A majority of small businesses (SMBs) surveyed understand they should be doing SEO but only 36 percent have an SEO strategy in place and are actively pursuing it. That’s according to a survey of 529 small businesses, between 1 and 50+ employees conducted by The Manifest.
Beyond the 36 percent, the survey found another 23 percent planned to pursue SEO in 2019, and 15 percent said that they intended to in “2020 or later.” Whether these good intentions translate into action is another matter. A 2018 survey conducted by the same company found that 44 percent of businesses spend time or money on SEO. This was higher than the 36 percent in the current survey. However, the former included respondents from larger enterprises (up to 500 employees).
Majority DIYing SEO. Most SMBs rely on in-house efforts for SEO (54 percent), although a substantial minority (42 percent) used SEO consultants and freelancers. Another 28 percent said they were using an SEO firm or agency. And 50 percent said they were using SEO software and tools. There was some overlap in the categories; I would assume between those using an “SEO agency” and “SEO consultants.”
Nearly 80 percent of these SMBs were either “confident” or “very confident” in their self-assessed understanding of SEO best practices. However, the fact that the top SEO tactic cited was “social media marketing” casts some doubt on that finding.
Top SEO tactics among SMBs. The survey asked the SMBs currently pursuing SEO, “What SEO activities does your company currently invest in?” Erroneously, “social media marketing” was on list of tactics and captured the highest response (63 percent). More than half of SMBs said a mobile-friendly website and keyword research/targeting are top SEO tactics:
- Mobile-friendly website: 54%
- Keyword research/targeting: 51%
- Creating high-quality content: 48%
- Local search optimization: 45%
- On-site optimization: 40%
- PPC advertising: 35%
- Link-building: 28%
- Voice search optimization: 21%
It’s interesting and somewhat surprising to note that 21 percent said they were doing “voice search optimization.” It’s not clear what that means to these businesses, however.
Methods for tracking SEO success. When asked how they tracked SEO success, these SMBs said “search traffic,” followed by “leads and conversions.” Only 4 percent said they didn’t track their efforts.
- Web traffic from search engines: 25%
- Leads and conversions: 19%
- Number and quality of backlinks: 14%
- Keyword rankings: 13%
- Impressions: 13%
- On-site engagement: 12%
- I don’t track metrics for SEO: 4%
PPC advertising frequency. The survey also asked about PPC advertising budgets and frequency. The largest single group (33 percent) spent between 10 and 30 percent of their marketing budgets on PPC ads. The next largest group (24 percent) spent between 31 and 50 percent. Among those doing PPC, 82 percent said they were doing it either “consistently” (45 percent) or “monthly” (37 percent).
Why we should care. The survey shows that while only a minority of SMB respondents were actively engaged in doing SEO, a substantial additional percentage recognize they should be doing it. That’s an opportunity for third-party providers that services to SMBs. But SEO doesn’t generally yield immediate results, which makes its value difficult to perceive for some SMBs who often want to see immediate results.
