Are content sites more valuable than transaction pages?

Content driven websites receive 73 per cent more online traffic than transactional ones, new research has found, which may see businesses putting an additional focus on search engine optimisation.

According to Hitwise, entertainment sites - such as YouTube and iPlayer - social networks, forums and news and media sites have all significantly increased their share of internet traffic over the last three years.

Meanwhile, the share of visitors going to shopping, classified, business, finance and travel sites has declined over the same period.

"This means that an increasing proportion of online time is spent browsing content, communicating and networking, rather than buying things," Robin Goad, of Hitwise, explains.

In line with this, practical ecommerce states that publishing how-to articles on a website can be a useful way of driving sales traffic, improving search position, engaging with consumers and boosting the time people spend on that site.

This can, in turn, can help businesses to establish their brand and expertise, the group notes.

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