In truth, there are many people who do not care at all about their website’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Think of a dentist, a veterinarian, an electrician or a lawyer. Each of these businesspeople will be concerned with following the progress of his/her business, but will have no idea that SEO could very well be part of a marketing strategy mix. Over the years we have created a chasm between new technologies and forms of advertising and those business management activities that have existed for much longer. No doubt it is time to work for a change of trend.

All small businesses, regardless of their focuses, need online marketing. In fact, such companies will need much more than large firms. The big companies can afford huge budgets to invest in SEO and can use a wide range of ways to advertise their products or services.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are faced with a very different reality as their budgets are reduced to a minimum. A smaller business may have very low profit margins, which means their SEO budget may be very low. These factors put the small entrepreneur in a frustrating situation as he or she grapples with the question, “how can I increase the publicity of my business?”

1 – The difficulty of calculating ROI. (Return of Investment).

In many respects the pay-per-click (PPC) adverts that are purchased through Google AdWords are the equivalent of the Yellow Pages. Potential buyers will conduct a search on Google in the same way that they would have consulted the Yellow Pages in 1985. The business owner must also engage with it (and as a result has a love-hate relationship with Google AdWords) and feels the same frustration business owners did with the Yellow Pages with the high prices and the lack of alternatives.

When a small business decides to use a service’s SEO, it wants the cheaper alternative – that is, the SEO strategy should be affordable. There needs to be one option with the highest ROI possible.

Because of Google’s rules, providers of SEO services cannot give warranties, so the ROI is difficult to calculate.

On the other hand, the SEO providers cannot set the price accurately because nobody knows what the reaction will be in terms of traffic for each action. Here’s another reason why the small business owner ends up having no confidence in optimizing for search engines.

2 – It was simple at first, but now is too difficult

Owners of small businesses operating in a particular sector for many years are particularly unhappy about the change in the trend toward online marketing. The rules they once followed in establishing a business were very simple: open a store, buy a place in the Yellow Pages and allocate a small budget for other marketing efforts such as newspaper ads, flyers, and in some cases, local television advertising.

If you are in the business world closer and closer scope online because online marketing and SEO are still accompanied by so much distrust?

3 – The SEO world is too technical

The owners of small businesses do not have much time. None can leave their shop or firm to participate in a three-day seminar on SEO strategies. The concept of SEO is still not widespread and the confusion it creates for the small business owner is often expressed in their question “Is SEO strategy really needed for my business?”

4 – The SEO does not work

The next reason, and perhaps most important, is that many small businesses have the perception that SEO does not work. This is certainly the greatest obstacle with which a SEO professional must deal.

The expectations and impatience for immediate results often lead to the conclusion that the investment was lost. This often leads to early abandonment of the campaign and creates the belief that SEO does not work.

5 – The rules are changing

The update algorithm Google Panda was the big news last year. The update algorithm was an important change and has had a decisive impact on 12% of Google results. This change was the engine that has driven many small businesses already operating online to become interested in SEO and SEO to investigate how an intervention could have effects on traffic to a businesses web page.

The world of small businesses, however, remains tied to the concept of marketing via the “Yellow Pages” – SEO is very far from it and the constantly changing nature of SEO can confuse small business owners.

Conclusions

Small businesses need a SEO service, although many small businesses may perceive that SEO providers do not understand the needs of small businesses.

A good SEO professional has to help his clients understand the basic principles of positioning, must put more effort to establish a rapport with clients and must, as far as possible, provide a guide on acceptable ROI for clients.

In a nutshell, SEO has to learn the language of small businesses and reduce the need for small business owners to learn a new language in respect of SEO. These efforts will lead entrepreneurs to reach a conclusion very similar to that of clients of the “Yellow Pages” in the past: that SEO works!