By Jacob Alcoveston
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.
Under the traditional version of the Internet, a company's web site is its online advertising. Because of this a lot of companies spend plenty of money on the site and then hang it out there, expecting people to see it. The way there were attracted in the past was by keyword tags, which told search engines what they were about. For that independent Phinney Ridge coffee shop, those tags might have included keywords like "coffee" "Phinney Ridge" and "independent." If someone wanted a coffee and searched for those keywords, the slick web site would pop up.
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.
Small slices of very big marketing budgets added up to enough money to drive innovation, and over time the marketing engines in operation online have become increasingly sophisticated and effective. Search engines have changed how they cull results, searching for keyword links instead of the keywords that were traditionally added by Webmasters, and that gave birth to search engine optimization, or SEO, which is essentially manufacturing links in order to drive traffic.
Large companies were the first to try SEO after some mavericks had demonstrated its effectiveness, and because it's so effective most large companies have teams devoted to SEO activities today. With their deep pockets, they are driving strategic online marketing forward, providing a significant advantage to their brands and making life far more complicated for small independent businesses as they do.
Greed has a way of eating more than it can hold, so even companies that seem unique are in jeopardy. Keyword tags used to be extremely useful, but site owners got greedy and started to add more and more keywords, including keywords that weren't directly related to the subject of their site, just to drive traffic. The same will be true of keyword links.
That means that the small independent coffee shop on Phinney Ridge isn't only competing with other neighborhood coffee joints. It's also competing with large companies, including massive online retailers and major coffee brands. They will see their search engine rank drop steadily, not because they're doing anything wrong but because someone else is dominating all the keywords related to their business.
The first clients of an established Seattle SEO company were probably large companies. But now any small business that doesn't jump on the SEO bandwagon puts its survival in jeopardy. They have to compete for the keywords that are most valuable to them in order to remain relevant online, drive traffic to their site, and convert that traffic into customers..
Under the traditional version of the Internet, a company's web site is its online advertising. Because of this a lot of companies spend plenty of money on the site and then hang it out there, expecting people to see it. The way there were attracted in the past was by keyword tags, which told search engines what they were about. For that independent Phinney Ridge coffee shop, those tags might have included keywords like "coffee" "Phinney Ridge" and "independent." If someone wanted a coffee and searched for those keywords, the slick web site would pop up.
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.
Small slices of very big marketing budgets added up to enough money to drive innovation, and over time the marketing engines in operation online have become increasingly sophisticated and effective. Search engines have changed how they cull results, searching for keyword links instead of the keywords that were traditionally added by Webmasters, and that gave birth to search engine optimization, or SEO, which is essentially manufacturing links in order to drive traffic.
Large companies were the first to try SEO after some mavericks had demonstrated its effectiveness, and because it's so effective most large companies have teams devoted to SEO activities today. With their deep pockets, they are driving strategic online marketing forward, providing a significant advantage to their brands and making life far more complicated for small independent businesses as they do.
Greed has a way of eating more than it can hold, so even companies that seem unique are in jeopardy. Keyword tags used to be extremely useful, but site owners got greedy and started to add more and more keywords, including keywords that weren't directly related to the subject of their site, just to drive traffic. The same will be true of keyword links.
That means that the small independent coffee shop on Phinney Ridge isn't only competing with other neighborhood coffee joints. It's also competing with large companies, including massive online retailers and major coffee brands. They will see their search engine rank drop steadily, not because they're doing anything wrong but because someone else is dominating all the keywords related to their business.
The first clients of an established Seattle SEO company were probably large companies. But now any small business that doesn't jump on the SEO bandwagon puts its survival in jeopardy. They have to compete for the keywords that are most valuable to them in order to remain relevant online, drive traffic to their site, and convert that traffic into customers..
About the Author:
I'm a search marketing professional specializing in affordable SEO services. To learn more, here's a great starting point: www.audiencebloom.com.
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