I don’t know about you (please chime in), but since the beginning of the year my SEO firm’s business has been picking up. Maybe it’s just a fluke, but the same factors that make search engine optimization a good marketing tool in any economy make it especially good in a down economy. That is, SEO is relatively inexpensive compared to other forms of marketing and advertising, and you can track results better.
Take billboards, for example. Prices vary, but in a decent urban area you’ll pay anywhere from $2K to $5K per month or more for a billboard. That’s about the same as what you would pay for a decent SEO campaign, but the SEO campaign excels in two ways; 1) you actually know what you’re getting (with a billboard you can only guess at the results unless you’re driving traffic to a unique phone number or website or using a code or something for tracking purposes), and 2) the billboard is only affecting a local audience, whereas SEO is national/global. Now, for a business that only sells locally, the billboard might be the better route, or at least a good option, but for a national company there’s no comparison between the value of SEO and a single billboard.
If you want to go national with advertising, you can look to radio, TV, phone books, magazines, and newspapers. But here you’re looking at astronomical costs. If you want to take out a full page ad in a national magazine with 100,000 subscribers you might pay tens of thousands of dollars. And that’s just to run your ad once. Again, that might be a good option, but you might get 12 months of SEO for the same price, and you can track the results better and you stand a good chance of getting more results.
I’m not saying SEO is better than everything else out there no matter what–different situations require different solutions. But when companies are looking to cut costs and can’t afford expensive advertising with dubious results, SEO logically must begin to look more and more attractive because of it’s higher potential for a positive ROI and easy-to-track results. What are your thoughts?
Absolutely — SEO is hands-down your best bet for money spent — in any economy. Take me for example; I specialize in the field of dentistry, helping dentists promote their practice websites with SEO.
Because of the economic climate (as forecast by the major media), dentists across the board are currently experiencing an average 40% drop in new patients. While there are several factors at play, overall this is an unprecedented decline in business.
Dentists basically have two choices; 1) prepare to shut down and quit dentistry, or 2) increase marketing proportionate to the drop in new patient appointments.
Fortunately, this group has elected to go with the latter and thus, like yourself the number of SEO clients and interest in our services has increased sharply these last few months — and continues to rise.
John Barremore
Houston, TX
Joshua,
I was just speaking with a friend about this, and I think our consensus is that SEO does pick up, and especially during these types of fiscal situations.
An interesting point (I currently operate in Hong Kong) is that there are lots of new opportunities to begin targeting people online versus traditional media. Many companies here have websites and for the longest time neglected to utilize those sites for publicity and profitability.
We can really feel the impact the market is having because we too are seeing an increase in the amount of requests coming our way.
Cheers,
Derek Kean
We’re definitely seeing an increase in interest for organic SEO. Quotes are up more than 100% in the first quarter, but many companies are waiting to pull the trigger based on the economy.
The company that I work at has seen a decent increase in SEO quotes, though I’ve also noticed that people want to know *exactly* what they are getting for it, which I find a little weird because many companies are perfectly happy to spend money on “old media” – with no measurable results, but they want to know down to the last ultra long-tail keyword where their conversions are coming from.
Well, based on all the over simplified economic news coming from the major networks, the financial networks and radio too-it’s something to consider again. No doubt, when the challenges of the current economy are studied in history, a major factor driving the psychology of the event will be the media.
There’s one problem with “mass media”, sweeping generalizations. The broad brush — the it’s everywhere approach — lacks specifics for each of our own backyards.
The result is that a lot of business owners experiencing a slowdown just say it’s the economy. Newsflash, there are companies that make millions of dollars in bad times. So, it can be done. Here’s how:
1. Focus on Your World
2. Protect Existing Customers/Clients
3. Install or Crank Up Referral Programs
4. Know Who Buys What
5. Fix Your Customer Service
6. Multiple Marketing Campaigns
7. Joint Ventures
8. Use Off line Marketing
9. Tie In Promotions
10. Give More Away
Yes, I think that the SEO business is pretty well recession proof. Almost like the foreclosure business, it can actually thrive in such conditions.
It’s definitely been in a bit of a boom phase lately. I have seen more and more SEO companies popping up. However, it has to reach saturation point eventually. And of course there are a lot of companies that are scams, hopeless or hugely overpriced. Many such companies promise the world and they can’t all be delivering. I think there must be many business owners who are hugely disappointed by what they paid for.
That said, if a SEO doesn’t make outlandish claims, charges reasonably, and delivers on their promise then I suspect their business will just keep on growing.
SEO literally means that we have to increase the page rank in any search engine with the help of key words. This is the main factor by which we increase the traffic for our site. Which results in a great promotion of our site. Ultimately our business will grow up, thus the profit also. This is the mystery of SEO.
When the economy is down, people look for ways to improve their stature. In the world wide web, it simply means, “We better do more SEO”
I would have to agree- in a down economy, advertising typically increases. This could (in 100% theory and personal opinion) be that many people who were laid off have decided to go into business for themselves. This means they 1. Need a website and 2. Need SEO for their website. Also, most smart businesses know that when the economy is down, you spend more on your advertising budget!
Pound for pound, the Internet is the most cost effective medium for advertising.
It is true that SEO firm’s get business in any type of economy, but that’s just because people can see and track the results for themselves, so they know for a fact they are getting the most out of there money. Search Engine Optimization is important when the economy is up, or down. For more information and help with SEO, contact us.
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More and more people are realizing the value of SEO. Through no other advertising medium can you reach a vast number number, track your results, target a specific audience well and get the overall biggest bang for your buck. The business and industry overall will increase as the more tech savvy generation becomes business leaders and CEOs.
The only downside this will bring is competition within SEO companies and every person with some background information attempting to launch their own company. They can bring themselves to the top quickly, get clients but not produce solid results and tarnish the industry as a whole.