Lead Forensics

57% of Small Business Marketing Plans Don’t Include an SEO Strategy


Despite the increase in online purchasing, many small business marketing plans don’t include SEO.

Even in the post-pandemic era, after seeing a 40% increase in Internet activity in 2020, many small business marketing plans still don’t prioritize search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. A recent survey gathered responses of 600 small and mid-size business owners in the U.S. and Canada to determine how they were using SEO and other digital marketing tools.

While 57% don’t have an SEO strategy in place, 23% also have no plans to implement one. That means there are a lot of opportunities ready for small businesses to capture.

The last couple of years has presented new prospects for online sales throughout the pandemic. Internet searches grew exponentially in 2020 as consumers looked for new ways to make purchases and complete tasks online because of lockdowns and, in some cases, fear of going out even after lockdowns eased.

Why Does It Matter? Maybe your small business marketing plan falls into that 57% that don’t have an SEO strategy. If you’re wondering why you should be concerned, it’s because your competitors may be investing in SEO. That means when someone searches for the product or service you provide, your competitor’s name ranks higher in search results. It’s possible that several competitors rank higher than you, and if you’re not investing in SEO at all, you may not even be on the first page of rankings.

Beyond SEO to PPC: In addition to using SEO best practices, small business marketing plans also incorporate paid advertising to round out their digital marketing investment.  While Google Ads are the most popular way (28%) to invest in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, 18% also invest in Facebook paid ads and 14% pay for Instagram ads. The combination of investing in SEO and PPC can enable a company to gain significant market share, and it’s something you may want to consider.

Measuring the Effectiveness of SEO and PPC: As with any kind of marketing, you want to be able to assess whether your investment was worth it, as well as how you should be allocating those dollars between different types of digital marketing. Companies use a variety of analytics tools to measure effectiveness, but the most popular are Google Analytics, Google Search Console and Answer the Public. Whether you decide to invest in SEO strategies, PPC or both, you should be using analytics to assess results.

If you’re interested in getting started with SEO for your small business marketing plan, contact us at SJC Marketing. We can help you implement best practices and show how to measure your effectiveness with SEO strategies to ultimately gain market share.

 

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