Small businesses depend more on search engine traffic than larger firms, according to a study conducted by Hitwise in early 2007.
eMarketer senior analyst Lisa Phillips reports, “The Internet is now an integral part of doing business for US businesses, large and small. Virtually all, 98%, of the 220 manufacturers surveyed by SVM e-Business Solutions have a Web site, and 87% have had one for over three years. More than half, 52%, consider their site to be their most powerful marketing tool.”
According to emarketer.com, “The firm measured the percentage of average monthly traffic companies in the Internet Retailer “Top 500 Guide” received from search engines in 2005 and 2006. Half of the businesses ranked from the 400th to the 500th positions (e.g., smaller retailers) depended on search engines for 50% or more of their total site traffic.
Web-only merchants averaged 64% their of monthly site traffic from search engines.
Chain retailers and consumer brand manufacturers averaged 28% and 27% of their site traffic from search engines, respectively.”
On his Promotion World blog, internet marketing expert Michael Fleischner argues that search engine optimization is an important way for small businesses to compete with larger businesses: “That doesn’t mean they can’t compete against larger businesses or websites when focused on search engine optimization,” he says. “SEO is a basic marketing tool that everyone should use regardless of size…. I’m often asked by small business owners if they stand a chance against larger websites when it comes to organic search results. My response is that size doesn’t matter. When it comes to improving natural search results, it’s all about the keywords you choose and how competitive those keywords are. “
