68 per cent of companies are missing out on potential sales
Most UK e-commerce websites 'invisible'
/v3-uk/news/1976502/most-uk-commerce-websites-invisible
19 Jul 2005, Robert Jaques , V3
UK businesses are failing to take full advantage of the potential of their websites by ignoring search engine rankings, research has claimed.
Of the 500 UK companies that took part in a recent online survey, almost three quarters do not submit their sites to search engines and, as a result, admitted that their online presence is practically invisible.
The research, carried out by hosting firm Fasthosts, claimed that 68 per cent of companies are missing out on potential sales because consumers use search engines as a first port of call to look for products and services.
Online sales in 2005 are forecast by the Internet Advertising Bureau to reach £19.6bn, up 35 per cent on the previous year's £14.5m and accounting for seven per cent of all retail spending.
"Companies that believe it's enough to register a site and stick the web address on business cards are naive. If you are not listed on Google or Yahoo, your website might as well not be online," said Andrew Michael, chief executive at Fasthosts.
"The search engines are the first port of call for most consumers, and the higher the ranking the bigger the chance of a sale."
To ensure visibility online, companies should submit their sites to search engines immediately after registration and continue submission updates on a regular basis, the report advised.
To achieve the best results, relevant keywords need to be included in meta tags on the homepage, in the coding pages and, if possible, in the domain name.
© Incisive Media Investments Limited 2010, Published by Incisive Financial Publishing Limited, Haymarket House, 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4RX, are companies registered in England and Wales with company registration numbers 04252091 & 04252093
Do you agree?
Valuable insight, but trivial analysis
Whilst I welcome the comments, I think the depth of the insight and the recommendations will not help and are misleading. For a full analysis of how Major Retailers perform in search engines, download Screen Pages' report on http://www.screenpages.com/seo_report.asp
Posted by Roger Willcocks, 20 Jul 2005
Maternity Underwear Company in UK
I have recently started my own company based in the UK. I have followed the advice of Robert Jaques but have still found that my rankings for the major search engines are very poor. Is this because search engines want us to buy PPC keywords like and start bidding against other companies? If this is the case are small/new companies going to find it incredibly difficult to compete? My feeling is that it will.
I've read about google sandbox and submitting to valued directories like jayde.com, zeal, dmoz and I am having to be persistent in trying to gain approval.
In the mean time I am finding that smaller directories have found me and I am getting a small amount of traffic.
In summary I feel as though although I might be one of the 25% who do submit to search engines I am still practically invisible.
Online business startups have it hard.
Suzanne Crouthers
Posted by Suzanne Crouthers, 23 Jul 2005