April Survey Results: SEO Is Top Priority

A monthly survey conducted by Practical eCommerce polled readers about the importance of search engine optimization and how much they understand SEO.

The April 2010 survey asked four questions about SEO, with a comment section for each response. Readers who completed the survey, and then provided us with their names and email addresses, were automatically entered in a contest to win a $25 Amazon gift certificate. The April contest winner, chosen by a random number generator, was Jessica Pairrett of The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc.

Is SEO Important to Your Business?

We asked if optimizing your site for the search engines is important to your business, and respondents almost unanimously answered, “Yes.” In fact, more than 95 percent of respondents think SEO is important for their businesses, while a slim 3.1 percent said they didn’t know, and one respondent thinks SEO is not important.

Comments about the importance of SEO included words like “essential” and “imperative.” One respondent said, “Organic search is a priority, but it is a moving target, so you can’t spend all your time trying to watch or improve your results. It is becoming less important (or at least a harder target to hit) as more social media, search personalization and the various ways of viewing search results evolves.”

Chart: Is optimizing your site for the search engines important to your business?

How Well Do You Understand SEO?

The second question asked how well respondents think they understand search engine optimization. Nearly all respondents said they have a fair or good understanding of how it works, with 40.6 percent saying they completely understand SEO and 54.7 percent saying they understand SEO somewhat. Only 4.7 percent of respondents admitted that they do not understand SEO at all.

Chart: Which term best describes your understanding of search engine optimization?

Is Your Site Optimized?

When we asked, “Is your site optimized for the search engines?” 82.8 percent of respondents said “Mainly yes.” About 11 percent said “Mainly no” and 6.3 percent said they don’t know.

One of the respondents commented, “We do as much as we find it’s worthwhile. There is lots more we could do, but given platform constraints and time involved, we’re happy with results.” Another respondent said, “We’ve spent lots of time optimizing our site to meet WC3 and Google guidelines. We have seen an increase in performance and rankings since.”

Chart: Is your site optimized for the search engines?

Who are the Respondents?

About two-thirds of the respondents said they represent an ecommerce company (62.5 percent); 14.1 percent are a developer, designer or programmer; and 12.5 percent are a software, SaaS, or other vendor to ecommerce merchants. The remaining 10.9 percent are in some sort of “other” business.

Chart: Which best describes you or your business?

Take the May 2010 Survey

The purpose of the monthly Practical eCommerce surveys is to learn what is on the minds of our readers. The May 2010 survey asks readers about the free tools and products offered by Google, and how much they trust Google with their personal and business information. Click here to take the May 2010 survey and to register to win a $25 Amazon gift certificate.