facial recognition apps:

• Faced.me launches a new facial recognition app


• Face.com and it’s api and billions of photos scanned


• Facial recognition privacy and where we do need it


• Personal.com launches a personal social network


• Google Plus welcome President Obama


• Pepperspray meme’s
  

Join Liz Money, Sarah Perez and myself as we are all about the Goog this week:

• Google Reader loses social


• Google Plus and pages


• Google Plus circle management


• Trunk.ly purchase for Delicious new owners


• Ming.ly launches

After declaring its intention to block sales of the iPhone 4S in parts of Europe two weeks ago, Samsung now wants to stop sales of the hyped device in Australia and Japan as well, the company said today.

Apple and Samsung have been sparring in courts around the world since April, when Apple sued Samsung in the U.S. for “slavishly” copying the designs of the iPhone and iPad. Samsung filed a counter-suit against Apple in the U.S. that didn’t do much, but the battle also extended to the U.S. International Trade Commission, which can block the importation of devices into the U.S.

Apple most recently made headway against Samsung in U.S. courts on Friday when a judge declared that Samsung infringes on Apple’s patents with its Galaxy tablets and smartphones. If Apple can prove the validity of its patents to the courts, some of Samsung’s most popular products will be blocked from sale in the U.S. Both Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA opposed Apple’s request because stopping sales of Samsung’s Android devices could severely hurt holiday sales.

Samsung’s decision to fight back to block iPhone 4S sales is not surprising. But preventing Apple from selling the new iPhone in several countries, even if it’s just temporary, could hurt the iPhone 4S’ worldwide momentum. The iPhone 4S set new sales records this weekend with more than 4 million units sold in the U.S., and Apple will want to continue that pace as it launches the 4S around the world in the coming weeks.

Samsung filed for preliminary injunctions in Tokyo, Japan and New South Wales, Australia. The Korean company asked to stop the sale of the iPad 2 and iPhone 4 as well, but since those devices have been on the market for much longer, a ban on the 4S would be much more damaging.

The relationship between Samsung and Apple is complicated, as Apple still purchases mass quantities of chips and other components manufactured by Samsung. Samsung COO and President Lee Jae-Yong reportedly attended Steve Jobs’ memorial service on Sunday and said he would use the opportunity to talk briefly to new Apple CEO Tim Cook.

“I will have a chance to meet Cook, but I’m not going there for business purposes. I’m going to pay tribute to Steve Jobs, and I don’t know what I will talk about with Cook,” Mr. Lee told Korean media before leaving the country for Jobs’ service.

Filed under: mobile