Response: Why These SMBs Say No To SEO

You would think that small business owners would love to have first page listings on Google’s search engine results, wouldn’t you? According to an article written on InformationWeek.com on July 13th (search engine optimization or SEO) is worthless to small businesses. We tend to disagree and are more than happy to respond to the article in a proactive way.

Let’s start with the second paragraph. It states that some business owners are upset with SEO vendors and companies that pitch astronomical rankings with a direct impact to the bottom line. We agree with the business owners. There should be a clear understanding that SEO doesn’t yield high rankings over night or a huge bump in bottom line figures, it is something that requires A LOT of time and strategizing. SEO is a delicate tool that requires long hours and constant attention. Sure, you can quickly change your meta tags or layout of your site, but it’s the authentic, ever-changing content that gets you the results you desire. 

I feel like a lot of small business owners often expect quick, quantifiable results with large ROI. Unfortunately, effective marketing requires experimentation, even if it means investing several months for one strategy. As a matter of fact, you may not see results in SEO for 6 months to a year, but is it worth sacrificing an SEO strategy and missing several thousand impressions in organic listings? No.

The SEO industry has been dealt a hard blow due to the snakes and shady operators that promise too-good-to-be-true results. We admit, SEO does take time and shouldn’t be taken for granted. There are so many factors that go into ranking higher, and some of those depend on your business’ geographic location, industry girth, or product/service category. The article uses this example: If you own one of five coffee shops in your city, you can easily obtain first-page listings for some keyword phrases. If you own one of ninety-nine coffee shops in your city, it will be harder and will require longer hours to obtain first-page listings for some keywords.

A lot of so-called “SEO companies” operate out of a couple cities across the nation. If you’re a small business owner in St. Louis, don’t you think it’s foolish to have a company in Houston, TX do your SEO work? We do. More often than not, local SEO firms have a stronger impact for local small businesses. Still, when SEO is done right, it can bring more qualified visitors (who are looking to buy what you sell) to your site.