JSE Top 100 companies fail to use websites effectively

Keyword stuffing, a technique used by Search Engine Optimisers (SEO) to achieve higher search ratings, was only used in 6% of the sites.

Quirk's Cape Town CEO Craig Raw is disappointed with the findings: "Our survey shows the chasm that exists between the top performing companies and their use of available technology to promote themselves. Clear proof that Southern African business is lagging behind its international counterparts in technology take up.

"79% of the sites failed to take advantage of the H1-H6 tags - a low cost way of increasing site rankings while Descriptive Alt tags were missing in 85% of the websites surveyed," says Raw.

Internet usage patterns have proven that few people search beyond the first page of Search Engine results and attribute increased value to the brand that enjoys the highest ranking.

"Where the JSE Top 100 companies enjoy high Search Engine rankings it is entirely accidental," he says, adding that website browsing and on-line information was the preferred way in which investors and analysts communicated with a company.

"It is an indictment that the JSE Top 100 companies fail to take full advantage of SEO from both a response and brand building perspective and fail to make use of the power of their content.

"41% of the websites evaluated had bad URLs, preventing spiders from indexing sites effectively. 63% of the websites evaluated used JavaScript while only 17% of them offered a no-script alternative. 14% of the websites evaluated were not entirely compatible with browsers such as Firefox, Opera and Safari," says Raw.

We've come to two damning conclusions: either our leading companies ignore the power of the electronic media or suppliers to these companies are not versed in the available technology to improve the usage of sites. In a highly competitive environment, it is no longer the pretty pictures on websites that drive users but the ability to access relevant information quickly and effectively. SEO is a proven technique to achieve this so it is of concern that only two sites out of 100 were designed with searchability in mind."

A summery of the findings is available on www.quirk.co.za while the full 30-page document is available for purchase.