Haven’t had time to browse your favorite blogs or catch up on the latest digital news this week? It’s OK; you’ve been busy. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
We’ve cherry picked the top stories from this week that we think you NEED to know about…
'Mobilegeddon'
It’s the end of the world, as we know it… OK, not quite, but there’s bad news for non mobile-friendly sites.
This week we saw the implementation of Google’s new mobile algorithm, which uses mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal when searching via Smartphone. Ladies and gentlemen… ‘Mobilegeddon’ is upon us.
With Google now favoring mobile-friendly websites and giving them an extra boost on search results, of course, smaller businesses are going to be affected. But is this change actually long overdue? Yes, small business owners may be penalised by being moved further down the rankings, but many consider this an obvious tweak that needed to be made.
Did websites still really expect to be offered up to customers on a level playing field forever? The reality is, friendly and non mobile-friendly sites simply cannot compete. If anything, it’s Google’s duty to filter what customers want and don’t want to see, and I highly doubt a user searching on a mobile device would want to see an un-optimized site.
It’s evident that we now live in the age of mobile, and companies have two options, evolve or become extinct.
Unsure if ‘Mobilegeddon’ affects your business? Take the mobile-friendly test here.
House of Fraser Smashes Online Sales
It’s been a great week for British department store House of Fraser, who announced a whopping 32% increase in online sales over the last financial year.
Like-for-like sales were up 5.8% across the entire business, equating to £1.3billion total sales. However, their staggering online growth means their eCommerce offering is now, for the first time, officially their most profitable channel - with online now responsible for 15.4% of all sales.
And they don’t seem to be slowing down any time soon, with plans to expand further internationally with their second store opening in Abu Dhabi, and branching out into the Chinese and Australian ecommerce markets also.
House of Fraser strengthened their brand positioning in 2014, as the adoption of more luxury, high-end brands such as Michael Kors and Polo Ralph Lauren further cemented them as a premium retailer. Which was reflected in their gross profit – a record of £460.2million, up £29.6m year-on-year.
Increasingly popular retail events such as Black Friday were also accounted for with regards to their sales success. A US phenomenon which will no doubt continue to grow internationally year on year. With online sales on the day of the event increasing 125% from the previous year.
John King, Chief Executive expects to see even further growth, stating,
“With the record sales and margin performance in the Christmas period and a close focus on operational efficiencies, we expect to report a further growth in full-year earnings”
With a continuing investment in multichannel and their online proposition, I’m sure we’re not the only ones who are excited to see what 2015 has in store for the department chain.
YouTube Turns Ten
Exactly ten years ago this week, the first ever video was uploaded to YouTube. I personally can’t decide if ten years seems longer or shorter than it should. It’s an achievement nonetheless, but it’s hard to imagine a life without YouTube. (And why would you want to?) Which goes to show the level of impact it has had on the digital industry.
With more than 1 billion users, generating billions of views daily, the number of hours spent watching each month has risen an incredible 50% year on year.
And if that wasn’t impressive enough, 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Yes, you read that right. Every MINUTE.
Views on mobile devices have understandably exploded in more recent years, with mobile revenue continuing to grow over 100% year-on-year.
Video marketing remains one of the most powerful and successful channels to date, with 75% of users visiting a Marketer’s website after viewing a video.
Happy Birthday YouTube, we salute you! Have a piece of cake on us – and here’s to the next ten years!