Do small business owners take advantage of search marketing the way they should? Often, they don’t. If you own a small business and you’re wondering what’s passing you by, and more important;y, what’s stopping you, read on. Small businesses that ignore search marketing might find their competitors leaving them behind.
First, let me say thank you to Mike Moran for giving me the opportunity to talk to his Biznology audience. I admit that I feel a bit like a substitute teacher but don’t think you can slack off while I am at the helm! Pardon me….I am a little woozy from the power.
I’m going to share with you an all too common occurrence I encounter. You see, as a search marketing provider to small and medium businesses (SMBs) I am all about helping the “little guy” use the search engines to level the playing field. There literally is no other marketing discipline that can put you in front of a prospect at the exact moment that they have asked for the solution you provide. A small software company with a great product can do the right things to get them mentioned in the same breath as Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft etc. within a SERP (search engine result page) and have a chance to win a client from industry giants. That happens all the time in search.
Here’s the catch though. In order to make that happen they have to invest themselves into the process of search marketing and precious few small guys do. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen clients ignore suggestions or back burner implementation of search marketing techniques that will eventually earn them bottom line results. I don’t get it but it happens.
Do I think it’s because they don’t care? No, not at all. In fact, most small business guys and gals care so much that they make themselves too busy to tend to the basics. Search marketing is now basic marketing. If you don’t think so, then I would suggest that you are going to be eating the dust of your competition in the very near future. Small biz folks are often so busy working in their business that they forget to work on their business. This is a critical tactical error that costs many businesses dearly. Interesting thing is that they often don’t even realize it. They have never even calculated the opportunity cost of not showing up in Google’s search results for their product or service. They just go about the business of doing their business day in and day out.
If you are a business owner, just take a moment to calculate the revenue that you would receive from a new client over a year’s time. Now imagine that you have hired a sales guy who literally works 24/7 for you and never takes a vacation. He knows that his only job is to bring you business and he has all the right contacts to do so. He works tirelessly to network and move your business forward by acquiring new customers from all over the country (or world for that matter) and he never complains. He is there to even support your existing client base by reassuring them that you are one of the leaders in your area of expertise. His name is Web. He works out all day to be seen above the rest of your competition because you give him everything he needs to be heard in the search engine marketplace.
Oh wait. You haven’t helped him in a while? He’s not performing up to your expectation? Web just doesn’t make the grade when it comes to bringing new business in? Why do you suppose that is? Hate to tell you but it’s not his fault. It’s yours because you have neglected him and not given him the makeover that he needs to be attractive to one of the most powerful marketing tools available to SMBs on the planet; the search engines. Shame on you, Mr. SMB Owner. All he needs is some attention and he’ll work for you while you sleep. Don’t confuse being busy with being productive. Give your best sales guy a chance to shine. Your bottom line will thank you.
