RETAILERS MISSING OUT ON CUSTOMERS BY FAILING TO USE SEO

Supermarkets are being advised to seize a significant marketing opportunity - SEO for retailers is likely to attract more customers willing to buy from shops and stores with an online presence.

Over the Easter holidays, research showed that many retailers and supermarkets missed chances to develop their customer base when search engine users were looking for store opening times.

Search terms such as 'good friday opening times', 'tesco opening hours' and 'asda opening times' were regularly entered over the holidays, but more than a third of people did not click through for more information.

Search engine optimisation of content that contains details about opening times could have helped push thousands of would-be customers through store doors.

Instead, most traffic for ‘opening hours' search terms clicked on Yahoo! Answers and The AnswerBank websites - which should be of concern to supermarkets.

SEO for retailers is an important sales and marketing consideration. Last month, spring sales on the high street helped boost traffic to retail store websites by 21% per cent, according to search analysis firm Hitwise.