The Podcaster

Last week Hitwise US (who track website traffic) announced that Facebook had overtaken Google as the most visited web site on the internet in the US.

Robin Goad of Hitwise UK looked at the data and using UK research shoed that Google was still the most visited site and based upon UK v US web usage differences would likely remain that way for some time to come over here.

The news that Facebook is ‘now more visited than Google’ received coverage of the national media including Channel 4 News.  

It is not surprising that Facebook is catching up Google in the UK and is already the lead in the US. Facebook has 400m members worldwide and if a lot of those check the site everyday then that is a lot even more in the lead!

So what is the relevance for businesses?

Many businesses understand the value of Google in terms of customers searching for products and services to buy. As a result many businesses ensure their web sites are Search Engine Optimised so they appear high up on the search engine rankings.  Some have Pay Per Click ads and others worry about marketing and promoting their businesses in the local press and service listings like Yellow Pages and attending business networking events. In othyer words they spend time and effort (and money) promoting their business.

Just what can they do to  with web site to get more visitors and then turn them into customers?

With the size and reach of social networks and the power of product recommendation comes another challenge for many businesses. How to practically participate and how much time to spend doing it? With Word of Mouth/Mouse recommendations becoming very important (think Amazon recommendations based upon yours and others purchase and viewing history and TripAdvisor for ‘crowdsourced’ reviews of hotels and holidays) businesses need to be thinking of how they can get a participate.

With the news that people are visiting Facebook more than they do Google means it is even more important businesses start to develop a social networking and communication strategy before their compeitors do!