‘Retailers should focus SEO strategies on images and video’

Retailers should maximise their use of video and image content on their websites to boost their Google search visibility, claims a study.

Video results appear in about 70% of the top 100 listings, the type of content displayed most often in universal search results, according to search analytics software company Searchmetrics.

Images appear in about 30% of the top 100 universal search listings, ahead of Google’s “shopping” and “news” categories.

The study suggests that retailers should focus their SEO strategies around video and image content, rather than optimising around text such as blogs or news, which both feature significantly lower in search listings.

Dr Horst Joepen, CEO of Searchmetrics: “Given that many retail sites already produce a large volume of video and image content, we think this could be an obvious step for them.”

The study found that eBay.co.uk has the greatest visibility in shopping results within Google’s UK search listings.

The Searchmetrics study was based on an analysis of the universal search results that appear in the top 100 listings on Google UK. It reviewed searches carried out using a database of about 28 million global keywords between February and May 2011.

Top ten sites with greatest visibility in shopping results within Google UK universal search listings

1. ebay.co.uk
2. google.co.uk
3. amazon.co.uk
4. play.com
5. johnlewis.com
6. tesco.com
7. argos.com
8. overstock.com
9. asos.com
10. debenhams.com

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