Search Engine News :: Optimise Web Sites for Organic Search: Small busineses profit from search engine optimisation

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Small busineses profit from search engine optimisation

Are Your Competitors Making Better Use of the Web Than You?
By Jennifer Laycock" new research (Interland's Summer 2005 Small and Medium-sized Business Barometer) shows small businesses are starting to understand the importance of online marketing and get results for the time and effort put into their sites mainly to drives leads for their business.

The results vary significantly from previous online marketing surveys...which generally found pay-per-click advertising the most common form of search engine marketing. The new Interland data shows search engine optimization (SEO) ahead of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising by a widemargin. Interland's survey shows 54% of small businesses use search engine optimization and 20% run pay-per-click campaigns.

Laycock concludes from the data that:

"small businesses are understanding what the big firms are missing...that while it takes more time to implement, organic search engine optimization will outperform pay-per-click when it comes to drawing long-term leads at reasonable costs."

She also comments that:
"while many companies are moving online and working to build solid web sites, a great deal of those companies still seem to be confused about the purpose of a web site. 53% of surveyed business owners feel that their site's primary purpose is to provide credibility for the company. This number is pretty close to the 54% that evaluate the success of their site by the feedback they receive from customers on it. That means that over half of small business owners are still missing the boat when it comes to understanding the purpose of their site.

A web site lending credibility to your firm should be something that goes without saying. It shouldn't be a goal, it should be something that is expected. Your web site should serve first and foremost as a sales and lead generation tool for your business. It's great if your site can also serve to help you with customer service issues and other secondary purposes, but sales and leads should be the primary goal and the online marketing efforts of your site should reflect that.

Businesses are embracing search engine and other online marketing at an ever growing rate and those that fail to jump on the bandwagon soon will likely find themselves having a hard time playing catch-up."