So, I’ve been actively speaking to business owners of all size business from global behemoths to local services business like electricians, doctors etc. I’ve spoken to an extremely broad spectrum of industries from the aforementioned electricians and doctors to High Tech, Entertainment, Plastics Manufacturing, Designer Clothing companies and too many more to name and I have found a shocking lack of knowledge regarding search engines, how they work and how a business is listed in the search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing) results for relative searches.
Even more flabbergasting is that this lack of search engine knowledge is not unique to the small businesses and sole practitioners but applies equally to large business with proportionately large marketing staffs and budgets. An informal (very) poll and survey of the respondents websites showed that:
71% Were not doing any “on-page” optimization, I was scared to even ask if they knew what that meant for fear of offending some of the higher level marketing people. 84% of respondents had no defined SEO strategy. 76% Thought they should be doing something about it but were not doing so actively. 100% Wanted more inbound leads from search.
You tell me, where is the disconnect here? 100% of the respondents want more leads but an overwhelming majority really don’t know how to go about it or are squeamish on pulling the trigger on a coordinated on line marketing campaign? Extracting budget from companies relative to search and their websites seems challenging but it should be a “no brainer” spend. Shouldn’t it?
I’m not sure, but the entire two week process has left me alternatively scratching my head in bewilderment and excited that online marketing consulting is just scratching the surface of the potential demand. Does anyone have anecdotes to share about there findings?
