Large companies were the first to make significant investments in online marketing because they had large enough budgets to experiment with systems that seem complicated and in which there is no clear connection between investment and return. Smaller businesses have to watch their pennies. But today it is probably more important for an independent coffee shop in Phinney Ridge to be talking to a Seattle SEO firm about marketing than it is for a major coffee brand.
Originally, a company's Website was like a billboard on the Information Superhighway. Small business owners spent a bundle building a good web site, and they drove traffic to it by identifying it with keywords. The coffee shop, for example, might use keywords like "independent," "coffee," and "Phinney Ridge" to tell search engines what it was about. When someone wanted to have a nice hot coffee in Phinney Ridge, they would ask a search engine and the search engine would give them the coffee shop's Website.
There were a number of advertising methods to drive additional traffic to a Website, of which banner ads were the most common. The cumulative investment made by small businesses was significant, but by far the deepest pockets in online advertising were still the big companies. The vast majority of their budgets were still reserved for traditional advertising, but it was a big enough pie that the small slice they spent online represented a lot of money, especially in a culture where most of the money was invested rather than earned.
Money spent on banner ads drove innovation, and the promotional potential of the Internet expanded. Search engines stopped looking for keyword tags and began to look for keyword links, giving birth to modern day search engine optimization. That opened up a whole new door in online marketing, creating a new industry and dramatically increasing the effectiveness of strategic effort, such as manufacturing links to generate traffic.
Again, large companies were the first to experiment with this concept, and the marketing departments of most large companies contain a team that knows how to do this. They have deep pockets, and they are investing more and more in strategic online marketing. That means that those companies are building robust and diverse keyword links to their own website, making it more and more visible. Smaller companies that are not playing the game run the risk of being left behind.
The SEO departments of major companies start off with the goal of establishing dominance over the keywords that are most relevant to their business. When that's done, though, they don't stop. It's not in the character of that particular beast to stop. They continue to expand the keywords they want to dominate, making their sites more ubiquitous and pushing small business sites down the rankings.
Before, a small coffee shop in Phinney Ridge was only competing with one or two other coffee joints. That's no longer true. In the all-important keyword competition, it's also up against large companies, such as major coffee brands and huge online retailers. If they aren't aggressive in pursuing SEO strategies themselves their rank will fall, they will lose web traffic, and they will sell less coffee.
Therefore, while the first clients of a Seattle SEO company were probably larger corporations investing a fraction of their marketing budget in online experiments, today smaller companies need to get on the bandwagon. If they don't, they will lose their visibility online. The money they spent on that snazzy site will be wasted. As web traffic dwindles, customer traffic will dwindle as well.
Originally, a company's Website was like a billboard on the Information Superhighway. Small business owners spent a bundle building a good web site, and they drove traffic to it by identifying it with keywords. The coffee shop, for example, might use keywords like "independent," "coffee," and "Phinney Ridge" to tell search engines what it was about. When someone wanted to have a nice hot coffee in Phinney Ridge, they would ask a search engine and the search engine would give them the coffee shop's Website.
There were a number of advertising methods to drive additional traffic to a Website, of which banner ads were the most common. The cumulative investment made by small businesses was significant, but by far the deepest pockets in online advertising were still the big companies. The vast majority of their budgets were still reserved for traditional advertising, but it was a big enough pie that the small slice they spent online represented a lot of money, especially in a culture where most of the money was invested rather than earned.
Money spent on banner ads drove innovation, and the promotional potential of the Internet expanded. Search engines stopped looking for keyword tags and began to look for keyword links, giving birth to modern day search engine optimization. That opened up a whole new door in online marketing, creating a new industry and dramatically increasing the effectiveness of strategic effort, such as manufacturing links to generate traffic.
Again, large companies were the first to experiment with this concept, and the marketing departments of most large companies contain a team that knows how to do this. They have deep pockets, and they are investing more and more in strategic online marketing. That means that those companies are building robust and diverse keyword links to their own website, making it more and more visible. Smaller companies that are not playing the game run the risk of being left behind.
The SEO departments of major companies start off with the goal of establishing dominance over the keywords that are most relevant to their business. When that's done, though, they don't stop. It's not in the character of that particular beast to stop. They continue to expand the keywords they want to dominate, making their sites more ubiquitous and pushing small business sites down the rankings.
Before, a small coffee shop in Phinney Ridge was only competing with one or two other coffee joints. That's no longer true. In the all-important keyword competition, it's also up against large companies, such as major coffee brands and huge online retailers. If they aren't aggressive in pursuing SEO strategies themselves their rank will fall, they will lose web traffic, and they will sell less coffee.
Therefore, while the first clients of a Seattle SEO company were probably larger corporations investing a fraction of their marketing budget in online experiments, today smaller companies need to get on the bandwagon. If they don't, they will lose their visibility online. The money they spent on that snazzy site will be wasted. As web traffic dwindles, customer traffic will dwindle as well.
About the Author:
I'm a web optimization professional specializing in natural SEO services. To learn more, here's a great starting point: www.audiencebloom.com.
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