Many business websites operated from Dublin show “massive under-use” of their online presence to boost sales, a new survey has found. The research also uncovered low levels of visitor traffic and poor search engine scoring.
PraxisNow, an internet marketing consultancy, surveyed more than 300 business websites located in the greater Dublin area and found a lack of awareness of how to use the sites to bring more revenue to the companies that maintain them.
A massive 95pc of the sites surveyed were estimated to have 10 visitors per day or less on a rolling average. Close to 70pc of the sites had less than the required amount of content for Google to deem them ‘substantial’, so that they are being penalised for having insubstantial content.
Fewer than 23pc had a Google Page Rank of five or better thus further limiting the sites’ placement when search results are presented. In addition, more than 90pc of the sites did not have an opt-in facility for visitors on the home page.
Most of the sites covered for the survey had no meaningful statistics collection, which PraxisNow claimed would prevent them from knowing if the sites had lots of visitors.
Noel Coburn, co-founder of PraxisNow, said: “Whilst a minority of the sites surveyed had the capability to collect and analyse statistics, these were mostly managed by the IT department with very poor day-to-day visibility at marketing or sales level. In other words, in the majority of such cases, even though statistics were available they were not used in any constructive or adaptive way.”
The survey was designed to coincide with a number of morning seminars being run by PraxisNow. Collectively entitled Internet Marketing for 21st Century Businesses, the events are scheduled for Citywest Hotel in Dublin on 20 July, Great Southern Hotel at Dublin Airport on 27 July and Stillorgan Park Hotel on 10 August. More information is available at www.praxisnow.ie/SeminarCalendar.html.
By Gordon Smith
