Our best posts of 2010

It is hard to believe but another year is almost in the books. One of my favorite parts of the year’s end is reading all of the great zeitgeist and ‘Best of’ posts that get published this time of the year. Twitter’s Year in Review and Google’s Zeitgiest were particularly fascinating to look at.

I figured we’d take a look back on 2010 for WebFX too.

Here’s a peek at our top posts from a few different metrics:

Most Popular Posts

1. The Cost of Advertising Nationally Broken Down by Medium We compiled advertising cost data for a bunch of different mediums and compared their costs with the costs of web advertising. We have numbers for both national and local sources. The national advertising cost data is below.

And we were right: the web is the most accountable, cheapest, and easiest way to bring in new business.

2. 10 foolproof ways to promote your app in the App Store The App Store houses over 250,000 apps. Even if users know exactly what they’re searching for, it can be difficult to find a certain app. Nothing is more frustrating than designing something like an awesome RSS reader for the iPhone only to end up buried on the fourth page of the search results for “RSS readers.”

3. Brainwashing at Abercrombie: Retail Manipulation Part II Sensory manipulation at Gap is subtle. But Abercrombie smacks you in the face with it. Here’s how they mess with your senses to get you to buy more clothes.

Most Shared on Facebook

1. 5 Rock Star Business Twitter Accounts There’s no golden rule when it comes to corporate Twitter accounts. Tons of companies have succeeded using lots of different methods, but there are certainly things you can learn from some of the best Twitter accounts out there. Here’s a look at 5 companies from 5 different industries who have excelled at using Twitter.

2. How To Decrease Your Bounce Rate Landing page bounce rate is one of the most important metrics to monitor constantly. If yours is too high here are some ways to improve it.

3. WebFX Office Photos The new office has two main sections: a ‘phone room’ for our project managers, SEO specialists and other members of our team who are on the phone frequently and a more open ’stage’ area for the rest of our staff including designers and programmers. We’ve also got plenty of whiteboards, couches, and tables for collaboration.

Most Shared on Twitter

1. Are You Interesting or Happy? You Can’t Be Both People either tend to want to do more or are happy where they are. So which are your customers?

2. BP, and Social Media: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly With all of the applications and studies surely to come of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, one of the more fascinating is BP’s reputation management. Here’s a look at some of my thoughts about BP’s post-spill campaign from a social media perspective.

3. The URL is the Next Great Music Format Even though my music listening preference has held steady for years, it turns out that I’ve also found myself using the MP3 less and less in recent years too. I haven’t calculated the exact percentage, but I’m probably using the URL for at least 75% of my music listening these days.