Dear Small Businesses,
I’m worried about you. Seriously.
An astonishing 46 percent of you small businesses are allocating 0 percent of your marketing budget to SEO, and 54 percent of you don’t even have an SEO budget.
What’s going on here?
This new data comes from SEO firm Higher Visibility, which surveyed 500 people who handle marketing for small businesses.
Oh, but the hits keep on coming.
SEO Expectations & Reality Don’t Align!
Are you among the 38 percent who believe if you invest less than $100 a month you’ll still see major SEO results?
Perhaps you’re among the 33 percent of respondents who believe it’s very likely that your business will rank on the first page of Google results.
Spoiler alert: you get what you pay for. Or don’t pay for, in this case.
You need to invest time and money into your business if you want people to find it.
People who can’t find your online front door (your website) can’t buy from you, whether it’s online or at a brick-and-mortar location.
Invest in SEO.
But also invest in content (seriously – 21 percent of you don’t know that blogging and creating content helps your SEO?) and invest in social media (seriously – 19 percent of you have no social media presence at all?).
All of these work together to increase your visibility to potential customers who might be looking for your product or service right at this minute.
Is There Any Good News?
At least 24 percent of small businesses plan to increase their marketing budget. Let’s just ignore that 41 percent of people who will continue to invest at their current level and those other 31 percent who simply “don’t know” what they’re going to do.
More good news: 11 percent of you are planning to double your in-house SEO team (from 1 to 2 people), and another 5 percent plan to expand by three or more people. Awesome.
For now let’s just ignore that 49 percent of people who don’t have an SEO team or don’t know what they plan to do about SEO in the future. Sigh.
Educate Yourself!
Some small businesses understand the importance of investing in SEO. Keep doing what you’re doing!
And yes, SEO may have limited benefits to certain types of small businesses – especially in niche spaces.
But for the rest of you? Ignorance isn’t a strategy if you expect to rank well in Google.
Learn what it actually takes to succeed. Some suggested reading: SEJ’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO.
P.S. You can see the full results of the Higher Visibility survey here.
Image Credits:
- Featured Image: Depositphotos
- Article Images: Higher Visibility
