51% of American adults get information about local restaurants, bars, and related businesses from the internet.

For other local brick-and-mortar businesses that don’t fit into those categories, 47% of Americans obtain information about those local businesses from the web as well. This probably doesn’t surprise anyone reading this, and may even seem a little bit on the low side. But before you start to criticize, remember that half of American adults is still a very significant number, especially considering the fact that nearly 25% of Americans don’t have a personal computer at home.

What’s more interesting is how those adults responded when asked which online services they used to find this information about local businesses. Search engines like Google and Bing claim by far the largest share of Americans — 38% — who use the services to find out information about local restaurants and bars. For people looking for information about other local businesses, 36% of Americans primarily use search engines to get information about those local businesses as well. These statistics show how overwhelmingly critical the major search engines remain at a time when social media sites seem very trendy. In fact, even smaller search engines completely dwarf all the social media sites in terms of impact for local businesses.

For both of these populations, search engines were dramatically more dominant than specialty websites like Yelp (which came in around 16%) or any type of social media website (which came in at only 3% for restaurants, and just 1% for other businesses). According to the study, people who are conducting research on local businesses are not using social media very much in their research, despite the fact that almost half of Americans are on Facebook, and a half of them are using it daily.

Of course, there could be some chicken-or-egg problems with this: If most local businesses aren’t participating in social media or don’t have their information readily available there, people will shy away from using social media services to find local businesses. Most adults who are familiar with their community will quickly realize where useful resources are and aren’t available for the businesses in their community.

Locally focused businesses should still make sure they have at least a basic social media presence on the major networks — such as a Facebook business page — and that they update it regularly. After all, the number of people using social media to find local businesses is only going to rise, not fall. That way, as users start to use social media more for this kind of research, your business will already be present, positioned well, and have content to share on social networks.

For those businesses that have already invested in building an active, content-rich website using appropriate keywords, this research is great reinforcement that you’ve made the right choice. Search engines are a much more popular method of finding information about local businesses than any other source, either online or offline. Even smaller search engines are much more heavily used than social media sites for this kind of research. Furthermore, 40% of searches conducted on mobile devices are local in nature. People are often searching for information about nearby businesses from their mobile devices, and with the ever-increasing growth of mobile adoption, an effective local search strategy will continue to play a key role in mobile usage, too.

The only other method that was even close was print newspapers, at between 26% and 29% depending on what type of business was being researched. Great search engine optimization, signing up for Google Places, and creating content is critical for making sure you catch the eye of shoppers in your area.

Get more from Pew Research.

Create a Testing Plan

It’s easy to get carried away with A/B testing. Since it’s so simple to do, you’ll want to test as many variables on the page as possible. In order to stay focused, determine all the variables of the page you want to test, and then create a plan to test only one area at a time. You need to be sure you’re isolating and testing only one variable per test in order to accurately determine that your change resulted in a higher (or lower) click-through or conversion rate. Remember: it may take some time to achieve statistical significance in your A/B testing, depending on the number of variations of the variables you are testing and the amount of traffic your pages receive, so be sure to plan accurately.

Test Anything and Everything

A landing page may seem barren or boring compared to some of your other website pages, but there’s actually quite a lot to test on landing pages. Below is a list of variables to A/B test on your landing pages to optimize conversions.

1. Page Layout

Play around with the overall layout of your page. The layout of the landing page includes the placement and positioning of page components such as lead-capture forms, text, and images, as well as the overall look and feel of the page. There’s a lot you can test regarding the layout of your page. For example, try testing the placement of the form on either side of the page, try altering the number of columns you use on the page, or change the placement of your page copy to see what drives the most conversions.

2. Design

The design of your page can also have a big effect on your conversion rate. The design should be attractive and grab the attention of the user quickly, and there are many ways to make a landing page more appealing. Try altering and testing the font size and type on the page. Visitors might find some fonts and sizes to be easier to read than others. Also think about testing the colors of your text and color scheme on the page. Determine what you want the user to focus his or her attention on, and test a variety of color combinations that you might use on the page.

3. Copy

The copy on your page can also have a huge impact on your conversions. The title is a great place to start. Try changing the language, tone, messaging, or direction of the title by making it more actionable or direct. Determine which tones or styles works best for your title, and try testing it with the rest of the copy. The layout of your copy can also be tested. Think about testing bullet points as opposed to chunky paragraphs, and alter and test the length of the copy on the page.

4. Images

Having at least one image on your landing page, specifically one that relates to the offer, helps to optimize your landing pages. Test the placement of your image as well as the type of image you’re using. Do images that loosely represent the offer work better than screenshots of the actual offer (e.g. the ebook’s cover page or the webinar’s title slide)? Do people respond better to photos of people compared to abstract-looking images? Also try testing the use of multiple images to see if it has an effect on your offers.

5. Number of Form Fields

The number of required fields in your lead-capture form can be a huge deterrent for some visitors. Try to keep the number of fields to a minimum, max at about 11. The difference of 10 or 11 fields may not play a factor into your conversions, but altering the number of fields from 11 to 6 may have a huge impact. Really think about what information is truly critical to gather from your visitors when you’re creating your forms. Test form length to optimize for the right balance between sheer amount of leads and quality of leads. It will all depend on your unique business’ leads goals. For instance, your business might have a lead quality problem and thus find that more fields are better to weed out any low-quality leads. If you have a lead quantity problem, you might decide that the opposite is true and fewer form fields yield better results.

Analyze Your A/B Testing Results

When analyzing the results from your landing page A/B tests, you need to track and evaluate the click-through rate of the ‘submit’ button on the form, which will indicate that page’s conversion rate. Then you’ll need to compare conversion rates for each of the page variables you test. Before coming to any strong conclusions, you’ll also need to make sure your results are statistically significant. This means determining if any difference you see between variables is what truly influenced the change in people’s behavior. To determine if your test is statistically significant, you need to compare the p-value and significance level of your test with some complicated math, but luckily there are tools on the internet that will do it for you. Check out PRCOnline’s Statistical Significance calculator for a quick and easy test.

Test Again

Once you’ve analyzed the results of your A/B testing, be sure to make the appropriate changes to your site if your results are statistically significant. And just when you think you’ve tested anything and everything on your landing page, then it’s probably time to start testing again. Well…almost. Keep in mind that people’s behavior changes often, and certain language or copy that was once hot can easily become stale if overused by your industry or competitors. The benefit of testing often is that you can stay on top of the latest trends and best practices.

Tablet users averaged 30 percent more viewing time per session compared with desktops, according to data released this week by Ooyala, a provider of video services to major brands. Tablet users also tended to be more engaged, finishing videos at nearly twice the rate as desktop users.

For each minute of video watched on a desktop, tablet users watched for one minute 17 seconds, an average of 28 percent longer than desktop viewing. Video completion rates on tablets were also 30 percent higher than non-tablet mobile devices.

While online viewers were more likely to turn to laptops or desktops to watch short clips, the data suggests that viewers are turning to tablets, mobile devices, and connected TV devices and game consoles for medium and long-form videos. Videos 10 minutes or longer accounted for 30 percent of hours watched on mobile devices, 42 percent on tablets, and 75 percent on connected TV devices and game consoles.

The study also found that viewer engagement was “generally higher” for long-form videos. Mobile users tended to complete three-quarters of a long-form video at a rate of 20 percent, compared with 18 percent for desktops.

Meanwhile, viewers on connected TV devices and game consoles completed long-form content at a higher rate than viewers who watched on any other device. (A study released earlier in week found that video game consoles have become the most popular way for U.S. consumers to watch online entertainment content on their TVs.)

Apple’s iPad was the most popular tablet for viewing online video during the third quarter, accounting for 99.4 percent of displays and 97.7 percent of total plays.

iPhones accounted for 56 percent of video plays, compared with 36.8 percent for Android-powered smartphones. However, Android edged out iPhone in total video minutes, delivering 49 percent to iPhones 44 percent.

The data was collected from a cross section of the company’s customer and partner database, which features more than 100 million unique monthly viewers in more than 100 countries.

The study comes out as Amazon get’s ready to ship its Android-powered Kindle Fire–the Internet retailer’s first foray into the tablet market, which has so far been dominated by the iPad. But analysts believe the Kindle Fire’s low $199 price tag–most tablets retail for around $500–could help make it the first legitimate competitor in an area where many other high-end Android tablets have missed the mark.

Internet Usage

• In the last 4 years, the web has gone from 100 million websites to 250 million. (Source: Netcraft, Dec 2010)
• 75.5% of the US population uses the internet. (Source: eMarketer, January 2011)
• Millennials engage in over 14 different internet activities, while those ages 65+ engage in mainly 7. (Source: Generations Online, Pew Internet 2010)
• 67% of consumers researched online prior to purchase during the holiday season. (Source: Post Holiday Learnings for 2011 Google/OTX, Jan 2011)
• In 2011, the average shopper consults 10.4 sources prior to purchase, twice as many as a year ago. (Source: Google/Shopper Sciences, Zero Moment of Truth Macro Study, U.S., Apr 2011)
• Nearly 50% of US internet users will redeem an online coupon this year. (Source: eMarketer, May 2011)
• Online advertising spending is shooting upward, passing the $30 billion mark in 2011 and approaching $50 billion in 2015. (Source: eMarketer, June 2011)
• By 2015, we expect that 50% of all display ads will be rich media ads. (Source: Google, Watch This Space, 2011)

Mobile Use

• 31% of Americans own a smartphone. (Source: ourmobileplanet.com)
• 75.7% of the population uses mobile phones. (Source: eMarketer, August 2011)
• There are 90.1 million smartphone users, 29% of the population. (Source: eMarketer, August 2011)
• Only 33% of advertisers have a mobile optimized website. (Source: Google/Ipsos/TNS, Global Perspectives: The Smartphone User & The Mobile Marketer, Jun 2011)
• 53% of searchers purchase as a result of a smartphone search. (Source: Google/OTX, The Mobile Movement, U.S, Apr 2011)
• 70% of smartphone users use their device while shopping in-store. (Source: Google/OTX, The Mobile Movement, U.S, Apr 2011)
• 71% of smartphone users have searched after seeing an ad. (Source: Google/OTX, The Mobile Movement, U.S, Apr 2011)
• There will be 81.3 million tablets sold worldwide in 2012, up from 15.7 million in 2010. (Source: eMarketer, December 2010)
• 43% of US adults say they’d be willing to give up beer for a month if it meant they could keep accessing the internet on their smartphones. (Source: Google/OTX, The Mobile Movement, U.S, Apr 2011)
• 36% of US adults say they’d be willing to give up chocolate for a month if it meant they could keep accessing the internet on their smartphones. (Source: Google/OTX, The Mobile Movement, U.S, Apr 2011)
• Mobile advertising spending will top $1 billion for the first time in 2011, before reaching $4.39 billion in 2015. (Source: eMarketer, September 2011)

Search

• There are 191.4 million search users. (Source: eMarketer, July 2011)
• 82.6% of internet users use search. (Source: eMarketer, July 2011)
• 16% of the daily queries on Google have never been seen before. (Source: Google Internal Data 2011)
• Search directly drove 25% of all online device purchases. (Source: Value of Search for Wireless Product Launches Study Google/Compete, March 2010)
• Advertisers achieve a 7:1 ROI on investments in search-based marketing. (Source: McKinsey & Co., The Impact of Internet Technologies: Search, Global, Jul 2011)
• US advertisers will spend $14.38 billion on paid search in 2011, compared with $12.33 billion on display. (Source: eMarketer, June 2011)
• Including location or phone information in a search ad increases click-through rate 6-8%. (Source: Google Internal Data, Q4 2010)
• Adding seller ratings to a search ad can boost click-through rate by over 10%. (Source: Google Internal Data, Q3 2010)
• Two-line sitelinks increase click-through rates by more than 30%*. (Source: Google Internal Data 2011, *Compared to standard AdWords ads)

Social Media

• There will be 79.1 million US mobile social network users in 2015, up from 49.4 million in 2011. (Source: eMarketer, December 2010)
• 88% of US companies over 100 employees will use social media for marketing by 2012. (Source: eMarketer, November 2010)
• 57% of people talk more online than they do in real life. (Source: Alex Trimpe via Ogilvy — February 21, 2011, ThinkQuarterly, Google)

Video

• Over 100 million people make a social action on YouTube (likes, shares, comments, etc.) every week. (Source: Google Internal Data, Q3 2011)
• Recommendations from other people account for 60% of all video clicks from the YouTube homepage. (Source: The YouTube Recommendation System, Sept 2011)
• Consumers exposed to a YouTube homepage ad are 437% more likely to engage in a key brand activity on the same day than those unexposed. (Source: Google, Impact of YouTube Homepages On Brand Engagement, U.S., Dec 2010)
• By 2012, internet video will account for over 50% of consumer internet traffic. (Source: Cisco, Jun 2011)
• YouTube Mobile gets 400 million views a day. (Source: YouTube Press Statistics, 2011)
• More than 13 million hours of video were uploaded to YouTube in 2010. (Source: YouTube Press Statistics, 2011)
• There are 48 hours of video uploaded every minute to YouTube. (Source: YouTube Press Statistics, 2011)
• Over 3 billion videos are viewed each day on YouTube. (Source: YouTube Press Statistics, 2011)
• Online video advertising spending will grow 52.1% to $2.16 billion in 2011, before reaching $7.11 billion in 2015. (Source: eMarketer, June 2011)

1. 11% of adults already own a tablet computer of some sort.
2. Almost half of tablet users get news on their tablet every day.
3. Three-in-ten tablet users say they now spend more time consuming news than they did before purchasing their tablet.
4. 77% of tablet owners use their tablets every day.
5. Tablet owners spend an average of 90 minutes on them per day.
6. 53% of tablet users consume news on their tablet daily.
7. 54% of tablet users send email on their tablet daily.
8. 39% of tablet users use their tablets for social networking daily.
9. 30% of tablet users use their tablets for gaming daily.
10. 27% of tablet users use their tablets for reading books daily.
11. 13% of tablet users use their tablets for watching movies and videos daily.
12. Tablet news users say they prefer tablets over traditional computers, print publications or television as a way to get quick news headlines and to read long-form pieces.
13. Approximately two-thirds of tablet users have a news app.
14. The majority, or 40%, of tablet news users say they get their news mainly through a tablet web browser (compared to a news app).
15. 21% of tablet users get their news primarily through apps.
16. Just 14% of tablet news users have paid directly for content on their devices.
17. A large majority of those who haven’t paid for content are reluctant to do so, even if it’s the only way to get news from their favorite sources.
18. 23% of tablet news users get digital access of some kind through a print newspaper or magazine subscription.
19. Of those tablet users who haven’t paid directly, just 21% say they would be willing to spend $5 per month if that were the only way to access their favorite source on the tablet.
20. Of those who have news apps, 83% say that being free or low cost was a major factor in their decision about what to download.
21. 90% of app users went directly to the app of a specific news organization compared with 36% that went to some sort of aggregator app like Pulse.
22. 81% of those who went through their browser accessed news headlines via a direct news website (compared with 68% who went through a search engine, and about a third 35% that went through a social network).
23. 90% of tablet news users now consume news on the tablet that they used to access in other ways.
24. 8 in 10 tablet news users say they now get news on their tablet that they used to get online from their laptop or desktop computer.
25. 59% of tablet news users say the tablet replaces what they used to get from a print newspaper or magazine.
26. 57% of tablet news users say the tablet takes the place of what they used to get from television news.
27. Nearly 9 in 10 (88%) of those who read long articles in the last seven days ended up reading articles they were not initially seeking out.
28. 43% of tablet news users now spend more time getting the news than they did before they had their tablet.
29. 85% of those who get news on their tablets said they had talked with someone about a long article they had read there.
30. 41% of tablet news users say they share news through email or social networking at least sometimes.

Read more of the new study and infographic released by Pew Research Center, in collaboration with The Economist Group.

According to a new report from comScore 14 million people in the U.S. scanned a QR code with a mobile device in June. These users represent 6.2% of the total mobile population in the U.S.

The study also reported on demographics of QR code scanners, indicating that they tend to be male (60.5%), ages 18-34 (53.4%), with a household income of more than $100,000 (36.1%).

The most interesting data, however, is in the source of the QR codes that were scanned. Print magazines and newspapers lead the charge, with just about half (49%) of the QR code audience scanning codes from those sources. Next in line is product packaging (35%), followed by websites on PCs (27%).

So where are people when they’re scanning codes? Most are hanging out at home (58%), in a retail store (39%), or at a grocery store (25%).

Because of increased use in mobile technology, marketers are trying to find new ways to engage their audiences in mobile-friendly ways. With QR codes increasing in popularity among consumers, it might make sense to start experimenting with them as marketers. They can help you stand out from your competition, target on-the-go consumers, make print advertising more engaging, and help link offline and online marketing efforts.

QR codes have marketing applications for both B2C and B2B companies. Use QR codes to give consumers product discounts, send people to landing pages on your website, dial your business’ phone number, etc. QR codes are easy to implement, and an easy thing to test in your own marketing.

Based on the HubSpot’s Website Grader:

• 160 of the 500 companies (32%) scored in the top 10% of all websites. They earned a Website Grade over 90.
• The top 50 on the list averaged a grade of 67.
• The top 100 averaged a grade of 70.
• Overall the average of companies on the list is 70, which means that, on average, this year’s Inc. 500 companies score better than 70% of all websites scored by Website Grader.
• What’s even more interesting is that HubSpot customers who made the list — AppAssure Software, ymarketing, ServiceNow, UnitedLex, Neutron Interactive, SevOne, Nova Datacom, TicketLeap, and Source Consulting — received an average score of 91.

Marketing Takeaway

Successful companies today are realizing the importance of having an effective web presence that takes advantage of inbound marketing strategies such as SEO, blogging and content creation, social media, landing pages, etc. From the data it’s obvious that the companies on the Inc. 500 list understand the importance of inbound marketing as well.

Health is rapidly becoming a hot topic in the blogosphere, and marketing–whether self-promotion or the promotion of others’ products–is becoming more prevalent among health-related blogs, according to new research.

A survey from health care marketing communications consultant Envision Solutions finds that nearly half of all American adult bloggers have written about a health-related subject, and 60% of those bloggers write primarily on health-related topics. The company estimated that more than 13 million Americans posted at least one health-related item to a blog between February and August 2008.

“[Health blogging] has exponentially grown over the past two years,” says Fard Johnmar, founder of Envision Solutions. “Once dominated by medical professionals, the health blogosphere has grown to incorporate a diverse range of people in the United States.”

Health-related blogs also span many different demographics, Johnmar says. More than half–057%–of health bloggers are women and 38% are African-American or Hispanic. Half of health-related bloggers were between the ages of 18 and 34, according to the survey.

While one-third of the respondents said they were blogging to educate others about a condition or malady, 21% of them said they blogged primarily for marketing purposes, such as a doctor who looked to increase business for his or her practice, or a health care consultant wishing to demonstrate expertise in a subject or health policy.

Only 7% of the respondents said they were blogging to help cope with a medical condition, and 10% said they were doing it to advance a cause.

Outside of personal marketing, 46% of the health care marketing professionals said they had been contacted by PR professionals to promote a product or service–up 29% in the 2006 survey, Johnmar says. Thirty-five percent of the bloggers said they were running advertisements on their blogs, compared with 27% in 2006.

Despite those findings, nearly three-quarters of the bloggers — 73%–expressed confidence that their peers were disclosing conflicts of interest. (In a finding that may be related, nearly 20% fewer bloggers reported posting anonymously than in the 2006 survey.) Seventy-nine percent of health bloggers said a person’s background and biases have a greater influence than advertising
on credibility.

1. You Will Get Found More Often
   It may seem obvious, but maintaining individual websites for your local franchisees or distributors will help your company get found by more people who are looking for your products and services in local searches. Your argument might be that potential customers can simply go to your corporate website and input their zip code to find the franchise in their area. Yes, but how about saving your prospects a step?

   The twist is that you’ll have the opportunity to take advantage of the second “w” in “www” — the “wide” part. If set up correctly, you will widen the top of your sales funnel by generating traffic you were not previously getting from search engines, blogs, and the social mediasphere. These are people who have never heard of you before but now have the opportunity to find your website if it’s optimized correctly.

2. You Can Tailor Communications to Your Local Audience
   Maintaining your own website on a content management system (CMS) is now easier than its ever been. Content management systems are built so that non-technical people can maintain, update, and edit their own websites. Using a CMS allows for easy editing and the ability to regularly add new content and offers to your site. This allows you to create customized information tailored to your local market as opposed to the generic offers often pushed down from corporate.
3. You Can Amplify Your Local Reach Using Social Media
   Social media is the new word of mouth. Many franchises think it’s sufficient to simply maintain a corporate social media profile. But simply having a corporate social media profile is not enough these days. If you want to amplify your franchisees’ reach, each individual franchisee should have a social media presence connected to its individual website as well. There are several reasons why each franchisee should have a social media presence. Establishing a social media presence helps you better engage with your local audience, something that is more difficult for your corporate marketing team to do because they just don’t know the local market as well as their franchisees do. Social media also allows the local franchisee to build relationships and loyalty over time with prospects in their local markets.

Lead generation numbers for over 4,000 companies make quite a compelling case that “more is better” when it comes to content creation. In the case of blogs, landing pages, and indexed pages — which are all critical pieces of the inbound marketing methodologies — data showed that companies that created more, generated more leads and traffic back in return.
In Short, the Data Revealed:

• Companies that blogged 20 or more times in a month saw the most return in traffic and leads
• Companies with over 400 indexed pages generated the most traffic and leads
• Companies with over 31 landing pages generated the most leads (nearly 10 times that of the lowest, ‘less that 5’ category).

Blog Every Positive & Negative Angle

For keywords or topics crucial to your value proposition or services, talk about them as much as you can. The advantages of using, tips for using, trends in the space, key questions, etc. will all make interesting and informative content fodder for those reading your blog. Also consider the educational benefit that negative angles can provide. Write about the disadvantages of your products and services — and subtly spin the content back in your favor with whatever conclusion you reach. You will double your blogging output around the topics that are easiest for you to write around.

Double-Down on Manpower Offers While Building the Downloadable Ones

Having a lot of landing pages should mean that you have a lot of offers. And having a lot of offers should mean that visitors to your website who have even the slightest interest in your services should be able to find something worth a form submission to them. Whitepapers, webinars, and ebooks require a lot of elbow grease and polish before they’re ready, so start chipping away at your landing page goal by building every conceivable middle of the funnel offer you can think of. Consultations, assessments, quotes, demos, trials, etc. They are all in your sales teams wheelhouse and won’t require a copywriting or a graphic design team to deliver.

Pick the Low-Hanging Fruit for More Indexed Pages

Do the members of your team have individual bio pages? They should. Do you have different pages for all the different regions, cities, or states that you service or work in? If they are in any way different (and you, being the expert, know they are), then you should have separate web pages for them. Do you have an overall “solutions page” rather than giving each of your services their own standalone pages? It might be time to reconsider. A quick audit will unearth some opportunities you’re missing. And by the way, if you’re employing either or both of the above tactics, then you’re well on your way to a bigger indexed-page count.