When It Comes to (Natural) Search, Retailers are Left in the Dust
You'd think that with retail sales plummeting and the Donnie Darko economy rearing its ugly head that the retail sector would be the first to embrace search engine marketing – outside of paid search, that is.
But according to a study by Conductor (which is, however, an SEM company, so take some salt) the vast majority of retailers and consumer facing brands in the Fortune 500 have little to non-existent visibility in natural search results for their most advertised keywords.
I did a little search for "smartphone" and found the only mention of a retailer, or manufacturer for that matter – outside of Shopping results – on the first page was from Microsoft Windows Mobile, and Palm. What is wrong with this picture? I know it's complicated, and it takes a little bit more time to get your product in natural search, but really kids – Microsoft? Palm?
A few more tidbits that Retailer Daily picked up from Internet Retailer's coverage:
- Within the retail category, accommodation and food service companies had the highest
score; mining and oil exploration companies had the lowest score. - Gap Inc., which focuses its paid search campaign fairly on about
3,000 terms, was the highest scoring company. Office Depot, which bids
on about 33,000 terms, trailed closely. - Retailers generally bid on far more paid search keywords than other
companies, averaging of 24,700 versus 5,100 for all companies in the
study. - A few online-only retail companies (e.g., Amazon, eBay) bid
regularly on 250,000 to 750,000 terms.
