Retailers Rank Low in Natural Search
Retail websites are not showing up near the top of natural search results even though they often bid heavily on the same terms in paid search, according to a study by Conductor Inc.
The study, carried out in conjunction with online ad research firm SpyFu, determined 10 keywords that each company in the Fortune 500 bid on frequently for paid search placement, then examined where the company placed in natural searches on those terms.
Key findings:
- About 72% of the Fortune 500 companies have very low or non-existent visibility for their most advertised keywords. A user searching for “laptop,” for example, could click through 10 or more pages of natural search results and still not find a major company that had bid heavily on “laptop.”
- Only 2.87% of the domains controlled by those large companies had a significant number of terms show up in the top 30 results.
- Just 8% of Fortune 500 companies studied showed mid to strong presence for their most advertised keywords. The remainder (20%) have low to mid presence.
- Several brands demonstrated a commitment to natural search, and displayed a significant head start in expanding beyond paid results, but even these companies had inconsistent execution across brands.
Results from the two dozen retail companies in the study (via Internet Retailer):
- In terms of overall score in natural search results, the retail industry is ranked No. 9 among the 15 categories of companies. Within the 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.
Companies can make their content more available and index-able through the process of search engine optimization (SEO) - but not many do, Conductor said. Just 11% of aggregate search budgets are devoted to natural search, according to a search engine marketing trade group.
Natural search is more complicated than paid search, and it takes longer to show a return on investment, explained Seth Dotterer, Conductor’s CMO.