Site Search, SEO and E-Mail Rule for Online Marketers

Nearly 90 percent of U.S. retailers rank site search, search engine optimization (SEO) and e-mail marketing as the most important e-commerce technologies helping to promote their online businesses, according to early findings of a recent survey by the Web site search engine software provider SLI Systems. The recent survey polled 322 retailers in the U.S. Here are some more findings of the survey.

* 40 percent cited social media tools, such as blogs, podcasts and user-generated content, as increasing in popularity;

* 87 percent of the respondents currently use site search, SEO and e-mail marketing strategies;

* 93 percent believe the effectiveness of SEO will increase over the next three years, and 82 percent feel site search will do likewise; and

* 76 percent said user-generated content will have a greater impact on their marketing goals in the near future, followed by social media tools (72 percent), online video (69 percent), mobile technologies (68 percent) and e-mail marketing (52 percent).

For more information, and the full results of the retail survey next week, go to www.sli-systems.com.