Shopping Websites Generate 10x Traffic with Search Marketing

Whether your website is old or new, chances are your primary goal is to boost traffic. While search marketing is certainly a tried and true method for traffic generation, many people have resorted to alternate methods to drive traffic to their websites. Some examples of these alternatives include social media websites and guest blogging. However, despite the effectiveness of these alternate methods, a new report suggests that search is still the main source of traffic for most websites.

SimilarWeb’s Global Search Marketing Report 2016

Every year, SimilarWeb releases a Global Search Marketing Report to give online marketers valuable details and information about recent trends and insights related to marketing strategies for the World Wide Web. The findings reported in the Global Search Marketing Report 2016 are based on billions of website visits to a sample of desktop websites from all around the world.

The most prominent and meaningful finding of the Global Search Marketing Report 2016 is that search remains the largest driver of traffic to websites. SimilarWeb had the report focus on a number of metrics relating to paid search. The report also shows an entire breakdown of the many sources of traffic for the sample of global websites. It was found that paid search drives ten times more traffic to shopping websites than social media or display. The only instance in which this did not prove true was with the general merchandise category.

Many similar reports on the Internet report that email and social media both generate major amounts of traffic for shopping websites. However, SimilarWeb’s report directly contradicts this claim. According to the report, email and social media only generate moderate amounts of traffic compared to search. However, the report doesn’t provide much information about the effectiveness of various channels when it comes to generating conversions.

For both paid and organic sources, the report indicates that search is the biggest driver of traffic. The next largest traffic drivers are direct and referrals. While social media ranks fourth on the list, the difference between the first three major drivers of traffic and social media is very large. Email is fifth on the list of major traffic drivers, but the report indicates that email generates very little traffic.

The SimilarWeb report breaks down the search category into paid and organic searches. While paid search accounted for about 5% of all traffic for the sample of global websites, organic search accounts for about 95% of the traffic.

The SimilarWeb Report Doesn’t Consider Mobile Context

SimilarWeb opted not to take mobile websites into account when it comes to the Global Search Marketing Report of 2016. Since the report doesn’t consider mobile context, marketers should not apply the findings of this report to their mobile marketing efforts. It is probable that some of the findings would be slightly or even vastly different if mobile websites were taken into account.

For more information about online marketing and the major traffic drivers for websites, don’t hesitate to contact us. Our digital agency will address any questions or concerns you have in a timely manner.