Internet Sales Trumped Traditional Retailers This Holiday

There is no more powerful example of the power of the Internet to drive commerce than the events of the recent holiday season. Cash-conscious consumers took advantage of in-store Black Friday and December holiday sales but stopped there. Even day-after-Christmas sales failed to spark shoppers’ enthusiasm. The hoped for shopping frenzy never materialized; and retailers, decimated by the lack of spending, are starting to file for bankruptcy. Experts expect retail store closings to reach levels not seen since the 1970 recession 35 years ago. Burt Flickinger, managing director of retail industry consultant Strategic Resource Group, said 160,000 stores have closed this year and an additional 200,000 will be forced to shutter their doors in 2009. If you walked into a brick-and-mortar store or mall during the holidays, you found them depressingly empty. Parking was not a problem.

The picture was decidedly rosier for businesses with an Internet presence. Cyber Monday after Thanksgiving and Cyber Friday after Christmas resulted in high sales volumes. With no crowds or nasty weather to contend with and no schlepping from store to store to find what they wanted, buyers this year preferred to do their shopping online. Many Internet vendors sweetened the pot by offering excellent discounts and free shipping. It’s no wonder Internet sales did better than brick and mortar sales this holiday, and it’s a trend that retail analysts expect to continue.

A flagging economy escalates business competition. More people are competing for fewer consumer dollars. Businesses that don’t use every possible opportunity to reach potential customers will be left choking on their competitors’ dust. With most consumers now using the web as a first choice to research and make purchases, Internet marketing is no longer a luxury; it’s a critical business essential. But without search engine optimization (SEO), you’ll be wasting precious marketing dollars and fail to achieve the Internet presence you desire. Search engine optimization maximizes your presence on the internet to ensure that users are directed to your site, not your competitors’.

With SEO services provided by Increase Visibility, you can successfully optimize your website to increase your search engine ranking. Search engines are constantly changing their search requirements to better answer users’ queries and to weed out spam. If you don’t stay current with the parameters used by search engine spiders and bots to crawl your webpages, if you don’t regularly review and tweak your site to make sure it follows the most recent rules posted by Google, Yahoo! and the other primary search engines, your site will falter in the rankings and your business will go to your competitors. Effective SEO is an ongoing process; and given today’s emphasis on computer sales, it has been shown to be the fastest, most effective way to drive customers to your business.