The Most Important Method of Online Promotion Is…
By: Chris CrumDirectories are typically used to promote online businesses. Duh. But guess what method of online promotion is the most preferred by online businesses.
…
It’s site search. According to a survey from SLI Systems at least. Over 91% of online businesses surveyed cite site search as the most important promotion tool for their ecommerce businesses. Other interesting statistics found by the survey include:
- Of the retailers that have measured the impact site search has had on their businesses, 87% reported positive results.
- 54% saw an increase in sales as a direct result of adding new site search capabilities, while 44% experienced greater conversion rates and 40% cited better customer satisfaction.
- Of the retailers polled, close to 60% said they would be likely to consider a hosted (SaaS) site search solution over a traditional installed application to reduce costs, lessen the strain on IT resources and make for more rapid deployment.
What are your thoughts on the survey? What is most important to you?
October 12th, 2008 at 7:30 am
To me, it would be SEO anyday. This is because this method of driving traffic is more or less permanent and free if you discount the imputed cost of learning how to SEO effectively.
PPC is another good method because of its speed and being highly targetted if the ad is properly crafted.
Social Media? Still researching this but feelers indicate that though it generates significant traffic, this is highly untargetted and unlikely to convert significantly to sales.