Have you seen The Customer Experience Factbook?

In this 180+ page report, you'll find all the information and support you need to build a profitable, effective CX Improvement Program that spans every part of your business. You'll be able to implement and manage meaningful and profitable change, and grow your bottom line despite a slowing economy.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)

When it comes to Googling products, Bricks beat Clicks

Retailers with physical presence dominate search results

While apple.com enjoyed the biggest absolute boost in search visibility during 2021, established retail brands walmart.com, nordstrom.com, bestbuy.com and target.com are in the top five in the analysis by Searchmetrics.

No pure-play eCommerce brand (those without physical stores) made the top ten winners list. And while three major online marketplaces - amazon.com, ebay.com and etsy.com - were among the major eCommerce winners in search in the 2020 analysis, no online marketplaces featured in 2021.

"The pandemic continued to impact people's ability or willingness to shop freely in physical stores last year, meaning curb-side pickup, click-and-collect and buy online pickup instorehave been booming. So perhaps it's fitting that the sites that have made the most gains in search during the year are mainly those with physical stores who can offer shoppers these options," said Lillian Haase, CMO of Searchmetrics.

During the pandemic, the brick-and-mortar retailers invested significantly in improving their web presence, product range and their purchase, delivery and collection processes. They seem to have accepted the challenge to compete with online marketplaces and they are seeing some good success, as the study revealed.

It seems that 2021 was a busy year for search with the roll-out of two major core algorithm updates (in June / July and November). Google uses core updates to correct and optimize its algorithm to ensure it is delivering the most relevant results. While the timing of the November update was criticized for hitting retailers close to the holiday shopping season, Searchmetrics' analysis shows it actually had a positive impact on the Google visibility of retail websites including bestbuy.com and target.com.

July also saw the roll-out of the Core Web Vitals update (also known as the Page Experience update) in which Google began rewarding websites that deliver a good user experience in areas such as load time, interaction, and stability. This new ranking factor is not just important for eCommerce stores' visibility in search, it also has a positive impact on revenue and conversions.

Also, Instagram, which many retailers use to drive product discovery, saw traffic and sales achieve an unprecedented rise in absolute search visibility in Google.com searches. While its competitor Pinterest was one of the biggest losers in 2021.

"This trend is the same across all the countries we analyzed; Instagram seems to be getting a lot right, while Pinterest seems to have fallen out of favour with Google," said Haase.

The Searchmetrics study measured search performance by analyzing weekly search results for millions of keywords throughout the year, scoring websites for factors such as how frequently they appear in results and how high they rank. The top ten ranking was based on a website's absolute improvement in search performance between the start and end of 2021.

More findings from the Searchmetrics analysis can be found on the company's blog at: https://blog.searchmetrics.com

Have you seen The Customer Experience Factbook?

In this 180+ page report, you'll find all the information and support you need to build a profitable, effective CX Improvement Program that spans every part of your business.

You'll be able to implement and manage meaningful and profitable change, and grow your bottom line despite a slowing economy. Grab this goldmine of easily adaptable and up-to-date strategies, walk-throughs, trends, technologies, research, suppliers and partners, plus all the supporting arguments you need to build a solid CX strategy.

While most marketers could list maybe a dozen key points for improving their brand's Customer Experience (CX), the researchers and writers at The Marketing Factbook have identified FORTY main 'CX Keys' which will help you drive your customers to new levels of delight, loyalty, advocacy and profitability.

The areas in which customers have direct contact with your organization are perhaps the most obvious places in which CX improvements can be made, and this report addresses all 24 of these 'Direct CX Keys', applicable to offline and online businesses alike.

At the same time there are many other areas that indirectly affect CX (such as the supply chain, policies and processes) in which every business can make simple but far-reaching improvements. This report guides you through the problems and solutions for all 16 of these 'Indirect CX Keys', many of which are often forgotten or under-played even in the best CX strategies.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)