Small businesses, by nature, seek out ways to compete with larger enterprise companies. However, the difference between the small and large businesses may seem insurmountable in the digital era.
One area consistently identified as the largest perceived gap between companies of different sizes, particular on a digital scale, is in marketing. For the most part, small businesses struggle to compete with the seemingly endless stream of resources larger businesses dedicate to brand awareness and messaging.
Small Businesses Embracing SEO Spending
Recently, though, this digital marketing gap seems to be closing a little. A recent survey conducted by Clutch shows that an increasing number of small businesses are embracing digital marketing tactics, particularly search engine optimization (SEO), in order to stay competitive both against industry giants as well as competitors their size.
Typically, spending acts as the barometer for how well a vertical embraces a tactic, solution or technology. Using this measurement standard, it’s safe to say small businesses are fully embracing SEO. Specifically:
- 74 percent said they plan to invest in SEO for their website during 2017, an increase of 22 percent compared to 2016.
- An additional 8 percent plan to increase SEO spend by 2018, bringing the total to 82 percent of all small businesses that plan SEO spending by the end of next year.
Content a Secondary Priority Among Small Businesses
When claiming a business invests in SEO, it’s important to identify the extent to which the term is deployed. For example, while many small businesses look to strengthen their SEO through on-site tactics such as local search optimization and keyword targeting, less than half of the survey respondents invest in alternative strategies like content creation or web design. Specifically, only 48 percent prioritize creating quality content for their websites for the purpose of earning links. The number of small businesses guest blogging is even lower—only 37 percent identify it as an area of focus.
These numbers come as a slight surprise considering that most industry experts suggest investing in quality content produces value for businesses perhaps more than any other singular tactic. According to Chad Reid, who runs the online form developer Jotform, “Since SEO is resource-intensive, a better strategy is dedicating time to crafting great site content, not necessarily an army of backlinks.”
Measuring Success
Most small businesses rely on traffic from the search engines as their primary metric to measure the success of their SEO efforts. However, nearly half also measure the number and quality of backlinks they earn. Interestingly, only 41 percent closely monitor the number and value of leads and conversions that SEO tactics bring in for their company.
The breakdown of metric tracking, like the components of small business SEO strategies, raises concern among industry experts that smaller businesses are misguided in their search marketing priorities.
“When you look at how many sales leads and how much e-commerce revenue is driven from organic traffic that enters a site through blog posts, it is normally a very low number. For many businesses, that is one area that causes inflated reporting on organic traffic,” says Aaron Wittersheim, COO of Straight North. “You can track links, rankings, traffic and on-site engagement stats, but in the end, you need to be looking at your leads and e-commerce revenue.”
What Are Small Businesses to Do?
Looking at this research holistically, it is apparent that opportunity for growth abounds in the SEO space for small businesses. The current gaps in investment between small businesses and larger companies, particularly around content creation and metric tracking, represent growth areas where strategic investment and resource allocation would provide small businesses with serious competitive advantage against their peers and allow them to compete with larger cohorts.
One strategy small businesses can pursue to improve the effectiveness of their SEO efforts and effective is through employing a mixed model of internal resources and external partners. Using a combination of both of these resources leverages both the intimate knowledge of your business and the industry of internal groups as well as the SEO expertise and field experience.
Overall, large companies always have certain advantages. However, when leveraged properly, a solid search engine optimization strategy can help level the playing field for small businesses. By focusing on competitive areas and utilizing resources to maximize benefits, any company, regardless of size, small businesses can greatly benefit through enhanced brand exposure and revenue generation.
