Just about the only group with higher levels of anxiety than these consumers are the retailers selling to them, and online merchants are no exception. Nobody knows what to expect going forward.

You might think that online retailers cut their ad spends during uncertain times and many certainly have done so. However, as I have noted in a recent CyberSiteSearch Blog post, search marketing clients generally have not decreased their PPC ad spending. But what has changed is that they have increased their conversion optimization efforts by a whopping 300%!

This is certainly a strategy that makes a lot of sense. Decreasing PPC ad spending can only lead to lower traffic to a merchant's site, which of course translates into lower sales. Not exactly an appealing option to most online retailers, but one that many choose out of economic necessity.

But what if that lowered ad spend could actually yield the same sales as the old, higher advertising budget? Or maybe keep the same budget, garner more customers and actually increase sales?

The key to that approach is of course converting more visitors into paying customers. Always a noble goal, it has become exceptionally important now since we are operating in an incredibly complex economic environment. Even small changes to landing pages, site navigation, and usability can mean the difference between success and failure.

Study after study has pointed to a starkly sobering fact: if site visitors cannot quickly locate products of interest on a web site, they leave and try the next site. Even more sobering is the fact that the time it takes for them to make that decision is usually measured in seconds.

The key to engaging these visitors and converting them into paying customers is a robust e-commerce style site search. It helps visitors to not only rapidly locate products of interest, but also assists them in making favorable buying decisions by showing product images, promotional messages, product availability information, etc. One of our customers has recently reported a whopping 40% increase in Google sales using our CyberSiteSearch product.

In this economic environment, conversion is no longer King; it's become God!