New online retail study indicates little progress by major brands

The study, entitled Once Again... There's Still Money on the Table: Internet Retailer Study 2007, is the third in a series of retailer studies released by the firm. The previous two studies were produced in 2004 and 2005.

"This study should serve as a wake-up call for many of the major online retailers," says Oneupweb CEO Lisa Wehr. "Simply put: paid search alone is not enough. And in a competitive e-commerce environment, this situation is too costly to ignore."

Oneupweb analysed each of the top 100 site's meta tags, site architecture, keywords, content, and other tactics that could affect the sites' ability to be spidered by search engines and positioned well on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Of Internet Retailer Magazine's 2007 top 100 retailers' sites, Oneupweb found:

* 20% well-optimised
* 20% moderately optimised
* 34% nominally optimised
* 26% not optimised at all

The strong correlation between website optimisation and search engine positioning, traffic, and sales conversions has long been established. (See Oneupweb's white paper, Target Google's Top Ten to Sell Online.) Accordingly, Oneupweb found that 90% of the well-optimised sites were positioned on the first page of Google results for at least two keywords. In comparison, this study found that only 22% of non-optimised sites appeared in the first Google search results page for two or more keywords.

"Search engine success is not a big mystery," explains Wehr. "The higher you rank in the results pages, the more visitors reach your website, and your sales increase accordingly. And it's surprising," she adds, "that after three studies during four years of remarkable online growth, some of the worlds' largest online retailers still have not gotten the message."

As part of the latest study, Oneupweb carefully examined linking and the intra- and inter-connection of websites, blogs, and other media that can improve website popularity and search positions. They found that even a vast network of links and large brand names cannot fully overcome the lack of sound search engine optimisation practices.

"This study should encourage online retailers who are not in the top 100," notes Wehr. "There are a variety of strategic opportunities that can and should be implemented in order to compete successfully and consistently. Conversely, large, successful retailers can take heart as well; they can further solidify their positions and secure even greater market share by attending to their websites more carefully. Either way, there's more work to be done for all online marketers."

Download Once Again... There's Still Money on the Table: Internet Retailer Study 2007.

For more information, visit: OneUpWeb.com

Source: eMediaWire.com