Thu 8th of April, filed under SEO
Internet retailers must use better search engine optimisation (SEO) in their campaigns if their performance in natural search listings is to match that of their paid advertising, according to a new report.
A study by SEO analysts Conductor found that although the top 500 online retail sites spent £781,252.54 per day across a total of 88,758 search terms, only 33% of their highest-priced keywords showed up in the top 50 results on natural search.
The findings demonstrate the need for companies to ensure that as much attention is given to their SEO strategy as is their pay per click (PPC) campaigns: studies routinely find that users favour natural search listings over paid, with trust – a hugely important factor in online retail – substantially increasing for results on the left hand side of the page.
The Conductor report found that online-only retailers were the biggest users of PPC and the most visible, with 72% of keywords listed, in natural SEO results. Big consumer brands scored 69%, call centres 68% and leading chain stores ranked for 66% of their top queries.
However, only 7% of the sites which were part of the study had top 50 rankings on a significant number of their keywords. Consistency among the results was poor and some companies even had no visibility at all in natural search listings.
"Too many organizations treat SEO as an after-thought," says Nathan Safran, senior research analyst at Conductor. "It needs to be ingrained in the company's culture."
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Posted by Daniel Nolan
