Here at Scenestealer we’re always telling you how good Viral video is for SEO. However, Viral video isn’t the only tactic you should employ.

Its quite simple: blogging is great for your SEO and your search engine visibility. Starting a blog updates your website with fresh content, attracts links and improves your search results. Lets use my blog on Sophie Reade as an example.

Last Friday I told you that Sophie Reade from Big Brother (or Dogface as she’s now known) stars as “Action Amy” in Fun2Play. Well that blog has produced some pretty amazing results.

If I take a look at the Scenestealer Google Analytics report, I can see that traffic to the Scenestealer website increased eight-fold over the weekend.

The traffic source: People doing Google searches for Sophie Reade on Fun2Play. For example there were 56 visits from people searching for “Action Amy”, 53 visits from people searching for “Sophie Reade” and 24 visits from people searching for “Zoo today girls” (If you remember Fun2Play is also on Zoo Today where you can play with the embedded girls).

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, there were also hundreds of visits from people searching for various combinations of “Action Amy”, “Fun2Play“, “Sophie Reade”, “Sophie Reade Video” and “Fun2Play girls”.

Of course, the Sophie Reade blog is slightly unusual because she is starring in Big Brother and there are lots of people searching for pictures and information about her. However, if you think about it, all you need to do is blog about relevant news and information that relates to your industry and you’re away.

For example, because Scenestealer is a digital media company that specialises in interactive video, we regularly comment on Viral Videos, (like Compare the Meerkat) digital ad campaigns (Alien Vs Predator) and video trends (Embedded video). We make these blogs relevant by linking in Scenestealer services and why we think its great for you.

And there we go, I’ve just done it again. I’ve blogged about something relevant and interesting and managed to tell you about Scenestealer in the process. Job done.

Etail is to grow by 13.3% in 2009, despite overall retail growth falling by 0.6%, according to a report by Verdict Research.

According to the article on NMA, the research predicts etail spending will reach £20.9bn by the end of 2009, driven by the continued increase in the number of Internet shoppers and higher expenditure per head.

Consumers are feeling increasingly comfortable with buying goods online and are happy to minimise their time and hassle spent thinking about it.

However, I have to say that I still feel like some UK retailers are lagging behind when it comes to their web services. More often than not, high street retailers (who use a combination of clicks and bricks) value their bricks customers over their clicks customers. Products online are not updated as often and the websites are slow and difficult to navigate.

This seems crazy to me! Why would you not make the most of your online customers? They cost you much less per sale (think of how much it costs to run a shop- rent, staff, electricity etc) and you can offer them a much wider selection of products without having to think about space and arranging products on the shop floor.

I referenced a study back in April that said that US retailers were increasingly using online video to sell products. Video is a great way for users to try before they buy; they can see how the product works and work out whether it’s suitable for their needs.

If you think about it, its not just Knickers that benefit from a bit of online video. You could show off any product online from shoes to cars or even hotels. Imagine being able to take a virtual tour of your hotel before you got there. Or being able to watch an online demonstration of how to put together the wardrobe you purchased at the furniture store. Definitely better than the paper instructions that you usually get.

Add this to the fact that online video is great for SEO and the advantages of making your video embeddable and you have to wonder why everyone doesn’t have a bit of video on their website.

Online video is definitely the way forwards for etailers- so don’t get left behind!

A zoo in New York has launched a viral campaign to put pressure on their Governor to keep state funding of zoos and botanical gardens.

In budget proposals for this year, Governor Paterson has cut state funding for zoos by 50%. The zoos say that the cuts will force many of them to close.

So the Bronx zoo is fighting back with a cute viral campaign featuring a porcupine. The video isn’t very slick- but it definitely gets the message across. And who knew porcupines were so cute?

Check out the video here: http://www.wcs.org/ (the video is on the left side below the header labelled “Watch this video and send it to your friends”).