Could your business be among the many that are missing out on new customers by not optimizing their online and social media presence? The Web.com Small Business Digital Trends Report created in collaboration with an Innovation Fellow in the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard, Dr. David Ricketts, says that only 17 percent of small business owners are willing to invest in search engine optimization (SEO) in 2017.
“The number one reason why small business owners are online is to attract and engage with new customers, yet our report indicates small business owners may be having a hard time keeping up with the continually changing dynamic of the web,” the Web.com (NASDAQ:WEB) CEO David Brown said in a prepared release on the study.
2017 Small Business Digital Trends Report
Besides the small number of businesses that are willing to invest in SEO, the study also says that 85 percent of small businesses are hitting some kind of roadblock when attempting to use social media to promote their businesses. In other words, only 15 percent are effectively using social media to market their products.
“In 2017, it is no longer enough for small business owners to be online with just a web site. They need business-specific social media channels that engage customers, they need a search-engine-optimization (SEO) strategy that will get them on the top of search lists, and they need online marketing advice from real people who understand how to stay one step ahead of their competition and customer expectations,” Brown added.
The study also found out that 26 percent of businesses have single page websites and about 43 percent of the surveyed businesses have no plans to change or improve their online presence in 2017. The report surveyed 300 small business owners nationwide to discover how they are using online platforms to market their brands.
These may seem surprisinng results given that some businesses are solely doing business online.
Could it be that small businesses don’t know what SEO is all about? An earlier study by Weebly confirms this fear noting that almost 45 percent of businesses don’t know what SEO means.
Web.com’s Small Business Digital Trends Report was a nationwide survey that sought to understand how small business owners are using online channels to grow their businesses.
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This article, “Small Business Owners Skip Web Optimization, New Study Finds” was first published on Small Business Trends