Do You Know Who's Buying SEO Services This Year?

BY Kathy Crosett
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Search engine marketing works. In multiple surveys, business owners have indicated that they believe search marketing delivers big results. But, some businesses just don’t commit to spending money on the format. If you’re selling search marketing services, you may be able to better qualify prospects by understanding who is most likely to spend on this tactic.

The latest research from The Manifest is based on input from 350 business owners. The survey was designed to find out who is most likely to invest in search marketing. Researchers also asked businesses if they hired for search marketing services and how they measured campaign success.

The survey revealed a strong correlation between business size and the likelihood of using search. Based on the number of employees, here are the percentages of businesses that engage in search marketing:

  • 1–10 Employees 37%
  • 11–50 Employees 70%
  • 50+ Employees 82%

Analysts theorize that very small businesses may not pay for search marketing, because they serve a limited geographic territory. However, local search optimization can be very lucrative, if a business’ competitors aren’t using this tactic. You can show your clients what’s happening in the local market by running a Digital Audit – Competitive Analysis using AdMall from SalesFuel.

The Manifest survey also found a correlation between marketing budget size and the investment in SEO. For example, 91% of businesses with a marketing budget of $500,000+ invest in SEO. On the other hand, only 34% of businesses with marketing budgets of $10,000 or less allocate resources to SEO.

Not surprisingly, larger marketers are also the ones that can afford to hire outside help for their SEO efforts. Because SEO excellence involves a complex and unique skill set, not many businesses will have experts on their staff. However, SMB owners recognize the importance of a good SEO campaign for special events. If you know your smaller clients or prospects have an event coming up, you can sell them on your services for a limited time period.

Try to sell your clients on metrics, too. They may already be measuring leads, conversions and site traffic. If they agree to let you measure keyword rankings and revenue growth, you can provide a more accurate ROI figure for them. And, they may hire you for additional search services.


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