#9 Most Read Article of 2014: Avoid SEO Hype: Why Small Businesses Should Focus on Return on Investment
This story was originally published on February 2, 2014, and comes in at number nine on our countdown of the 10 most popular Search Engine Watch stories of 2014. As we look back over the past year, we're celebrating the best of 2014, as determined by you, our readers. Enjoy!
With the recent controversy surround guest blog posting, it is easy to be pulled into the controversy. As always, there are contradicting viewpoints on small business SEO and the guidance from Google is, well, confusing at best.
Small business owners don't have the luxury of being wrong. They live close to the edge, and rainy-day financing is hard to come by.
For these reasons, small businesses need to be guided by statistics and analytics. They need to avoid wasting time in controversial discussions that have no end.
BrightLocal recently surveyed 20,000 U.S.-based businesses to assess sources of leads and found respondents indicated the following:
These statistics confirm why many small businesses ask for SEO as their first online marketing product, they know this technique has worked for others. However, SEO is the worst place for a small business that is moving from word-of-mouth marketing to online marketing due to uncertainty, ROI time frame, and complexity.
Small businesses that are just starting online marketing distrust the newness and complexity of the Internet. They are likely coming from the Yellow Pages and local networking. While they don't like the Yellow Pages, they understand how it works (or used to work).
Agencies should steer inexperienced customers into PPC first because it is most similar to Yellow Page advertising. Furthermore, 72 percent of marketers that use PPC plan to increase their PPC budgets in 2014, which demonstrates it is generally successful.
PPC allows customers to secure new business rapidly. Trust will develop over time, and new products can then be proposed.
Originally posted here:
#9 Most Read Article of 2014: Avoid SEO Hype: Why Small Businesses Should Focus on Return on Investment