A study has recently been conducted which from a marketing perspective shows some quite interesting results.
Most people are aware of SEO these days and the need to have websites properly optimised. This in turn helps with rankings and leads to a better chance of becoming ‘found’ by the target audience.
The study referred to shows that when it comes to budgets for advertising and marketing, only 20% of companies give SEO any thought and set aside money to spend on campaigns.
This seems rather ironic given how popular sites like Google are which are said to have trillions of searches each year. Therefore this shows that being ‘found’ should not be underestimated, yet from the statistics it clearly is.
Many reasons have been cited for why this statistic could be true. The main one seems to be that many companies prefer ‘traditional marketing campaigns’ (a kind of better the devil you know thing,) where practices have been tried and used for years. However the problem with this is the eggs in one basket argument: by omitting SEO you are immediately dismissing a large part of your potential target audience.
Not much thought has to be given to the above to realise that this is true. When someone wants to discover something new or just find something, it more often than not begins with a Google search.
On the other hand, SEO is not a new concept and many would argue that it is actually quite established. One of the problems (which are likely to play into the above reports) is the apparent hap-hazard status of the industry. For example:
1) The area is quite unpredictable as to what brings success and what does not.
2) Lots of new information and skills need to be learnt – this can put people off.
Maybe this becomes the answer…If some of the difficulties and concepts which put people off are addressed, then simply a greater uptake will follow. We all know the massive and rewarding benefits of SEO and it is worth more than 20% surely?
To find out more about SEO, visit our SEO Services page.