About 20% of marketers say they do not have one specific search engine optimization strategy, but rather spread their ideas across a few. This clearly shows confusion in an industry that
marketers are still trying to understand, per the study, according to data released this week.
Moz earlier this week released the State of Local SEO report based on findings from responses of about 1,400 local marketers. The data is based on agency versus in-house, as
well as company size.
The findings show that marketers use a variety of strategies, but this data suggests there is confusion about the best types to use for specific campaigns and brands.
When asked to name the tactics that are most helpful in their day-to-day work, on-site optimization ranked No. 1 with 19%, followed by website design with 12%. Technical analysis of ranking,
traffic and conversions came at No. 3 with 12%, followed by local content development at No. 4 with 10% and social media, which rounded out the top 5 with 10%.
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Local link building came in with
9%, other at 7%, and email marketing with 6%. Other categories including citation management, reviews, technical needs, Google knowledge panel, schema, and in-store tech all came in with less than 5%
each.
Not surprisingly, most marketers plan to spend more time with efforts to better understand organic SEO. As Google becomes the homepage for businesses, marketers are increasing
their commitment to understand and use SEO tools and strategies.
As Google becomes more of a home page for local businesses, marketers are committed to leveling up their presence,
learning about organic SEO and Google local features. For example, one in four — or 24% — of marketers responding to the survey plan to learn more about SEO. Some 14% said they will learn more about
Google local features, while 12% will learn more about coding; 11% about link building; 11%, paid advertising and local services; 9%, mobile; 5%, human psychology, and 4%, other.
Review
management, email marketing, traditional PR, and in-store technology and metrics all rated between 1% and 3%.
The percentages are low on some of the strategies because few companies
review online reviews and now most companies ignore in-store technology like beacons and QR codes.
Another point hurting companies, 17% of businesses don’t have a full time SEO person on
staff. Only 26% have one. About 44% have between two and five specialists and 13% have six or more.
Confusion and the inability to understand processes could be the reason why nearly 20% of
in-house small business marketers report they make little to no use of SEO.