BlogKing March 6th, 2007

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Mat McGee’s post about SEO for small business:

Time. Money. Knowledge.Those are the three biggest challenges a small business must overcome to achieve search marketing success, and the three things that make small business search marketing unique. Many small businesses have one or two of those, but not the third. And some small businesses don’t have any of the three, making their road to search success even harder to travel.

Time. As any search marketer can tell you, there are no short cuts to success, no quick fixes when it comes to a broken web site or unsuccessful search marketing campaign. SEO is a process that demands time, and that’s often in short supply at small businesses. According
to the MasterCard Global Small Business Survey 2006, small business owners worldwide work an average of 54 hours a week. That’s 11 hours a day for a 5-day workweek. So, for every small business owner that dared to only put in a 40-hour week, someone else was on the clock for 68 hours. For many, trying to run a business and execute a search marketing campaign is easier said than done.

Money. According to the same MasterCard survey, only half of small businesses owners worldwide are confident they’ll meet their financial goals in 2007. The U.S. Small Business Administration cites a 2005 study that says only 44% of new small businesses will survive four years. The National Federation of Independent Business cited the financial impact on small businesses when it opposed the recently approved minimum wage hike in the U.S. Money is obviously a Big Issue for small businesses. $50,000+ SEO campaigns and 6-figure PPC budgets just aren’t realistic for many small businesses. When you’re small, the challenge is how to get more bang from less budget.

Knowledge. I shared an anecdote in last week’s column about David Wallace finding only 2 of 20 small business owners he spoke to doing search marketing. The other 18? Not doing it, or completely unaware of search marketing altogether.

Read the rest at Search Engine Land.

If you are a small business owner that falls in that group of 18, contact me for my free white paper that will help get you up to speed on what you need to know and why it make sense to start ASAP.

• SEM , SEO , Small Business