Apple’s iPhone and iPad helped make mobile devices a key driver of Thanksgiving and Black Friday e-commerce this year, according to a report from IBM Coremetrics.

Online Thanksgiving shopping grew by 39.3 percent year over year, creating momentum that continued into Black Friday, where online sales grew by 24.3 percent compared with the same period last year, said the report(PDF).

And Black Friday witnessed the arrival of the mobile deal seeker, who embraced his or her mobile device as a research tool for in-store and online bargains. Mobile traffic came close to tripling year over year, to 14.3 percent on Black Friday 2011 from 5.6 percent last year.

The iPhone and the iPad accounted for 10.2 percent of all Black Friday online traffic. The iPhone and the iPad ranked 1 and 2 for mobile device retail traffic (5.4 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively). Android-based devices came in third at 4.1 percent.

But it’s not all about mobile browsing. The value of individual orders also increased, while the number of items purchased decreased. Home goods, for example, saw an average order-value increase of nearly 16 percent, while the number of items per order dropped by more than 6 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the report’s other key findings:

• Sales on mobile devices surged year over year, to 9.8 percent from 3.2 percent.
• Shoppers using the iPad accounted for more actual purchases per visit than shoppers using other mobile devices, with conversion rates reaching 4.6 percent for the Apple device versus 2.8 percent for overall mobile devices.
• Mobile shoppers demonstrated a laser focus that surpassed that of other online shoppers, with a 41.3 percent bounce rate on mobile devices versus a rate of 33.1 percent for shoppers on other computing gadgets. The bounce rate records how often people jump from one site to another looking for the best deal on a particular item, rather than browsing around through various items in a more leisurely fashion.
• Shoppers referred from social networks generated 0.53 percent of all online sales on Black Friday. Facebook led the pack, accounting for 75 percent of all traffic from social networks.

According to BIA/Kelsey, total small business ad spending for online media increased to almost 40% of total ad spend in the fourth quarter of 2010, up from 22% in the third quarter of 2009. By 2015, it’s estimated that 70% of small business marketing budgets will go to digital/online media (mobile, social, online directories, online display, digital outdoor), performance-based commerce (pay-per-click, deals, couponing) and customer retention business solutions (email, reputation and presence management, websites, social marketing, calendaring/appointment-setting).

In this weeks “Locals Only” column, Stephanie Hobbs discusses some “Considerations in planning your 2012 small business ad budget“. These include:

• Mobile websites. They have a lower bounce rate and higher customer conversation than traditional websites, so moving forward with creating a mobile site will reap additional rewards down the line. More on mobile here.
• When considering third-party advertising partners such as Yellowbook360, business owners should be careful in who they choose. Criteria that needs to be considered includes the company’s history & experience, contractual requirements, special incentives and their network/ad distribution across the Internet. And watch out for those crazy “guarantees and claims” out there!
• While social media has received well-deserved hype for its ability to create new connections between local businesses and their customers, Yellow Pages continue to provide strong and reliable leads to local businesses.

As discussed here last year, certain local service and retail type businesses need to be optimized and visible by November to capture their fair-share of increased online activity. And here’s a new statistic; Google states “44 percent of total searches for last minute gifts and store locator terms will be from mobile devices this holiday season“

So, it’s not just about being visible – it’s now about being “mobile ready“. Google recently announced the importance of websites being optimized for mobile, which includes incentives such as higher Quality scores in AdWords programs.

Most businesses experience ups and downs throughout the year; some cyclical, some triggered by one-time events.  The holiday’s of course are a biggie. Changing seasons, one-time events and increased competition are also factors. Thinking 30-days ahead of the predictable trends and positioning yourself  “ahead of the curve” will ensure you remain competitive. At the same time, you’ll capture additional new customers and gain market share.

Now stop procrastinating and get that campaign going!

To achieve a high-level of online visibility and internet marketing success, local businesses need to consider multiple factors…  

• 95 percent of smartphone users have looked for local information
• 61 percent call a business, 59 percent visit a business and 44 percent purchase
• 88 percentof local information seekers take action within a day

Another new co-branded site, the Google Places/yellowbook360 partnership channel on YouTube is also now up and running…

• SLEIGH BELLS AND CASH REGISTERS RING – Looks like our darkest days are behind us. In November, consumer spending increased, orders for durable goods gained and architecture billings rebounded.
• HELLO 2011 – Calculated Risk asks 10 economic questions for next year. Mashable’s Erica Swallow lists five small-business predictions.
• GOING MOBILE – A new report says that small businesses are going mobile in a big way.
• HO, HO … OH, NO – Now that Christmas is over, we’re warned to keep an eye out for returns fraud.

Read the entire article here.

Google listings and maps results are shown whenever Google detects a search with local internet. In the past, the results for a Hartford CT Plumber looked like this:

Listings were delivered next to the map via the “7 pack”, with PPC ads above or on right, and organic results (432,000 of them) below.

The new search results for the same query now looks like this:

They’re different variations, but here you’ll see the map is moved to the top right, with PPC ads below. PPC ads remain in center top position, and organic links (831,000 of them) are sprinkled above and below the more descriptive 7- pack listings. Links for all these business listings are now tied to Google Place pages. An interesting observation: organic results increased by almost 400,000? It appears as if the plumbing industry in Hartford is booming! Seriously, I can’t imagine why that is, but as always, the key is ranking as close to the first page as possible with your most important keywords.

So, how can the local business remain as visible as possible? Clearly, there is a heavier emphasis on organic relevancy. More information is being delivered on these new pages – and if your website is optimized there is a new opportunity to be ranked on the first page. Links still appear to be an important factor, as this article suggests. The race is on while everyone will be trying to figure this out, so get a SEO professional hired, and consider a new website if yours is not embedded with good local content, or is not compatible with mobile browsers. Local SEO expert Andrew Shotland put together some additional SEO related considerations related to Google Places.

PPC advertising remains a no-brainer, and I’ve always recommended outside help here as well. Qualified PPC firms can provide maximum ROI and full reporting/call tracking while the business owners can continue doing what they do best; running their own businesses.

Lastly, the new Place Pages require some of your attention, and for good reason. Google is now driving as much traffic to these self-edited pages as they build deeper local content. Already, there are 50 million locations in their database, and your’s may be waiting to be claimed. There are many options and “best practices” with this process so don’t hesitate in researching further, or getting some professional assistance.

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