SmallBusinessNewz

More evidence has surfaced to indicate that small business owners who want searchers to wind up at their sites should consider breaking out terms like "free shipping" and "coupon."  Hitwise took a look at how searches for these terms tend to increase dramatically around the holidays.

Heather Dougherty started by describing the situation as it stood in 2008.  "Searches on a portfolio of search terms around coupons and promotions from specific retailers (e.g 'target coupons', 'target coupon codes' and 'target free shipping code') peaked during the week of Cyber Monday, up 76% from the same week in 2007," she wrote.  "Post holiday, the week ending Dec. 27 . . . followed with the second highest share of traffic from the portfolio of coupon terms and increased 66% compared to the previous year."

Then here's another interesting tidbit: "while the greatest share of searches are from those making between $30k-$60k and $60k-$100k, when compared to the online population, the searchers tend to be more affluent and over-index for those making between $60k-$100k and $100k-$150k."

So it seems that rich people have a habit of doing a lot of shopping around the holidays, which should be music to most business owners' ears.

And what's more, even if they're looking for discounts, Dougherty noted that searches are up 19 percent so far this year compared to last, meaning everybody may be in for a very busy season.