Searches and links are falling as shoppers` navigation choices

Memo to e-retailers spending big on search engine positioning and links: more consumers are now getting to where they want to go online by typing URLs directly or using a book mark. According to data from analytics provider WebSideStory’s StatMarket division, more than 64% of Internet users now arrive at sites by direct navigation, compared to about 53% a year ago.

“The days of web users randomly surfing to sites are ending. Now, more than ever, people know exactly where they want to go on the web,” says Geoff Johnston, vice president product marketing for StatMarket.

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Johnston adds that the trend doesn’t mean search sites and other web links are becoming less important overall, pointing out that users new to a site still must find it before they can bookmark and return to it, and they use searches to do this. “However, having a site worth returning to is becoming increasingly important to business,” he says.

What are the findings’ implications for how marketers apportion spending between outreach to get new visitors to a site and content and offerings that get them to come back? Retailers weighing the question should first determine what percentage of site visitors are return visitors vs. the percentage of first-timers, says Johnston.

An inordinately high number of first-time visitors can be a bad sign, he adds. “If 60% of visitors to a retail site are first-timers, that’s a little scary–-for some reason people aren’t going back to the site. If you are spending all of your money getting people there, you are essentially buying traffic, but you want to buy lasting traffic,” says Johnston. “The only way to do that is to give people a reason to keep coming back. You never hear the term stickiness any more, but it applies here. It means you have to have content that is worth returning to.”