According to Nielsen//NetRatings, the top five most popular shopping search terms for April were:

1. "home depot"
2. "walmart"
3. "target"
4. "sears"
5. "best buy"

Interesting data. But I don't agree with the conclusion posited on the SearchEngineWatch Blog:

These are people who likely have done their research and are now looking for physical/local stores to buy what it is they want.

I don't buy it (pun intended, haha). Most Americans already know where their local Home Depot is. No, instead I assert that most of these searchers are looking to buy online. Some of these shoppers will opt for in-store pickup (both Sears and Best Buy offer that option). Many of those who aren't wanting to make an online purchase are looking for product information, buyer's guides, or the current circular/FSI for the week's in-store specials.

So why are the top shopping searches dominated by brick-and-mortar brands? Simple, it's because those 5 brands are so pervasive and so trusted in the marketplace. Their online stores offer a safe and familiar place to shop online.

Why don't they simply type in homedepot.com into their web browser's Location bar? I imagine for many people, typing in "home depot" into the Google Toolbar or into the search box on their Start Page is the easiest and/or most comfortable way for them to get to the site. Perhaps some, like myself, even have their Google Toolbar configured it to have the I'm Feeling Lucky button on it, to go straight there! ;-)

So, all you online retailers revving up for the holiday shopping season and wondering what you might be inadvertently leaving on the table? Thinking perhaps that your products should be represented (or better represented) in the comparison shopping engines? Well, you're not alone. Don't stress too much, however, because the shopping engines (Yahoo! Shopping, Froogle, Shopping.com, Pricegrabber, MSN Shopping, Gifts.com, etc.) typically represent only a relatively small slice of etailers' traffic. But there's always room for improvement, and Alan Rimm-Kaufman and Larry Becker (of the Rimm-Kaufman Group) offer some valuable tips to maximize the shopping feed opportunity, such as:

• Set up an automated routine to remove discontinued items from your feeds. This should be done automatically each day or week. And continuously monitor your presence on the feeds. Most of the feeds will simply drop any URLs they consider malformed; only some will tell you when they do so.
• You need an algorithm that handles your entire product assortment. While some of the engines allow you to improve placement by bidding, many do not. Success depends then on what you send, and as we mentioned earlier, each feed requires its own recipe.
• You'll also want to use product titles that reflect how most people describe the things you sell; jargon can make you hard to find.
• Work with your internal team or your search agency to establish a feed testing regimen. Test one feed algorithm against another. As always you’ll want to ensure that each URL has a unique tracking code identifying the specific product on your site and the engine where your ad is served.

Got a new article out in the November issue of Multichannel Merchant... RSS Made Simple. The article is specifically targeted to online retailers. So if you're selling online and thinking of using RSS to help you sell more, this is the article to read!

Here's a small excerpt...

Key benefits of RSS to online merchants:

• Bypasses spam filters
• Encourages links and garners PageRank score
• Serves as a content delivery channel to your affiliates, giving them something they can republish on their own Websites
• Easy for your subscribers to manage communications from you without clogging up their inboxes
• Allows you to change content midstream (no need to push an “unsend buttonâ€? as with e-mail)
• Is the only way your blog can be included in Google's new Blog Search (http://blogssearch.google.com)
• Increases the likelihood of media coverage because RSS is a hot topic retailers are slow to embrace.

Read on...

37 Signals offers some great holiday ecommerce tips to make your online retail site just that much more successful this holiday season. Peak buying season is just around the corner. Better read up!

Today I'll be running a panel on blogs, RSS, and podcasting at Shop.org's Annual Summit. My panelists include eHobbies, Ice.com, and SteveSpanglerScience.com.

So few online retailers are blogging, that it's very easy to get prime-time ink. eHobbies and Ice.com were featured in both the NY Times and USA Today this summer for their foray into blogging.

I'm sure there are other online retailers with blogs and/or RSS feeds besides my panelists. There have been mentions in the media of Bluefly.com and Gourmet Station blogging. There's also Backcountry Store, Stone Creek Coffee, and Aldo Coffee. As for RSS (that's not done in as part of a blog), there's Amazon.com and Audible.com. But who else? Post a comment if you know of any other online retailers doing blogs or RSS — particularly big online retailers.

Why do you think online retailers are so late in the game? Business blogs have been all the rage for well over a year now. My hypothesis is that online retailers can't accurately predict ROI and that's the world they have to live in. Every inch of printed catalog space has an ROI associated with it. Every keyword buy in AdWords has an ROI associated with it. I guess it can be pretty scary when the ROI predictor is "I dunno". Those brave few who do take the leap will be the ones who get written up incessently in the NY Times, USA Today, Business Week, Fortune, etc. Yes, it could be you!

I, along with Ken Burke (MarketLive) and Amy Africa, spoke to a packed ballroom of somewhere around 1500 people yesterday at the Annual Catalog Conference's "Power Forum" about a range of topics, guided by our moderator Sherry Chiger, the editor of Multichannel Merchant magazine. One of the topics that got the most "airtime" during our panel discussion was the topic of conversion. We all agreed that a top priority for online retailers is to improve conversion rates (and concomittently reduce shopping cart abandonment rates). Here are some of the ideas put forth by me, Amy, and Ken:

• Build trust with the visitor. There are many ways to do this. One way is to add a security badge like Hacker Safe. According to Ken, this can account for a 5 to 10% lift in sales. Another is to have a privacy policy link anywhere where you ask for the visitor to supply any information.
• Build rapport. I suggested one way to put a human face to your company is to have a blog. Amy then promptly railed on concept of blogging — so I definitely hit a hot button there with her on that! ;-) I also suggested injecting personality during stages of the ordering process, such as in an email reminding the visitor of their abandoned cart. Most transactional emails that I see like that have no sense of humor or even humanity to them.
• Reduce the number of hoops that you make the visitor jump through to complete a purchase. This includes reducing the number of pages and the amount of scrolling. I shared a stat I heard a while back that over 60% of the time, Internet users don't scroll. Allow guest checkout, meaning that the visitor doesn't need to set up an account and select a password prior to completing the purchase. Pre-fill out any info you already have on them on the order form.
• Make a smarter shopping cart. Let the visitor email their cart to themselves. Provide them with the option of creating a persistent shopping cart that never expires. If they abandon their cart, email them with their abandoned cart and let them finish it. Let them switch between moving a product from their cart to their wish list and vice versa.
• Conduct exit surveys. A visitor who is abandoning your site won't pull any punches. So I suggested: why not ask them why they're leaving and what you did wrong? Unlike a customer who has to rationalize their purchase (particularly if the purchase was expensive), an abandoner will tell it like it is. You can learn a lot from them!

This is of course just a taste of the very information-rich, fast-paced session. If you want to hear more, the conference organizers are selling a CD-ROM containing the audio and synched Powerpoint decks of all the sessions for $200.