skibum - 5:24 am on Oct 8, 2002 (gmt 0)

Don't expect anyone who has located what they're looking for (via a search engine) to have to duplicate their search in some unfamiliar menu because they were sent to a site's home page instead of their product page.

Absolutely! If you are going to take the time and spend the money to do banners or PPC listings, guide those visitors to the real pages they are looking for. When this is done, however, it is also critical that when someone searches for a widget, clicks on your listing, lands on your widget page that the page is setup in such a way that the visitor knows exactly where they are in the site and can very easily figure out how to put the item in the shopping cart and check out. Without the right visual clues and encouragement to take the desired action(s) conversion rates won't be as high.