So it's not enough just to bring more people to your site. You need to attract the ones who intend to buy. And to find them, you need tracking tools . The study looked at the search engine keywords used by 200 randomly selected shoppers who placed orders with merchants using Viaweb's software during February and March 1997. The study contradicts the widely held view that most online purchases are impulse purchases.
Most online merchants believe that increasing hits is the way to increase sales.
The Viaweb study shows that this approach is wrong. Merely drawing more visitors to your site, if they do not already intend to buy, will not result in sales. The Viaweb data shows that merchants should focus not on hit counts, but on attracting the visitors who intend to buy. For example, merchants should advertise not on the most popular sites, but on the sites that send them the most sales. But it's much more important to get the right hits.