Australian small businesses are late to the online marketing party
Small businesses should stop thinking of online marketing as an optional expense says Christopher Wilkie in a piece that first appeared in Encore. It should be treated as an essential, much like insurance.
Over the last few months, we’ve interviewed and surveyed more than 350 small businesses for the 2013 Optimising Small Business Online Marketing Report. We’ve spoken to people across the country, from every major industry and in every major region, with some pretty compelling results. The most notable finding is that Australians do not have a strong grasp of online marketing. We clearly all want to be online, we just haven’t realised that having such a large portion of our population online, we can reach them to make more money.
This is a wake up call to all of you Australian small businesses because you’re actually being left behind when it comes to reaching customers through online marketing.
Here are some key findings.
Well to be honest you note “Good quality SEO for $650 a month”. Sorry but I have been doing SEO in the Australian and US market for a very long time and any one who offers a “Good Quality” SEO campaign for $650 a month usually is willing to cut a few corners to get ROI for a business. Time and time again you see people say Guaranteed SEO for $999 a month and then 6 months later the business is banned from the index and the business owner is crying poor.
Any one who is “decent” at SEO will charge $100 an hour range, bigger agency will charge even more $150-200+ range, so that leaves you with 6.5 hours work a month at the least. Sure you will have a wave of people who pick up a SEO 101 book and decide they suddenly know the finer details of SEO and they want to charge $50 an hour. These are usually the most dangerous people to deal with. Time and time again we deal with businesses who have used amateurs in the past to destroy their SEO.
With your 6.5 hours you also need to factor in client communication, research on the client as you note and further to this a monthly report, I mean sure you also need to do SEO work on the site on site and off site. Suddenly $650 a month is not going to get you very far in the SME market if you want to do things the right way.
Great comment Not so sure…! Agree with you that $650 isn’t the most ideal spend, though I think you may have taken my point a bit out of context… $650 is a starting point for a Small Business SEO campaign (remember that for a small business, this is still a sizeable marketing budget!) and we think an achievable one for a lot of small businesses, especially the kind that we have a lot of experience working with.
In terms of deliverables, we feel it is certainly possible to provide a good quality product that will provide benefit to the Small Business within that budget, although we agree it’s certainly on the lower end.
I think the more relevant point is that this notion of “guaranteed” SEO is where people are left crying poor, because SEO is anything but guaranteed. The other fallacy you’re working to is that $100 is not necessarily a standard charge for anyone who is “decent at SEO”. The bigger firms may well be able to command $100 an hour, however we are neither a bigger firm, nor want to be! Price isn’t really the goal for us, it’s the ability to deliver great SEO that dictates whether we work with a client or not (yes we do choose to not work with those we can’t add value to). On the other hand, your point begs the question – Do you really want big web development firms for example diversifying into something they are not passionate nor good at, and charging those rates to SMEs who are truly left crying poor when they don’t get what they want?
This is a pretty contentious point, and an interesting debate for all engaged in delivering SEO services.
I am just addressing your points from your article:
“For a good quality SEO campaign, expect to spend around $650 a month or more.”
In regards to pricing 100 per hour is the market standard for most professionals, I mean this type of price range is well documented here over at Moz:
http://moz.com/blog/seo-pricing-costs-of-services
Sorry but I see this type of SMB SEO set up where they take on 100 clients paying $600 a month, it is just a recipe for problems with SEO.
Doesn’t the same article mention typical monthly spend as $251-500? I think Chris has hit a sweet spot starting at $600 that’s achievable for small businesses and remains effective.
Yes ! I agree, this is a wake up call to small businesses in Australia since they are being left behind when it comes to reaching customers through online marketing.
I found training is very useful prior to binding the SMB owners into any online marketing contracts. At the moment, with lack of education, everyone think of Google and social networks as their immediate source of income while they must be thought that marketing is a long term process and there is no guarantee of return. If that happens in initial steps, then with no pressure the desired results can be obtained.
Hi Ethan,
Thanks for your comment – And yes training is very effective for a few reasons before SMBs enter a contract. However it’s even better if they don’t have to enter into a contract at all! You are absolutely right that marketing is a long-term process with no specific guarantee of return, however with tried and true methods there are definitely outcomes that can be predicted with sufficient accuracy.
Overall however, great comment – Thank’s for raising this very valid point!
Thanks for your insight Christopher.
I would say that Aussie SMEs are behind because they’re either scared or sceptical of online marketing. Plus, often the key decision-makers are ‘old school’ and online marketing is not at the forefront of their mind (but should be!).
You mentioned that there aren’t many good SEO/PPC/SMA agencies around. To help those of us who operate SMEs, can you please tell us (in your opinion) some of the ‘good’ ones?
Likewise, for bigger businesses which ones are the good ones?
I think a quick and easy way of finding out if an SEO company is all that it is cracked up to be is by googling terms like “SEO Melbourne” – for example, if you are in Melbourne. If the company is not on page 1 of organic search for its own key search terms then how could they possibly do a good job for your SME? (Note: I see that your company Optimising is on page 1 for this search term, so well done.)
I look forward to your response. Thanks!
Hey Mike,
I think there definitely is fear and scepticism in the market, and unfortunately it’s going to be a long process to educate the market that the case is different!
And yeah there aren’t many good SEO/PPC/SMA agencies, however that’s from a purely service provision perspective – A lot of people choose businesses for more than that though, so it would be difficult to suggest which are the good ones. For example we have a lot of interstate clients, and they have a priority on high quality and just getting the job done, whereas our local clients could be considered to have the priority of using someone local that they meet and discuss things with in person.
Pointing out who are good or bad isn’t really effective, I am primarily trying to draw attention to the fact that people do need to be wary and critical when evaluating the right path forward – Pretty much what everyone should do when evaluating a service provider! I actually just posted an article on some good questions people should be asking their SEO manager, but they also apply to PPC/SMA. You can check it out here:
http://www.optimising.com.au/b.....eo-manager
You’re right! Checking an SEO agency’s own rank is definitely a great way to see how effective their work is!! Thanks for noting that we rank very well 😉