Small Business Internet Marketing Blog

According to the e-tailing group’s 11th Annual Mystery Shopping Survey, leading merchants are optimizing merchandising to get sales. Merchants limited-time-only promotions jumped to 42% penetration in 2008 from 18% in 2007. Gift with Purchase showed a measurable decrease perhaps as it is less economical than the other tactics benchmarked. Online Outlets Clearance saw a 14 percent increase in penetration year-over-year, with 86 percent of merchants now deploying this tactic.

Free shipping continues to be a promotional standard offered by more merchants in diverse manners that complement their business models including an increase in conditional free shipping to a store (26% in 2008 vs. 15% in 2007).

(more…)

SEOmoz put together what we can all assume is another trustworthy list of the most important SEO ranking factors. Of course this list is for Google and therefore excludes Yahoo, MSN, Live Search, ASK.com and the other longtail search engines.

Take a look . . . (more…)