Competitive Analysis of Retail Websites through Search Engine Marketing

Abstract

Introduction: The present research was carried out at Kalindi College, University of Delhi in 2017. Internet technology has transformed the world into a global village. Due to improved internet/ mobile connectivity and substantial increase in data use, any new or existing products can reach the customer easily through digital marketing. Currently, retail marketing websites attract more than half of internet users. It is not only important to create a content rich product catalogue for the retail website, but also to ensure that the website is at the top of the Search Engine Result Pages (serps) of the Google Search Engine.Methods: The various technical aspects of Search Engine Marketing (sem) of the retail website can be improved substantially by carrying out a comprehensive competitive analysis of existing retail websites.Results: The authors compared and analyzed the apparel category in three competitive retail websites using free Search Engine Optimization (seo) tools.Conclusions: The seo tool can be utilized for increasing website visibility and subsequently, sales revenue. This paper focuses on the link between sem strategy and seo technique for organic and paid search. It also discusses impacts of positive and negative ranking of websites and how such ranking can be improved adopting seo-friendly practices.Originality: Marketing a startup website in the current competitive retail industry is a challenging task. This research provides ideas to website owners on how the website should be built, launched and maintained with seo-friendly practices which ensure traffic and revenue.Limitations: The research results can be practically implemented in websites of retail startup companies.

Full text

ISSN 2357-6014 (en línea)
BY NC ND
Ingeniería Solidaria
ISSN (en línea): 2357-6014
Vol. 14, No. 25 [special issue], May 2018
Artículo de investigación / Research article
doi: https://doi.org/10.16925/.v14i0.2235
Competitive Analysis of Retail Websites
through Search Engine Marketing
Análisis competitivo de sitios web minoristas
a través del marketing de búsqueda
Arokia Ramya Terrance1, Shruti Shrivastava2, Asmita Kumari3,
Lokesh Sivanandam4*
1 University of Delhi, New Delhi, India
2 University of Delhi, New Delhi, India
3 University of Delhi, New Delhi, India
4 Anna University, Chennai, India.
* Ramanujan Computing Centre, Anna University, Chennai, India – 600025. Email: lokesh@annauniv.edu
Received on: September 18th, 2017 Accepted on: January 20th, 2018 Available online: May 1st, 2018
How to cite this article: A. Ramya-Terrance, S. Shrivastava, A. Kumari and L. Sivanandam. “Competitive Analysis of Retail
Websites through Search Engine Marketing”, Ing. Sol., vol. 14, no. 25 (Special issue), pp. 14, May 2018. doi: https://doi.
org/10.16925/.v14i0.2235
Abstract
Introduction: The present research was carried out at Kalindi College, University of Delhi in 2017.
Internet technology has transformed the world into a global village. Due to improved internet/ mobile
connectivity and substantial increase in data use, any new or existing products can reach the customer
easily through digital marketing. Currently, retail marketing websites attract more than half of internet
users. It is not only important to create a content rich product catalogue for the retail website, but also
to ensure that the website is at the top of the Search Engine Result Pages (serps) of the Google Search
Engine.
Methods: The various technical aspects of Search Engine Marketing (sem) of the retail website can be
improved substantially by carrying out a comprehensive competitive analysis of existing retail websites.
Results: The authors compared and analyzed the apparel category in three competitive retail websites
using free Search Engine Optimization (seo) tools.
Conclusions: The seo tool can be utilized for increasing website visibility and subsequently, sales reve-
nue. This paper focuses on the link between sem strategy and seo technique for organic and paid search.
It also discusses impacts of positive and negative ranking of websites and how such ranking can be
improved adopting seo-friendly practices.
Originality: Marketing a startup website in the current competitive retail industry is a challenging task.
This research provides ideas to website owners on how the website should be built, launched and
maintained with seo-friendly practices which ensure traffic and revenue.
Limitations: The research results can be practically implemented in websites of retail startup compa-
nies.
Keywords: retail market, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search engine result
pages, seo tools.

BY NC ND
Research article
doi: https://doi.org/10.16925/.v14i0.2235
Análisis competitivo de sitios web minoristas a
través del marketing en motores de búsqueda
Resumen
Introducción: la presente investigación se llevó a cabo en Kalindi College, Universidad de Delhi en 2017. Internet ha trans-
formado el mundo en una aldea global. Debido a la mejoría en conectividad móvil y el aumento sustancial del uso de datos,
cualquier producto nuevo o existente puede llegar al cliente con facilidad a través del marketing digital. Actualmente, los
sitios web de marketing minorista atraen a más de la mitad de los usuarios de Internet. Para el sitio web minorista no solo es
importante crear un catálogo de productos rico en contenido, sino también garantizar que el sitio web aparezca en la parte
superior de las páginas de resultados de búsquedas (serps) del motor de búsqueda de Google.
Métodos: varios aspectos técnicos del Search Engine Marketing (sem o marketing de motores de búsqueda) del sitio web
minorista se pueden mejorar sustancialmente mediante un análisis competitivo y comprensivo de los sitios web minoristas
existentes.
Resultados: los autores compararon y analizaron la categoría de indumentaria en tres sitios web minoristas competitivos
utilizando herramientas gratuitas del Search Engine Optimization (seo, optimización de motores de búsqueda).
Conclusiones: se puede emplear la herramienta seo para aumentar la visibilidad del sitio web y consecuentemente, los
ingresos por ventas. Este trabajo se centra en el vínculo entre la estrategia sem y la técnica seo para investigaciones orgáni-
cas y pagadas. También analiza los impactos de la clasificación positiva o negativa de los sitios web y cómo mejorar dicha
clasificación adoptando prácticas favorables seo.
Originalidad: en la competitiva industria minorista de la actualidad, se dan luces sobre cómo comercializar un sitio web que
apenas inicia. Esta investigación proporciona ideas a los propietarios de sitios web sobre cómo crear, lanzar y mantener el
sitio web con prácticas amigables al seo que aseguren el tráfico y los ingresos.
Limitaciones: los resultados de la investigación se pueden implementar de manera práctica en sitios web de compañías
primerizas de venta minorista.
Palabras clave: mercado minorista, marketing de motores de búsqueda, optimización de motores de búsqueda, páginas de
resultados de motores de búsqueda, herramientas seo.
Análise competitiva de páginas web varejistas
através do marketing em motores de busca
Resumo
Introdução: esta pesquisa foi levada a cabo na Kalindi College, da Universidade de Deli, em 2017. A internet transformou o
mundo em uma aldeia global. Devido à melhor conectividade móvel e ao aumento substancial do uso de dados, qualquer
produto novo ou existente pode chegar facilmente ao cliente através do marketing digital. Atualmente, as páginas web de
marketing varejista atraem a mais da metade dos usuários de internet. Para a página web varejista não só é importante criar
um catálogo de produtos farto em conteúdo, mas também garantir que a página web apareça na parte superior das páginas
de resultados (serps) do motor de busca do Google.
Métodos: vários aspectos técnicos do Search Engine Marketing (sem) da página web varejista podem ser melhorados, subs-
tancialmente, através de uma análise competitiva e compreensiva das páginas web varejistas existentes.
Resultados: os autores compararam e analisaram a categoria de indumentária, em três páginas web varejistas competitivas,
utilizando ferramentas gratuitas de Search Engine Optimization (seo).
Conclusões: a ferramenta seo pode ser utilizada para aumentar a visibilidade da página web e, consequentemente, os in-
gressos por vendas. Este trabalho está centrado no vínculo entre a estratégia sem e a técnica seo para pesquisas orgânicas
e pagas. Também analisa os impactos da classificação positiva ou negativa das páginas web e como melhorar essa classifi-
cação com a adoção de práticas favoráveis de seo.
Originalidade: na competitiva indústria varejista atual, comercializar uma página web que está apenas começando. Esta
pesquisa proporciona ideias aos proprietários de páginas web sobre como criar, lançar e manter a página web com práticas
amigáveis de seo que possam garantir o tráfego e os ingressos.
Limitações: os resultados da pesquisa podem ser implantados, de forma prática, em páginas web de companhias iniciantes
no ramo de venda varejista.
Palavras-chave: ferramentas de seo, marketing de motores de busca, mercado varejista, otimização de motores de busca,
páginas de resultados de motores de busca.

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1. Introduction
Retail marketing refers to the process by which
retailers promote their products among consu-
mers. As per comScore report of Internet users
over India in Table 1 [1], the retail market is able
to capture more than 58 % of the total unique visi-
tors. Apart from traditional marketing, retailers
promote their Internet marketing through adverti-
sements in social media and search engines. Search
Engine Marketing () is the set of activities that
involve Search Engine Optimization (), Social
Media Marketing () and other search engine
related functions. L. Zhang et al. [2] suggest that
the position of the retail website’s products can
be promoted towards the beginning of the search
result in  , which in turn increases its business.
 relates to the inclusion of all  activities but
focuses more on revenue than on building web tra-
c. Social Media Marketing uses one or several
social media channels to engage with customers,
build relationships and then sell their products.
ranked sites on  of most of the search engines
for the common search query appear at the top of
the search result page, which in turn is responsible
for more clicks or trac from search engine users.
is visitor’s trac can be converted into potential
customers by content-rich and page relevant retail
websites, which in turn increases sales revenues.
us,  plays a critical role in the web commerce.
2.1. Comparison study of
Organic  and Paid 
e  techniques allows the website to acquire
the place in the rst page of the . S. N. Gupta
et al. [3] state that  can be organic  or paid
. rough organic , website owners eort to
achieve top ranking for the website in the search
results without any paid means. Organic  de-
pends on the quality of the content and links rather
than the quantity of contents and links. H. Sharma
[4] suggests that the proper coding of the source
pages of the website helps to achieve search engine
optimization techniques religiously. In organic
, the ow of the website should be monitored
continuously and content of the website should
be updated time to time respectively. D. M. Patil
et al. [5] say that the website owner who buys an
advertising space in the  for the competitive
keyword relevant to their website can also achieve
top ranking for the website in the search result
through paid . S. Dahake et al. [6] arm that
the best results can be generated by both organic
and paid  practices with shared goals and com-
bined metrics, which ensures that the website can
be read by both potential customers and search
engine robots. e comparison of organic and paid
 is shown in Table 2.
2.2. Working of Search Engine
In order to understand  better, it is important
to know the way in which the search engine works
that involves the request from Internet users in
the web browser and the response from the search
engine in the web server. A. R. Terrance [7] pre-
sented the working ow of search engines with the
four major modules, namely: web crawling, build
indexing, calculate relevancy and result retrieval;
which are depicted in Fig. 1. e dierent modu-
les combine to form the whole ow of the search
engine described below:
Table 1. Retail Market comScore report in India during
November 2011
Reference: [1]
Top 10 Retail Sites by Unique Visitors (000)
by November 2011
Total India: Visitors age 15+ home/work locations
 Total unique
visitors
Reach
(%)
Total Internet: Total audience 46390 100
Retail 27171 58.6
Amazon sites 6805 14.7
Apple.com worldwide sites 3426 7.4
Samsung group 2759 5.9
Flipkart.com 2675 5.8
Homeshop18.com 2286 4.9
Naaptol.com 2145 4.6
Bookmyshow.com 2125 4.6
Myntra.com 2110 4.5
2. Literature Review
 is dened as the process of improving the
visibility of the website to the search engine user
by improving the ranking order of the website in
the search engine results page. In general, highly

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1. In web crawling the web crawler or spider bot
search from seed keywords in the highly au-
thorized or reputed websites to other relevant
hyperlinks that move from one webpage to ano-
ther. e frequency of web crawling activity and
the list of seed keywords dier from one search
engine to another. e Robot.txt le in the web-
site instructs the search engine robots which
webpage to crawl into within the website. It will
help the search engine robot to index the correct
webpages and prevent the delay of indexing cer-
tain les like images or ’s of content dicult
for the robot to interpret.
2. In build indexing, the keyword index and its lo-
cation in the crawled webpages were created or
updated in the search query database. Indexing
helps the search engine database to optimize the
classication of websites based on the inter rela-
tionship between keywords and links. A. Kumar
et al. [8] suggest that Latent Semantic Indexing
helps to retrieve the website that relates to the
website’s title.
3. In calculate relevancy, the degree of relevancy
between indexed keywords in the search query
database and searcher’s query string were eva-
luated based on various factors which will vary
from one search engine to another. ese fac-
tors are responsible for the particular website for
same search query string, which is ranked in the
rst page for one search engine and ranked in
the third page for another search engine.
4. In result retrieval, the decision about the sorted
order in which the group of relevant webpages
should be displayed in the search engine result
page is taken based on their computed page rank
value. K. S. V. Omprakash [9] observes that whe-
never the internet users ask the search engine for
some information, the search query string also
improves the building of index in the database,
which in turn changes the rank value of the web-
site and reects the order of the list of the search
engine webpage in the future.
In order to understand , it is important to
know the working steps of search engines; which
involve four major activities: web crawling, build
indexing, calculate relevancy and result retrieval.
In web crawling the web crawler or spider searches
from seed keywords in the authoritative website
to other relevant hyperlinks that move from one
webpage to another. In build indexing the keyword
index and its location in the crawled webpages are
created or updated in the search query database.
In calculate relevancy, the degree of relevancy of
content with respect to the researcher’s query was
evaluated. In result retrieval the decision about the
order in which the group of relevant webpages is
ordered in the search engine result based on their
rank value is evaluated.
2.3. Comparison study of  and 
 is the marketing strategy of the enterprise;
its goal is obtaining more visibility for the website
through search engines by getting more free or
paid trac. K. Li et al. [10] suggest that the 
Table 2. Comparison of organic  and paid 
Feature Organic  Paid 
Denition e relevant list of webpages returned by the
search engine that closely matches with the
user’s search query string.
e relevant list of webpages returned by the
search engine that are sponsored or paid in any
wa y.
Trust ability e resultant webpages are highly trusted
websites.
e resultant webpages are less trusted websites.
Focus Keywords and authoritative links of higher
quality.
Competitive keywords with good bidding
amount.
Search technique Also known as white hat search technique. Also known as black hat search technique.
Cost Comparatively inexpensive. Expensive.
Outcome It gives long-term results and more stability. It gives short-term results and is less stable.
Response time Longer time to see the eort functioning. Shorter time to see results.
Reference: the authors

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Reference: the authors
Fig . 1. e working ow diagram of the search engine
Reference: the authors
that incorporates  (which involves changing the
website content and site structure) helps to achieve
higher page ranking in search engine result pages.
e  tools can help Search Engine Marketing
() through the overall improvement of the
landing pages by technical auditing of the web
pages in a website. It helps to improve the webpa-
ge’s code, the design of the website architecture. It
also eliminates poor-quality links and highlights
any other areas of potential improvement, which
in turn helps to increase performance, gain trac
and Return on Investment () conversions for the
site.  is the benet gained in return for the total
cost of the investing amount and it is measured
using the ratio of revenue and cost. Competitive
keywords that generate high  play a crucial role
in . e comparison study of  and  is
tabulated in Table 3.
Table 3. Comparison of  technique and  strategy
 technique  strategy
Features Organic  and paid  Integration of  with 
Focus Keywords with high popularity Keywords that generate high 
Measure Number of website visitors Number of successfully converted goals
Landing pages  pages are content-heavy and informative,
designed to use keywords and subject relevan-
ce to rank well on any search engine.
It generally leads to direct, clean landing pages with
an obvious call to action and designed to capture
sales.
Skill required Fluency in  tools Require more skills than .
3. Methods
3.1. Keyword Analysis
e keyword analysis plays an important role
in Search Engine Marketing of a retail website
of a startup company. e main requirement of
keyword analysis in  is to understand the intent
of the potential customer from the keywords in the
search query string. e keyword in the title of a
webpage in the website and the web domain, direc-
tories, lename of the webpage,  in the website
all play a vital role in the positive ranking of the
website.
Instead of targeting on the specic group of
online customers in the retail market, it would be
better to target the general group of customers who
are uent in English language and shop through
Spider robot
Search query
Web
browser
Web
crawling
Index
building
Calculate
relevancy
Internet user
Result pages Web links
Index database
Web pages

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the Google search engine for the apparel category
in India. Each search engine provides their own 
suggestion tools through organic search means and
paid search means. E. Enge et al. [11] present the
purpose of various  metrics and use of various
search engine  tools and third party  tools
prevalent in the ma rket for the analysis of key words.
e steps for keyword research are shown in
Fig. 2 and well depicted below:
3.1.1. Appropriate keywords
e list of search terms along with alternative
terms can be built with respect to the content of
the retail website. It can be of known categories
or famous brands of the product. e appropriate
keyword can be found out by comparing the list of
similar search terms using Google Trend  tool.
3.1.2. Seed keywords
e top target keywords that are responsible for
marketing the product in the individual compe-
titive websites should be used. e seed keywords
can be found in the list of target keywords based
on high competition, high click-through-rate, high
monthly search volume and low bid amount using
the historical information of Google Adwords
Keyword Planner  tool. e criterion for the
most important keywords in the website function
as follows:
1. Competitive keyword measures the level of dif-
culty to rank for a particular keyword. e
dierence in the competition level of the key-
word depends on its popularity.
2. e click-through-rate is the ratio count of users
who click on the advertisement links to the total
impression; which is the number of users who
clicks on any website advertisement. e high
click-through rates lead to high quality scores,
which in turn improves the ranking position
of the website. e keywords with the higher
click-through-rate must have two features to ge-
nerate , namely aordability and relevancy to
the content.
3. e search volume is the number of times a par-
ticular keyword is searched within an interval of
Fig . 2. Flow diagram for the steps in the keyword research
Reference: the authors
Compeve website
Start-up website
Appropriate keyword
Keyword segregaon on popularity
Popular single keyword Popular double keyword Popular triple keyword
Right single keyword Right double keyword Right triple keyword
Associated double keyword Associated triple keyword
Co-occurrence analysis
Selecon of relevant keywords
Seed keyword

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time. Keywords with high search volumes indi-
cate that there is a higher level of user interest in
the topic. e average monthly search volume
for the past few years should be employed, since
it omits the uctuation of higher search volumes
during peak seasons.
4. e bid amount of the keyword is the estimate
and projection cost of the particular keyword
search in the search engine by Internet users in
the past.
3.1.3. Popular Keywords
e top keywords of single word, double word and
triple word length can be found from the appro-
priate keyword list of the startup website, as well
as the target keyword list of competitive websites
using the trac forecast of the Keyword Planner
in Google Adwords. e long tail keywords con-
sist of phrases with at least three search terms. It is
valuable for experienced business to improve the
organic search results due to low bid amount on
the keyword. e search for a keyword with long
tail query is omitted as most of Internet users pre-
fer search queries of shorter length.
3.1.4. Associated Keywords
e search terms within the keyword in the popu-
lar keyword list should undergo co-occurrence
analysis of search terms. e co-occurrence analy-
sis refers to searching phrases and words that most
frequently appear on a page. e highly associated
keyword is more popular among Internet users.
3.1.5. Right Keywords
e right keyword for a startup website should be
taken from the above list of keywords research
based on their relevance and potential conver-
sion rate to build the website with the right set
of keywords. e website built with the right
keywords which have the highest relevancy and
highest , in turn benet the website developer
and aids him to successfully position the site in the
beginning of the  of the Google search engine.
Once the website is ready to be launched, web-
site developers also need to audit their websites for
the possibility of  violation factors that are res-
ponsible for negative ranking and are presented
below:
a. Keyword stung is the process of placing a grea-
ter number of targeted keywords or their slight
variants within the page and it leads to penalty.
b. e keyword is placed within the hidden text
in the webpage so that it will not be available to
the user, but will still be included for the sake
of increasing keyword count; this also leads to
pen a lty.
e keywords in a s tartup retai l website should
be monitored from the logs of the retail websites
continuously to reect the evolving best practices
of  techniques using Google Analytics tool. e
special discounts during the peak or festival sea-
son attracts more visibility to the retail website. e
range of Internet users should be shied from sin-
gle or double word to long tail search terms. e
range of Internet users should be shied from
the specic search engine Google to other popular
search engines. e range of Internet users should
be shied from general customers to the specic
customers in the region. e range of Internet users
should be shied from generic demographic infor-
mation to specic demographic information. Aer
a while, the range of advertising should be shied
from organic to paid ways, such as Pay per click
() and Cost per acquisition (). erefore,
the retail website with frequent updates, consis-
tent information and quality content for a dierent
range of Internet users plays a vital role in the .
 from organic  has higher trust compared
to the paid .
Keyword analysis helps startup websites to
nd the competitive keywords relevant to their
own site and discover the strategy to nd out the
right keywords for their own site. M. Bansal et al.
[12] states that searching for keywords with low
competition helps to improve the page ranking of
the website substantially.
3.2. Link Analysis
Link analysis is used to analyze the links connect-
ing the website to the outside digital world. It helps
to measure the trust, relevance and importance of
any website. e links from the highly authorita-
tive web pages in the website have higher weightage
compared to other links from websites with less
authority. e authority of a webpage is decided
based on the combined analysis of the linking pat-
tern and semantic analysis. ere are two types

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of links: Internal links that link the pages within
the website; and external links that link to other
websites. A greater number of external links helps
to increase the website’s page rank. e no follow
links allow search engines to follow them and
reach the website. It is better to avoid no-follow
links in the websites that contain poor content or
availability on dierent sites.
e link graph is used to gather information
of link distribution of the website. e non-recipro-
cal links in the website are the external links which
are connected to other websites where there is no
link in the other websites that link back to the ori-
ginal website. A larger number of non-reciprocal
links help to increase the page rank of the website.
e link neighborhood is used to group websites
based on the connected links among them. W. Oi
et al. [13] show that webmasters can audit both their
internal and external links of the website regu-
larly so it will be helpful to keep content-rich pages
that enhance marketing of the website and remove
pages that can potentially damage the reputation
of the website.
e website developers also need to audit their
websites for the possibility of the  violation fac-
tors that are responsible for the negative ranking
that is shown below:
a. Link farming is any group of websites that are
linked among each other, it leads to penalty.
b. Hidden link in the webpage coded by the script
language like JavaScript, J-Query, Flash etc. will
not be available to the user but included for the
sake of increasing links; which also leads to
penalty.
c. Doorway pages are the fake pages created for the
sake of search engine spiders to index their web-
sites and also leads to penalty.
3.3. Other  Contributors
Apart from keywords and links, J. B. Killoran
[14] states that there are other contributors that
inuence the  of the website and these are des-
cribed in detail below:
• e length of the page title should be less than
65 characters as most of the crawlers soware of
search engines try to truncate it.
• e length of the meta description should be less
than 165 characters.
• Targeted keywords should appear as meta
keywords which helps search engines to identify
the content of the website.
• Absence of H1 and H2 headings highly aects
page .
• Site should have sitemaps as these help the user
to understand the structure of the website in one
go.
• Hyperlinks should not be broken as it leads to
disappointment for the end user. It is better
to audit the website for broken links; when
found, they should be removed from the website.
•  friendly  should have lowercase alpha-
bets, numbers, slash (/), dash (-) and should
avoid uppercase alphabet, underscore ( _ ) and
special characters.
• Hyphens are used to separate the words in the
 as it is easier for the bots to read the name
of the le, directory and web domain.
• Absence of generic lenames, redundant
keywords, meaningless parameters and session
ids help the search engine to know the content
better.
• Inline  should be replaced with external 
as it aids to increase the page sizes unnecessarily.
• All image tags should have attribute .
• Page should not use  deprecated tags.
• Absence of noindex tag allows the webpage to be
read and indexed by search engines.
• Absence of no-follow tag allows the links of the
webpage to be crawled by search engines.
• e robot.txt le in the website should be main-
tained, that will help to reduce the crawl delay of
the search engine robot.
• Web page size should be less than 33 , this will
decrease the loading time of the web page and
improve the user’s experience.
• e more page authority webpages in the do-
main authority website, the more possibilities of
getting a higher rank in the .
• e redirect website links assure the website is
accessible to Internet users.
3.3.1. Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing () is a technique for
increasing brand awareness through social media
websites. In today’s era, people are more active on
social websites; they get to know more about com-
mercial retail websites through it. If the content
has value for Internet users, they will share the link

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doi: https://doi.org/10.16925/.v14i0.2235
with other Internet users. e inclusion of links
that take to social media websites like Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc., helps the con-
tent in the startup website to be tagged, tweeted,
bookmarked, or embedded in social media. Hence,
the increase in social network boosts up the ran-
king value of websites, which in turn increases visi-
bility of the website among Internet users.
4. Results
4.1. Findings on Keyword Analysis
Google Trend is a  tool that provides the graphi-
cal representation of comparative reports of two or
more similar search terms based on the searched
data in the Google search engine. Based on the line
chart of the Google Trends  tool for the com-
parison of two similar search terms, namely dress
and clothes, the search term “dress” is more popu-
lar than the search term “clothes” in the shopping
category in the past year in India.
e Google Adword is a service provided by
Google for online advertising where the adverti-
sers pay for displaying their products in the .
Google Adword is used to increase the website’s
trac, increase the advertisement range and pro-
vide the right information at the right time. e
Keyword Planner Google Adword of the retail web-
site is used to give free keyword campaign sugges-
tions based on the d ata stored in the Google’s search
query database. e results of popular keywords
in the three dierent levels of retail websites like
Myntra, Amazon, Nautica for a single word is pro-
vided in Table 4 using Google Adword Keyword
Planner tool using clothing apparel as category,
India as target location, English as target language,
From Table 5, it is possible to infer that
“Myntra sale” keyword is better than “Myntra
oer” keyword as it has higher average search
volume and higher competition word. e compe-
tition value of the word is assigned from 0 to 1. e
higher popularity word is assigned with the maxi-
mum value as 1. From the data in Tables 5 and 6,
“online shopping” double keyword is more popular
than “women clothing” and “men clothing” in the
competitive retail websites.
e associated double words for the seed word
“dress” undergo co-occurrence analysis for the
three retail websites compared and the top six com-
petitive keywords are given in Table 7. e “online
shopping” keyword is also available in the title
 tag and meta keyword  tag of the main
webpage of Myntra and Amazon websites which
are tabulated in Table 8. e popular keyword
“women clothing” is present in the directory part
Table 4. List of competitive single keyword from Keyword
Planner Google Adword tool
Reference: the authors
Reference: the authors
Reference: the authors
Single
word
Average
search volume Competition Suggest bid
Dress 100K-1M 0.72 7.95
Clothes 10K-100K 0.61 10.82
Blouse 100K-1M 0.51 4.77
Jeans 10K-100K 0.64 7.35
Fashion 100K-1M 0.43 10.29
Table 5. List of competitive double keyword for Myntra from
Keyword Planner Google Adword tool
Google as search engine, high competition and ave-
rage search volume for the past year for the seed
keyword dress and clothes as keyword option.
Double word
Average
search
volume
Competition Suggest
bid
Online shopping 100K-1M 1 11.33
Myntra sa le 100K-1M 0.58 2.65
Women clothing 10K-100K 1 6.73
Men’s clothing 10K-100K 1 9.89
Myntra oer 10K-100K 0.46 3.05
Table 6. List of competitive double keyword for Amazon and
Nautica from Keyword Planner Google Adword tool
Double word
Average
search
volume
Competition Suggest
bid
Online shopping 100K-1M 1 11.33
Ladies dresses 10K-100K 0.94 7.77
Women clothing 10K-100K 1 6.73
Men clothing 10K-100K 1 9.89
Dresses online 10K-100K 1 15.45

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Research article / Ingeniería Solidaria / Volume 14/ Number 25 (Special issue) / May 2018
ere are three main data about the website
available in the result pages of the search engine,
namely title of the webpage,  of the webpage
and meta description of the webpage. If the viewa-
ble portion of the above in the startup retail web-
site in the  satises the query of Internet users,
it will motivate them to click on the website. e
information in t he title tag, meta key word tag, meta
description tag and the name of the le, directory
and domain in the  of the website about the
website should be caref ully coded with t he common
of the webpage , title and meta keyword tag of
the Myntra and Amazon websites which represents
useful information obtained from Table 8. us, it
is evident that t he relevant key word inclusion in the
coding of the website helps to improve the ranking
of the website.
Table 7. List of associated keywords for dress in Myntra,
Amazon, Nautica from Keyword Planner Google Adword tool
Double word Average
search volume Competition Suggest
bid
Black dress 10K-100K 0.98 12.17
New dress 10K-100K 0.98 5.15
Dress pattern 10K-100K 0.98 5.09
Shirt dress 10K-100K 0.93 9.53
Baby dress 10K-100K 0.89 6.01
Fashion dress 10K-100K 0.84 6.32
Reference: the authors
Reference: the authors
Table 8. Title and Meta Keyword of Retail Websites
Website  Page title  Tag Meta keyword  tag
Myntra.com Online Shopping for Women, Men, Kids
Fashion & Lifestyle - Myntra
online shopping, online shopping sites,
online shopping India, India shopping,
online shopping site
Amazon.com Online Shopping for Electronics, Appar-
el, Computers, Books, s & more
Amazon, Amazon.com, Online Shopping,
Apparel, Accessories, Baby Products,
Personal Care, Tools
Nautica.com e Ocial Site For Apparel & More Nil
myntra.com/women-clothing Women Clothing - Buy Women’s Cloth-
ing Online - Myntra
women clothing, clothing for women
online, women clothing online
amazon.in/Women-clothing/ Women Clothing Online Shopping
Store: Shop for Women’s Clothing at
Best Prices in India- Amazon.in
online shopping, women clothing online
shopping, buy women clothing, amazon,
amazon.in
phrases and relevant keywords. erefore the more
clicks for a particular website help to improve the
ranking of the website.
No specic  tool gives the accurate and
actual gures. So it is better to monitor the web-
site trac through other third party tools. e Moz
provides competitive marketing analytics reports
using  tools. e commonly used phrase for
retail marketing “online shopping” is chosen as the
search query. e volume number of searches for
the given query is recorded from the Moz keyword
report on a monthly basis. e Click-rough-Rate
() is the ratio of the number of clicks to the
number of times the advertisement of the product
screened to the customers. e higher percentage of
organic  corresponds to the positive ranking
of the retail websites.
As per the  analy tic report for informatio-
nal search query “online shopping” using the Moz
tool, Myntra is placed at rst position in the top
ten organic results and Amazon is placed at h
position. is indicates that Myntra has placed the
search term or keyword “online shopping” extensi-
vely in their website.
Small Tools is one of the biggest free 
tools provider. Keyword density is the percentage
of times a keyword appears on a web page compa-
red to the total number of words on the web page.
Keyword density for a relevant keyword or phrase
plays a crucial role in measuring relevance of the
websites. K. Wagaj et al. [15] suggest that keyword
density plays a crucial role in the  techniques.
Most of  tools undergo stemming; which is
to identify the root word by removing the sux

11 de 14
doi: https://doi.org/10.16925/.v14i0.2235
or prex of the keyword. For example, “shop”
is the root word for the keyword “shopping”. As
per keyword density report for single word, both
“shop” and “online” is available for Myntra; “shop”
is available for both Amazon and Nautica; which is
depicted in the le side of Fig. 3. As per keyword
density report in double word, “online shop” is
available for both Myntra and Amazon with a grea-
ter percentage achieved by Myntra compared to
Amazon, this is depicted in the right side of Fig. 3.
e keyword density report provides the reason for
www.myntra.com being the top result of rst result
page, www.amazon.com website in the third posi-
tion and www.nautica.com in the last result page
of Google’s search engine for the given keyword
phrase “online shopping”.
e Alexa ranking value for the retail websites
within India and globally show that the Myntra
website is leading compared to the Amazon and
Nautica websites.
Apart from dierent types of queries, naviga-
tional query leads more trac to the retail websi-
tes. For example, user doesn’t know the  of the
particular website, so they use to search it through
search engines. Next it is also observed that “online
shopping” informational query leads to maximum
trac to the Myntra website, which helps to place it
at the rst position on the s. e Moz ranking
and Alexa ranking do not provide the accurate tra-
c measurement because they measure from the
sampling live data but it will be helpful to get tra-
c for the targeted key words in the search results.
4.2. Findings on Link Analysis
rush provides soware to generate competitive
research reports for the Google search engine from
 tools. e link distribution of the retail website
in the form of vast diagram can be depicted using
the rush tool.
Backlink are the incoming links to a web page
which impacts the website’s , especially with
respect to the Google search engine. From the bac-
klink report using rush tool, Myntra seems to
have maximum backlinks and this plays a vital role
in placing Myntra in the starting position of the
Google search engine result pages.
4.3. Findings on Other  Contributors
e various criteria that impact the  of the
Myntra, Amazon and Nautica websites is detailed
in Table 9. ese criteria have been evaluated using
the website  Score Checker tool from smallseo-
tools.com. A. R. Terrance et al. [17] present various
-friendly techniques for websites.
e page authority () measures the rank-
ing strength of the webpage while domain author-
ity () measures overall ranking potential of the
entire domain. e Moz Rank tracks search engine
ranking for the whole website. e  report
about  and  show the impact of Moz ranking
in retail websites. e Moz rank of Myntra is low
compared to Amazon and Nautica as the targeted
region is local for Myntra and global for Amazon
and Nautica.
Fig. 3. Keyword density report for single keyword and double
keyword from Small tools.com
Reference: the authors
Alexa ranking of the website is measured
based on the commercial web trac data gathered
via var ious toolbars a nd web browser extensions. A.
akur et al. [16] observe that the Alexa rank gives
accurate assessment of the website’s ability to gene-
rate income. A low Alexa rank value of the web-
site indicates that there is massive website trac.
Myntra
Amazon
Myntra
Amazon
Nauca

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Research article / Ingeniería Solidaria / Volume 14/ Number 25 (Special issue) / May 2018
4.4. Findings on  (Social
Media Marketing)
e presence of social media links in the retail
websites for four major social media channels is
tabulated in Table 10. From the social stats 
tool, it can be inferred that Amazon leads and is
followed by Myntra and Nautica.
5. Discussion
e website undergoes three dierent phases:
building the website, launching the website, and
monitoring the website. e startup website can be
built with the right keywords, relevant links and
other  friendly factors with the help of organic
 and paid  of the  using free and paid 
tools available in the internet. It will help the spider
bot of the search engine to crawl the  friendly
startup website easily and index the right key words
in its database in its rst visit. e complete mo-
dication of the website aer launching the web-
site and indexing by the search engine bots leads to
the negative ranking of the website. So it is better
to take care of  friendly factors of the startup
retail website from the analysis of the compet-
itive retail websites during the coding phase of
the website. e startup website can be launched
successfully with the help of paid  and active
social media marketing of the ; which in turn
increases the number of new customers to the web-
site. e startup website can be monitored contin-
uously with the help of the organic  and active
social media marketing of the  with the up-to-
date content, which increases the number of new
and existing customers. It will be responsible for
boosting trac to the website and increase the rev-
enue of the startup company.
6. Conclusión
In the current competitive scenario, the website
developer of a retail startup company should be
aware of various  friendly techniques that can
be included in the coding phase of the website
which gradually increases the visibility of the web-
site. e comparison study of  st rategy, orga-
nic  technique and paid  technique helps
to understand the strategic and practical aspect of
the website in digital marketing. e keywords and
links in the website play an important role in the
prevailing  techniques. e crawled texts and
links, indexed page links and keyword density of
the website can be monitored using free  tools
and would provide the  report on daily or wee-
kly or monthly basis that gradually ensures the pla-
cement of highly relevant content-rich website in
the top ranked result pages of the search engine.
It helps to increase the visitors of the retail website
Table 9. Website  Score Checker report from
Smalltools.com
Criteria Myntra Amazon Nautica
Page title Ye s Ye s Ye s
Meta description Ye s Ye s Ye s
Meta keyword Ye s Ye s Yes
H1 Heading No Ye s No
H2 Heading Yes No Ye s
Robot.txt le No Ye s Ye s
Sitemap No No Ye s
Favicon Ye s Ye s Yes
Broken link No No No
Underscore in links Ye s No No
 Friendly  Ye s No No
Domain authority Ye s Ye s Yes
Page authority Ye s Ye s Yes
Inline  Test No No No
Image Alt attribute No Yes Yes
Deprecated  Yes Ye s Ye s
NoIndex tag Ye s Ye s Yes
NoFollow tag Ye s Ye s Ye s
 redirection Ye s Ye s Yes
Page size test Yes No Ye s
Compression test Ye s Ye s Ye s
Reference: the authors
Reference: the authors
Table 10. Retail websites links to social networks
Social Links Amazon Myntra Nautica
Facebook Ye s Ye s Ye s
Instagram Ye s Ye s Ye s
Yo ut u b e No Ye s Ye s
Twitter Yes Ye s Yes

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doi: https://doi.org/10.16925/.v14i0.2235
and subsequently increase the sales revenue of the
retail startup company.
7. Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge our teachers of the
Computer Science Department and our family for
their constant support and inspiration.
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