Search Engine Optimization- Are you really exploiting it?
The other day, when I was just browsing the Internet, I came across this interesting piece of news in ClickZ. This particular report makes mention of the statistics that were revealed by Oneupweb. The report by ClickZ reads like this: Online retailers are still not taking full advantage of search engine optimization (SEO) opportunities with their Web sites, according to a new study by search and interactive marketing agency Oneupweb. In the study, “Once Again… There’s Still Money on the Table: Internet Retailer Study 2007,” Oneupweb looks at the SEO efforts of the top 100 retailers as rated by Internet Retailer magazine. At the top level, Oneupweb found:
· 20 percent of retailers’ sites were well-optimized
· 20 percent of retailers’ sites were moderately optimized
· 34 percent of retailers’ sites were nominally optimized
· 26 percent of retailers’ sites were not optimized at all
Overall findings were similar to those Oneupweb found in studies in 2004 and 2005, though some of the players improved, while others stayed the same, according to Tim Kauffold, director of business development at Oneupweb.
Now, we all know that it is important for a website to be optimised. This is because most people use search engines to actually find and locate websites. According to figures released by Forrester Research, more than 80% of the netizens use a search engine to find a website.
At the same time, an increasing number of people are using the online medium to carry out their shopping. According to the report released by the US Census Bureau, “U.S. retail e-commerce sales reached a little over $93 billion in 2005, up from a revised $76 billion in 2004—an annual gain of 22.2 percent. Rapid growth in e-retail has been the norm. From 2000 to 2005, retail e-sale increased at an average annual growth rate of 27.3 percent, compared with 4.3 percent for total retail sales.” Similarly, a report from the Internet Advertising Bureau also paints a rosy scenario of the online shopping industry in UK. It points out to the data released by the IMRG, which states that 20 million people carried out their shopping via an online medium. It has also predicted that in the year 2007, £42 billion will be spent online by UK shoppers. It also stated that 860 million parcels would be shipped to the UK’s 26 million Internet shoppers. In addition, online shoppers will each spend £1,600 on average.
Therefore, if you do not have SEO friendly site, you might be losing out on a large number of prospective customers and at a time, when e-commerce is registering a strong growth.
Now, if you feel that you are not the proper person as far as implementation of SEO is concerned, then you can approach a web solution company. You can also think about training some of your staff in SEO. There are many institutions offering online SEO courses.
So, if you want to have really grab a share of the online market, then you need to optimise your site for search engines.
