It’s Difficult to Challenge the SEO Pros
Small businesses often avoid investing in SEO, feeling it might not be essential for every company, especially those with limited budgets. Here are a few reasons why small companies often don’t prioritize SEO.
It’s difficult to challenge the SEO Pros:
One of the main reasons small business owners are hesitant to invest in SEO is that they know many spaces are dominated by established players. Few companies have been using SEO for years in markets like Iraq and have stable positions among search giants. Plenty of small business owners think that it would be impossible to compete with the biggest field when facing these already well-established contenders, causing them to completely disregard SEO as a means in order to promote their businesses.
SEO services are expensive:
A third reason that companies avoid SEO in Iraq is cost. This is due to the fact that only respectable SEO agencies command a high price, and reasonably affordable can be hard to come by. When the outcomes seem uncertain, paying for SEO can feel like a gamble for small business owners. They are aware enough to know that an expert SEO agency could step in and help, but the cost is often perceived as too high (and surely there is no guarantee). Due to a limited budget, it is not a justified movement to hire expert SEO professionals for the work; thus business avoids investing in it.
SEO Trends Keep Changing — Hard to Keep Up
Another potential problem is that SEO trends are constantly changing. There are some fundamentals that remain unchanged in marketing — “content is king,” for instance — but the tactics and best practices evolve almost constantly. For effective SEO, businesses must create relevant and valuable content, this could take the shape of product descriptions, blogs, videos or images. But it isn’t easy to find such types of content creators who understand the art of writing plus SEO. In the absence of a trusted content creator who understands SEO, it can be harder for businesses to part with their cash as they might feel that bad content could damage rather than bolster their brand.
Social Media:
Most of small businesses opt for social over SEO as it provides fast and economical access to the target audience in Iraq. While it takes time for search results to improve; social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can have a business in front of potential customers almost instantly. Social media marketing offers instant feedback and frequently yields quicker, clearer results compared to less responsive channels such as SEO, which takes longer and more continuous effort.
Applicable when the Business Sells into a Local Market
There are small local businesses —be it a grocery store down the street or perhaps a dental clinic— who think that there is little to no need for SEO. These types of businesses usually rely heavily on local relationships and word-of-mouth referrals, believing that this is a more direct approach than SEO, which can feel generic and may appear somewhat vague. When businesses serve only a local clientele, they may be thinking SEO is an added expense or bigger money on their bottom line and it should be something more direct dealing with end-users.
Launch a new product or service:
There are some big reasons why businesses feel that SEO is not the right weapon of choice when it comes to launching something new. Most likely, if people are not aware of a new product, they will not be searching for it online. Here companies will choose more immediate marketing techniques that get the product in front of prospective customers fast, usually through social media or email campaigns. And this allows them to get in front of customers without waiting for results from SEO.
What all Small Businesses must know
Despite these issues, small businesses need to understand that SEO is becoming a stronger asset as individuals grow to rely on search engines to locate products and services, even in their own hometowns. Steering clear of SEO could be a big lost opportunity for online visibility and customer acquisition.
SEO services are going to gain traction from more companies in 2019 and beyond, as larger numbers of businesses will finally see that a growing segment of their audience can be located online.
Conclusion
If you are still on the fence about whether SEO makes sense for your small business, make some investment in initial discovery to evaluate potential opportunity and cost. The worst feeling is when many businesses dive into SEO with a limited budget and as little research as possible and then don’t get the results they were hoping for. This can lead to the information required for a sound decision on whether an SEO campaign charted by professionals makes sense or not.
Thank You For Reading