Conversion Comparison

WebSideStory released a study showing that people navigating directly to sites convert almost twice as well as even visitors coming from internet searches. Direct navigators showed an average conversion rate of 4.23 percent, compared with search engine traffic converting 2.3 percent of the time. Other net sources of traffic, such as links and advertising, converted to the tune of 0.96 percent.

These comparisons varied a great deal between product categories. For example, the toys category saw a 4 percent conversion from search traffic, while the computers and electronics saw a 1.35 percent conversion rate.