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Chapter 2 E-commerce fundamentals 61

Google trends for web sites – useful for benchmarking the growth of
Figure 2.4 online intermediaries and destination sites
Source: http://trends.google.com/websites

Companies need to know which sites are effective in harnessing search traffic and either
partner with them or try to obtain a share of the search traffic using the search engine
marketing and affiliate marketing techniques explained in Chapter 9. Well-known, trusted
brands which have developed customer loyalty are in a good position to succeed online
since a common consumer behaviour is to go straight to the site through entering a URL
or from a bookmark or e-mail. Alternatively they may search for the brand or URL.

Hitwise provides this type of insight, as shown in Table 2.1. Through evaluating the type
and volume of phrases used to search for products in a given market it is possible to calcu-
Share of search
late the total potential opportunity and the current share of search terms for a company.
The audience share of
Internet searches ‘Share of search’ can be determined from web analytics reports from the company site
achieved by a particular
audience in a particular which indicate the precise key phrases used by visitors to actually reach a site from
market. different search engines.