Welcome to the eCig One e-cigarette industry report for August 2012. In this monthly feature, we present an overview of the current state of the e-cigarette industry in terms of Web and search traffic using trusted services such as Compete.com and Google. Listed in this report are the top ten e-cigarette companies by Web traffic, the top ten electronic cigarette-related search keywords and the top domains listed on Google for the most popular e-cigarette keywords. When we find significant changes, we research potential influencing factors such as search engine changes, link building campaigns and trending news items. We sampled data from 80 e-cigarette companies in all to compile this report.
The new companies in this month’s e-cigarette industry report are American Cigs, eCig Express, ePuffer, Nyce Smoke, Pink Spot Vapors and Vapor Station.
If you represent an e-cigarette company and would like to submit a comment or announcement to be published in next month’s report, feel free to contact us.
E-Cigarette Company Web Traffic Share
During the month of July 2012, V2 Cigs further extended its lead over the rest of the e-cigarette industry by upping its visitor count to 1.03 million and claiming 61.16 percent of all e-cigarette Web traffic according to estimates provided by Compete.com. Congratulations to V2; to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time an e-cigarette company has received more than one million visitors in a single month. The total volume of Web traffic continues to grow, with an estimated 1.69 million total hits among the companies we’ve tracked compared to 1.44 million in June.
This month’s other big winners are South Beach Smoke, Victory and Pink Spot Vapors.
South Beach Smoke grew its Web traffic from 28,725 visitors in June to 93,354 in July, an increase of 324.99 percent. Over the past month, the company has published a rapid flurry of press releases detailing new products and gifts to celebrities. A search with SEO SpyGlass also shows 14,233 inbound links to the South Beach Smoke website, so a link building campaign may have also been involved. The anchor text for these links seems to rely heavily on the terms one might expect, including “electronic cigarette” and “electric cigarette.” Many of the links reside on what appear to be blog networks, so we’ll have to see how well the strategy holds up.
The story for Victory seems quite similar, with Compete.com reporting 17.702 visitors in July compared to 9,102 in June. SEO SpyGlass finds 13,605 links pointing to the Victory website using anchor text such as “smokeless cigarettes,” “electronic cigarette” and “electronic cigarettes.” Many of these appear to be sidebar and footer links on unrelated websites that have not been updated in several years.
Pink Spot Vapors showed an increase from 955 to 4,878 visitors in the past month. Pink Spot’s portfolio of an estimated 2,660 inbound links seems to consist primarily of advertisements purchased on e-cigarette blogs and links from a couple of blogs owned by Pink Spot, as we reported last month.
E-Cigarette Search Volume
These are the top ten electronic cigarette-related keywords by search volume according to the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, along with the number of exact match searches performed in the past month.
Changes from Last Month
There has been no change in the order of the top e-cigarette search keywords from last month, but volume for the keyword “electronic cigarette” dropped by 55,000 searches worldwide.
Keyword
- Electronic Cigarette
- E Cigarette
- Electronic Cigarettes
- E Liquid
- E Cig
- E Cigarettes
- Smokeless Cigarettes
- Electronic Cigarette Review
- ECig
- E Cigarette Reviews
Search Volume
- 246,000 (-55,000)
- 135,000
- 40,500
- 33,100
- 27,100
- 22,200
- 18,100
- 18,100
- 18,100
- 14,800
E-Cigarette Search Engine Charts
This section of the eCig One e-cigarette industry report lists the top ten domain names displayed on Google’s first results page for the four most popular electronic cigarette-related keywords.
Electronic Cigarette
- wikipedia.org
- victoryecigs.com (+2)
- cocktailnerd.com
- blucigs.com (-2)
- v2cigs.com
- ecigarettemate.com (New)
- greensmoke.com (New)
- e-cigarette-forum.com (-2)
- epuffer.com (New)
- americancigs.com (-1)
E-Cigarette
- wikipedia.org
- victoryecigs.com (+5)
- e-cigarette-forum.com
- totallywicked-eliquid.com
- greensmoke.com
- blucigs.com (-4)
- epuffer.com (+3)
- v2cigs.com (-2)
- innokin.com (New)
- smokingeverywhere.com (-1)
Electronic Cigarettes
- wikipedia.org
- victoryecigs.com
- blucigs.com
- fda.gov
- e-cigarette-forum.com
- v2cigs.com (+1)
- epuffer.com (New)
- greensmoke.com (+1)
- premiumecigarette.com (New)
- metroecigs.com (-4)
E-Liquid
- eliquidplanet.com (+1)
- pinkspotvapors.com (-1)
- americaneliquidstore.com
- totallywicked-eliquid.com (+2)
- v2cigs.com (+4)
- amsterdameliquid.com (New)
- halocigs.com (New)
- vaporstation.com (+2)
- e-cig.com (-5)
- kingpincigs.com (New)
Companies Included in Report
eCig One sampled traffic data from 80 different e-cigarette companies to create this month’s e-cigarette industry report. Click “Display List” to view the full list and contact us to suggest a company to include in future reports.
Display List
Thanks to Flickr user NS Newsflash for contributing this article’s lead photo.
Jason Artman founded eCig One after switching from smoking to vaping in 2010 and has been a professional writer and SEO consultant since 2007. His work has been featured on television and in leading publications, and it has been referenced in numerous peer-reviewed journals. Jason works with leading vape brands around the world to generate targeted web traffic and increase their revenue.