Friday, 08, Aug 2008 12:04
Online retailers should turn to search engine optimisation (SEO) if they are not performing as well as they would like, it is suggested.
Lawrence Shaw, the founder of website-testing firm Sitemorse, makes his comments to online resource the Retail Bulletin, following research by the publication which finds some major online retailers's pages are less effective pages than their high street counterparts.
He argues that the frustrating thing is many websites are not performing well because of easily-remedied problems such as broken links and a lack of SEO.
Mr Shaw raises his concerns in the same week a new Hitwise report shows high street stores are pulling ahead of internet-only retailers in terms of traffic.
The research shows the 100 biggest high street retailers operating online received almost 20 per cent more British visitors than the 100 largest internet-only websites.
Hitwise suggests this will mean high street retailers are more reliant than ever on the internet during this year's Christmas shopping season.