Why there’s still money on the table in search
For the second consecutive year, a survey by search marketing company OneUpWeb shows that most of the retailers that constitute the top tier of Internet Retailer’s Top 400 don’t optimize their sites effectively for natural search. OneUpWeb`s study indicates that only 17% of the 100 largest e-retailers in the Top 400 qualified as well-optimized, only a slight gain from the 12% who did so last year.
According to the study report, OneUpWeb didn’t see an increase in the number of well-optimized sites it had expected, which it says indicates that the most sophisticated and profitable levels of search engine marketing remain unclaimed. “There’s still tons of opportunity for companies to realize substantial online gains by implementing search engine optimization and marketing,” says CEO Lisa Wehr.
The study looked at criteria such as site architecture, title tags, meta tags, keywords, content and other factors affecting the site’s ability to be indexed by and to appear in the first page of relevant search listings on Google and Yahoo. As it did last year, the study defined well-optimized sites as those having substantial indexable content throughout the site as well as unique title and meta tags. To those criteria, this year it added the presence of more sophisticated search engine optimization techniques.
Moderately optimized sites were defined as those that had unique titles and meta tags throughout the site, as well as industry- and company-specific keywords, but lacked additional indexable content. Nominally-optimized sites were those that optimized titles and meta tags only on the home page.
The 17 sites deemed well optimized varied in size and sales volume, ranging from Sears.com, No. 6 in Internet Retailer’s Top 400, to Alibris, No. 90. Others in that group were the web sites of Quixtar (No. 14), TigerDirect (No. 32), Buy.com (No. 33), Zappos.com (No. 45), Blue Nile (No. 48), Schwan’s (No. 54), Abebooks (No. 58), Sharper Image (no. 63), Walgreens (No. 64), Lowe’s (No. 67), Crutchfield (No. 70), 1-800-Contacts (no. 72), PalmOne (No. 77), SmartBargains (No. 78), and Drs. Foster & Smith. 25 of the Top 100 were moderately optimized, 35% nominally optimized, and 23% not optimized at all.
The study also determined how well the sites were positioned on Google and Yahoo on keywords relevant to their business, examining whether the site appeared on the first page of results provided for those keyword searches. 80% of well-optimized sites appeared within the first three pages of results for searches on their keywords on Google, and 52% of them appeared in the first page of search results. On Yahoo, 100% of the well-optimized sites were positioned within the first three pages of search results; 41% on the first page.
Among moderately-optimized sites, 44% appeared under their designated keywords on the first three pages of Google, with 20% on the first results page. On Yahoo, 56% of this group appeared on the first three pages of results and 20% on page 1. Among the nominally-optimized sites, only 40% appeared on the first three pages of Google for searches using their keywords and only 17% appeared the first page. On Yahoo, 51% appeared on the first three pages of results and 20% appeared on the first page.
“While the study shows that more sites are using search engine optimization overall, sites aren’t using sophisticated techniques combined with well-developed content,” says Wehr. “And that’s the crucial strategy that brings better positions on the search engine results page, more visibility, higher conversion rates and strong market share.”
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