Looking back at the visitor figures on our PopupMailers website since it went live in October 2007 there has been one constant. The page featuring our pop-up cube has been the most visited single product page every year - 2007 / 2008 / 2009 and so far in 2010. The chart position of the products that follow close behind such as the cover dissolver and the Interloop Mailer have been boosted by the fact that they both featured very prominently in videos on the front page of the site but the pop-up cube been given high focus only occasionally.

So what makes the cube such a popular product? From my point of view, it is a very pleasing shape that offers a high degree of versatility. Photos of circular items fit the format well and it lends itself to all kinds of product shots that are unrelated to its shape but which benefit from its strength. A cube suggests a feeling of solidity, dependability and reliability which will also help to reinforce brand identity.

The uses for our pop-up cube have also been very varied. In everyday use it has been a simple pop-up marketing tool, but it is also used as a pen holder and as a calendar. It has been to pubicize all kinds of events and at Christmas it is often portrayed as a Christmas gift box when being used as a company greeting. It has been a dice, a building block, an alphabet block and a stock cube.

Perhaps that last paragraph tells the story. The pop-up cube answers so many search enquiries that it is almost bound to be number one in our “most visited” charts!

There is so much to like about my job! Something new and interesting happens every week but sometimes it is the information that is available on a daily basis that makes the job so fascinating. Take Google Analytics for example. What a brilliant information tool! It tells you so much about sites visitors and all at the push of a button. Earlier, I wrote that I was surprised to see that relocation announcements were high in the Top 10 blogs on this site. Less surprising was the fact that blogs on suggestions for Christmas greetings figured in the Top 5. Whilst our blog is aimed at B2B visitors, it is obviously read quite often by non-business visitors which will make “Christmas Greetings” a very popular search.However, this leads to relatively high “bounce rates” for those particular blogs.

Viewing those stats led me to search for the subject with the lowest bounce rates. Guess what came up - cardboard engineering and paper engineering. Not only do these two subjects have a low bounce rate but they, too, are high on the list of Blog Chart Hits.

I found this surprising as I would have thought that these industry-specific terms would be relatively low on both counts but they are higher placed and have lower bounce rates than many blogs on marketing subjects. However, we are well aware of the importance and relevance of the search terms and we feature cardboard engineering and paper engineering sections on all of our websites.

In many instances, a site visitor will be a hobbyist looking for instructions and examples on how to make a certain pop-up but there are also a high number of designers looking for marketing answers who match that curiosity. Our pop-up products are kept fairly simple in terms of composition as they have to  be commercially viable if we are to make a living! Simple cardboard engineering mechanics such as V-folds are at the heart of most products though there are some sophisticated push’n'pull movements in the mix, too. To learn more, check out the cardboard engineering section on any of our websites.

I have just been looking at the Google analytics stats for our blog and I must say that I was surprised to see the page that has had the most visitors since the blog started in June 2008. It’s a page about products that are suitable for use as notifications of a change of address. Now I realise that many readers will be ordinary householders announcing a new address rather than businesses looking for a “moving office” notice but the amount of visitors still surprised me.

Luckily, for all types of visitors, we now have a dedicated section on our re-vamped website for relocation announcements. Entitled simply “change of address”, the category features a couple of obvious candidates and a couple more that maybe aren’t as obvious.

Our versatile pop-up house is one of the obvious suggestions. A good graphic designer can protray the house as many alternative buildings from Industrial units to high street premises. A picture dissolve is another excellent choice with its changing picture being the perfect vehicle to show the old place and the new premises.

Two other suggestions include pop-up cards and our push’n'pull product. Go to the “change of address” section to read more.

Websites are subject to fashion changes that are almost as regular as the seasons which is certainly good news for independent website designers and website developers. Website owners also realise the value of a redesign. Return visitors get fed up of seeing the same old thing and if a favourite site shows improvements in content and navigation then it improves the visit to the website.

We try to make improvements on a regular basis in order to maintain the interest of our visitors and also the improve the visitors experience. We try to make improvements to navigation and to make the site easier or the eye as well as making the site more interactive.

Our latest revamp is to the Whitney Woods UK site. Not only has it been given a total re-design, we have also incorporated new features. A new Marketing Bulletin has been incorporated to add extra interest to the front page. Customer testimonials have been incorporated into the design to help to reassure our visitors that Whitney Woods is the place to look for pop-ups and interactive mailers. Extra links have been incorporated to make navigation easier and to improve access to samples and prices.

The site is going live today and is well worth a visit even if only out of curiosity.

One question that I have been asked a few times is “Why do you have so many websites?” It seems odd to me because I don’t think that we have a lot of websites but the answer is simple. It is to help searchers to find us and become visitors. It’s easy for marketing professionals who know all about promotional pop-up products - put “promotional pop-ups” in Google and there we are. But what about the other searchers - those who don’t know that such products exist?

Let’s take the example of someone who is searching for a solution to a Christmas marketing problem. That person is probably going to search for “Christmas-something-or-other” - how about “promotional pop-up Christmas cards”. That search will take the surfer to our ChristmasMarketing website which suggests all kinds of solutions not just pop-up cards. I suppose that we could have put our Christmas products on out Pop-up Mailers site but we thought that it would become too crowded.

That’s the reason why we put other product descriptions on another site. New Promotional Ideas features pop-up and interactive products described by their shape. A graphic designer looking to add emphasis to his client’s hexagonal logo might search for “hexagonal promotional products” which will lead to the New Promotional Ideas site. It suggests all kinds of solutions for different geometric shapes.

Our mailing services division also has its own website but the reasons for that are more obvious. All we are trying to do is to make it easier for people to find us in the first place but then to find exactly what they want when they get here.