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Monday, April 17, 2006

Search Engines and Consumer Behavior

"Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit."
- Napoleon Hill

When web sites are developed with an e-commerce system they typically do not have unique names for each page, if they are using dynamic solutions. Other solutions require creating web pages that promote the products placed on that page; and, again they don't have the name of the individual products. These solutions don't help much for various reasons.

Search Engine Results

When people begin searching, they typically start with broad scopes such as televisions. On Google alone there are 2,490,000 returned results. As the searcher begins to focus upon the product they want, the result list dwindles. For example, the search for plasma televisions returns 658,000. Now, we add RCA to the mix and the list becomes more reasonable with 89,600 results.

Now, some exciting things begin to happen as we improve our search. Using rca plasma televisions PHD50500 the list is now down to 246. There are five page titles returned that include the model number in their title. That announces those sites offer exactly what we're looking for.

As you notice the number of returned sites became much more manageable and easier to compete with. Individuals seeking your products by name, model number, or other specifics your chance of being on the first page increases. You can't afford to have a less performing site.

Consumer Behavior During Searching

When searchers begin to search they often start as we did above. They typically click on the top three listings, but more often than not don't purchase from those results. As searchers improve their likelihood of purchasing increases and the number of links they click through increases.

By acquiring more results on the first page of the search engine results are owned by a single site the searcher begins to realize the company actually offers what they seek. This improves your chances of connecting with the consumer. Not all e-commerce solutions can achieve this.

When sites are limited to a short list of possible keywords, the likelihood of the site being visited decreases. If a small set of keywords generates a 1000 visits with no purchases there is something definitely wrong. Some think it is the list of keywords chosen. That can be part of the problem, but as the number of possible searches increases the chances of purchases increases.

Since some businesses do not have the capital to have a properly developed e-commerce solution, their chances of competing with the companies that have those deep pockets. Instead of letting the small business be pushed off the Internet the Apple Pie Shopping Cart was developed to meet the demand and help small business owners compete.

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