According to the U.S. Small Business Association, small businesses make up 99.9 percent of the more than 27 million businesses in the country, but statistics seem to indicate that many of these SMBs are not using online marketing or search engine optimization (SEO).
In a post for Search Engine Land, Hanan Lifshitz, CEO of Palore, writes that some in the search engine marketing world believe the SMB market is saturated, but based on figures from a project his company ran in Alexandria, Virginia, it seems that there is still room for improvement.
Looking at the online visibility of limo drivers and dentists in the area, the statistics show 84 percent are listed in some fashion on at least half of the leading search engines, internet Yellow Pages or local directories.
However, less than half (48 percent) have their websites listed on those directories.
Lifshitz says the numbers indicate that there is much room for growth in online marketing for small businesses around the country. He does acknowledge that his findings only look at a small segment of SEM and says SMBs could be using other tools like search engine optimization (SEO) or video.
It would appear that small businesses are realizing the need for online marketing with a recent survey from Entrepreneur magazine finding that 76 percent of SMBs are putting more emphasis on their use of the internet – including 42 percent who have increased their use of search engine optimization (SEO) or worked on their website.
