Online retailers are still not taking full advantage of search
engine optimisation (SEO) opportunities with their Web sites, according
to a new study by search and interactive marketing agency Oneupweb.

In the study, “Once Again… There’s Still Money on the Table: Internet Retailer Study 2007,” Oneupweb looks at the SEO efforts of the top 100 retailers as rated by Internet Retailer magazine.

Oneupweb found:

• 20 percent of retailers’ sites were well-optimized
• 20 percent of retailers’ sites were moderately optimized
• 34 percent of retailers’ sites were nominally optimized
• 26 percent of retailers’ sites were not optimized at all

Sites were considered well optimised if they had unique and relevant
meta tags, optimised alt tags, and a large amount of indexable content.
Moderately optimised sites had unique meta tags, low to moderate
content, and minor site architecture problems. Sites were rated as
nominally optimised if they had only homepage titles and meta tags
optimised, little indexable content, keywords on homepage copied
throughout the site, site architecture or content management system
problems. Non-Optimised sites had no evidence of SEO at all.

While on-site SEO is not the only factor involved in search
engine rankings, Oneupweb found that 90 percent of the well-optimised
sites were positioned on the first page of Google results for at least
two keywords. In comparison, this study found that only 22 percent of
non-optimised sites appeared in the first Google search results page
for two or more keywords.