Is SEO Worth The Effort

Internet-Engine, a Chicago based Internet Web Site Marketing Strategies Consulting Firm, analyzed search results from the three major search engines -- Google, Yahoo and MSN -- during the holiday season for the past three years and found that on-line retailers, such as Amazon and Overstock, are winning the Internet search battle against traditional retailers.

The project, called The Retail Search Presence Study, which included visiting and categorizing over six thousand web pages that were found when performing typical Internet searches, showed that online retailers have a very strong presence in the SERPs, representing well over 30% of the results shown, while brick and mortar retailers consistently had the weakest presence of any group showing up an average of only 12% of the time. With consumers' search activity growing to more than 10 billion searches each month and Forrester Research reporting that 24% of all offline purchases are influenced by the Internet, the importance of a strong search presence has never been more clear.

"Online retailers have developed and maintained a dominant presence in search marketing," said Thom Disch, Internet-Engine's CEO and the director of the study. "To put this in perspective," he continued, "when a shopper does a search on the Internet, he or she will find three listings from online retailers for every one listing from a traditional retailer. I find it very surprising that brick and mortar retailers have not invested more dollars in search marketing, since e-commerce sales have grown 28% since 2006, according to comScore, while total retail sales have grown by only 3% over the same time period."

There appears to be little question that your online business is going to be well served by being found on the first couple of pages in search engine results. Striving to be there -- practicing regular SEO on your site(s) -- is time well spent.