Retail web sites get 25 percent of their traffic from search engines, according to an online competitive intelligence service. And the more information retailers provide on the Web, the more likely customers will shop at their stores and return to their sites.
Search engines increased their role in sending visitors to shopping and classified Web sites by 0.7 percent from May 2006 to May 2007, and Google sent the most traffic, according to Hitwise figures released this week. A separate survey announced this week that shoppers are more likely to shop in traditional stores and return to Web sites of retailers that provide complete product information online.
Google accounted for 15.6 percent of upstream shopping and classified visits, marking an increase of 8.7 percent since May 2006, according to Hitwise. One-word searches, including domain and URL searches, accounted for 23.7 percent of search terms sending traffic to shopping and classified Web sites. A 20 percent increase in one-word searches since May 2005 points to growing use of search toolbars as a primary means of navigating the World Wide Web, Hitwise reported.
Source: Information Week, http://www.informationweek.com