• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, August 12, 2010

Internet Retailer recently published its annual Top 500 Guide. The findings, which now rely on Conductor's metrics to rank, suggest Hewlett-Packard, Amazon and ProFlowers are among the companies using search engine optimization most effectively in 2010. Did I write "search engine optimization?" Why, yes. More interesting to me than company names topping the ratings, this year the publisher's annual book ranks how well the top 500 retailers build and maintain SEO strategies.

Conductor helped Internet Retailer create and introduce a new metric, SEO Effectiveness, in which the publisher will evaluate the top 500 retailers. Nathan Safran, who leads Conductor's research team, created the methodology that determines how effective and well positioned retailers are to succeed in SEO.

Rather than examine how well retailers rank, the methodology looks at how many people in the organization are full or part time and have knowledge of SEO. It turns out companies with senior or C-level execs with knowledge of SEO have a higher chance of being successful by having better positions on Google.

As a general trend, Conductor found firms that did not have executives knowledgeable about SEO scored lower in the overall evaluation, compared with those that did. This implies that those with an executive level commitment to natural search performed better in the natural search rankings, had more resources dedicated to SEO and had more robust analytics.

Knowing this might give managers at companies that don't score well fodder to gain executive buy-in for SEO projects, as well as persuade their execs to get educated. Unlike paid search, email and display campaigns, being successful means having a cross-functional marketing channel because it takes product management, engineering resources and investment, explains Conductor CEO Seth Besmertnik.

Internet Retailer's Annual study shows enterprise-level companies have begun to balance focus and budget between paid and organic search. Besmertnik believes that's likely due to the 92% of clicks on search engines coming from natural search, not paid ads.

Retailers were scored across three core competencies that combined aim to provide a complete view of their SEO effectiveness. The three scores appear on each retailer's page in the book. Scoring was also segmented by merchandise category, giving readers insight into the SEO effectiveness of disparate retail verticals. The metrics used for the two books, published within the past six weeks, combined Keyword Visibility, Resources, and Analytic to create one score per retailer.

Safran says visibility of keywords provides insight into the effectiveness of their strategy. About a third of the top 500 group scored an Excellent rating among the four-grade rating system of Poor, Fair, Good and Excellent. This would seem to indicate more retail companies pay attention to the need for SEO.