User behaviour over the internet is constantly changing as new developments and ideas capture the internet audience. There has been a significant change in user behaviour over the last few years since Social Networking websites have found themselves on the internet. This was particularly evident amongst the mainstream brand and media websites who found themselves scrambling to capitalise on the increasing popularity of these sites.

The most popular Social Networking websites are MySpace, Bebo and Facebook. Bebo and MySpace are the most popular, with fast mover Facebook on their tail.

Hitwise reports in June 07 that Bebo ranked 5th across all online industries, wheras MySpace ranked 8th and not far behind was Facebook, who ranked 14th.

Shopping and Classified websites such those in the Music section have seen a 121% increase in traffic from Social Networking websites year on year. Play.com received a 55% increase from MySpace referrals more than Yahoo!

Apparel and Accessory websites saw a 98% increase with TopShop and ASOS receiving twice more traffic from Social Networking websites than Yahoo! and MSN combined.

So what is the attraction of Social Networking websites? Sharing information, ideas and common interests through your own online profile is appealing. Making new friends and signing up for social gatherings opens up new events and new friends which people would not have usually found the opportunity for.

So with the growing popularity of these Social Networking websites, how can commercial companies benefit from them? Well, the truth would be, not all can, however, there are some industry sectors that with the right approach could find an increase in their online traffic simply because they took the time to participate in these Social Networks.

TopShop found that MySpace was the second highest referring website to send traffic to their website. This was more than the traffic they received from Yahoo! and MSN combined! When you read something like that, then it is certainly makes you stand up and take notice. TopShop have an Community profile set up on MySpace, this includes a section where people are able to discuss new fashions and shopping ideas. People found this interesting and participated in the group. TopShop found the right approach and it paid off.

Similar sites to TopShop will not be experiencing the same because they have not yet participated in these Social Networking websites. Until they do, they will be left behind, because it seems that Social Networking websites are the way forward and should be considered as a part of your online marketing campaigns.

Even if you “think” participating in Social Networking sites will be of no benefit to you, it is still worth giving it a go, and as the saying goes, you’ll never know unless you try it.

Google Checkout is Googles version of an online payment software which was launched in the UK in April of this year.

Google Checkout has been compared to eBays PayPal, however, it does not allow the transferring of funds from one person to another. It basically provides consumers with an easy online payment system that can be applied to websites who sell products or services online.

What is really interesting about using the Google Checkout system, is that Googles Swerling has said that by using Google Checkout, this could make a difference to your quality score which determines your ranking position in Google Adwords (Your pay per click management campaigns).

The reasoning behind this is that having Google Checkout may not in itself affect your ranking position, but having the checkout badge next to your listing could encourage people to click on your ad, therefore increasing your Click through rate (CTR).

Googles Swerling said:

It would have an effect to some extent. Having a Checkout badge does’nt affect your ranking per se, but it could feed into the quality score. Our proposition is much simpler that that, though. Google Checkout is a product that users appreciate and which solves a problem for merchants: how to attract buyers.

Search Suggest isn’t exactly a new, Google have been using Search suggest for some time, however, Yahoo.com have now added this feature to their own search engine.

Search Suggest helps you when you type a query into the search engine by trying to guess what it is you are searching for by presenting those terms for you to easily click on to save you time in typing the whole term yourself.

Yahoo Search Suggestion feature can also be useful when you are not sure of a spelling. If for some reason or another you are wanting to find information on Arnold Schwarzenegger, Yahoo Search Suggest will present the name for you to save you time on trying to find the correct spelling.

Search Suggest also works well for Search Engine Optimisers as well as for your Pay Per Click campaigns as terms that would pop up in the suggestion feature are more than likely to be popular terms from Yahoo’s search history. Therefore, you can take the suggestions and impliment them into your campaigns as well finding new keywords in which to target on your website.