After years of Beatles fans demanding legal downloads Apple were finally able to deliver. Through the initial week long period after launch Apple iTunes received an increase of nearly 400% in visitor traffic - possibly helped along by Beatles week on the X-Factor.
HitWise analyst, Robin Goad, also noted a few interesting trends and patterns emerge from this very high profile product launch for one of the UKs busiest sites. Firstly, in terms of natural search Apple did not benefit as much as other sites, such as the BBC. Good old 'Aunty' profited nicely from Google's placement of News stories over natural listings for searches like 'beatles itunes'.
Adding a further twist on the natural search debate was that Apple received 1 in every downstream visits from Facebook - and with Facebook now accounting for over 40,000,000 UK page views daily - that's an awful lot of traffic.
There are lessons to be learned from this about the ever changing face of user behaviour in both search and social media. Being 'good' in Google no longer constitutes a position 1 natural listing alone - position 1 coud now quite easily be beneath the News section and the Videos section and even the local business director map. Today a position 1 listing might not sit 'above the fold'.
Now, lets be clear. Firstly, I'm not advocating that there's no point in vying for position 1, there most certainly is, but the point is this may not be enough anymore and, secondly, one must think beyond Google. A good digital marketing strategy needs to look at more than just keywords and phrases but media, channels and social media amongst many other things. There are now lots of ways to skin the proverbial cat in terms of page 1 Google positions (SERP) and there are many other ways to connect with key target audiences through social media and remarketing. At the start of the year, Google was the be all and end all, however, as 2011 approaches the web moves on again and we all have to think a bit further afield to find the best opportunities.
Author: Nick Towers
Source: www.sagittarius-digital.com
Date: 29/11/2010