Loading ...The recession has had a significant impact on the business sector as a whole. Some businesses have actually seen changes for the good, while others have unfortunately, faced many difficult changes. Although the recession has not tremendously impacted the business of SEO, it has brought on a new set of challenges.
As Amanda Watlington shares, SEO business has seen budgets cut, managers shifting their budgets to see where the value lies, and slow closing processes. In addition, some SEO consultants are focusing so much of their time on retaining their large clients that they neglect the smaller potential clients. Watlington offers this advice:
“We, as business people, have to watch that we don’t let bad work drive out good.”
On the positive side, the field of SEO has seen some increases in business. The paid search front has especially been favored because it is so measurable.
Watlington however, still believes in the business of SEO in spite of the many challenges associated with the economic climate. She says:
“Search still, in 10 years, is still to me the best game in town.”
How has the economy affected your business? What advice do you offer to other SEO consultants?
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the future of seo is relatively on the balance since most companies do not know what we can do for them…
SEO is more of hard work than complete absolute science or statistical math…
http://www.myshem.com can make 50 links a day, 100 blogs a week, etc…
The long-term value through organic optimization is still under “valued” to allot of companies. While most steer towards the instant gratification of PPC ( Adwords) an SEO plan still should be utilized to deem a site an authority. In marketing, one of the big thing clients tend to due is stop promoting and developing through search engine optimization because there is no immediate ROI. As well, the worst thing that can be done is cutting budget all together while the competition is still rolling out exposure.
Recession? I don’t see the things your saying. I’m not finding budgets slashed with any of the companies I’m working with. The only thing I find is people saying “the reason for our problems is the current economy…”, which is not true they had these problems before current time and would have had them regardless as they had some areas in their company with poor management.
“How has the economy affected your business? What advice do you offer to other SEO consultants?”
I just don’t see that we’ve reached a plateau of knowledge among business owners. The majority just still don’t understand the value of adding content pages to go after long-tail search phrase traffic. They still don’t get that there’s more to life than being #1 for “real estate” (what I call BIG terms) as a search phrase. They still haven’t digested that seo is a long-term process that needs constant monitoring and continuous effort toward growth.
What I would say to seo consultants is to continue to educate your clients. These are issues they must know about but since they’re business owners, they’re rather embarrassed to admit that they don’t understand. Be sympathetic and do a bit of hand-holding along the way and you will have a customer for life.
What I’ve experienced so far is a longer process to close a deal. Some companies are not really aware of the positive impact that can come from a high organic position. Most, still believe that by having a website alone is enough to be found and increase sales (ROI). I agree with Mr.Dickinson about the need to educate our clients and I add to it the general public (among them, small business owners).
On the other hand, there is a small group of companies a little more knowledgeable that is “shopping around” a little longer to be sure their buck will be “stretched” far enough to get more covered (services) paying still a reasonable fee.
I was contacted by a Catering company through a representative who was very clear about the “shopping around” process. They were gathering information and checking, as I mentioned before, what could be done (services) for a reasonable fee. She told me they were contacting SEO companies and asking for proposals. She also sent the company’s website addresses (5 websites + Social Networking Sites)for a evaluation.
My experience has been…once they assimilate the benefits from a long-term SEO practice, they present a “hurry” to get the work started. And it doesn’t matter here the size of the company or budget.
My conclusion:
There is a lot of business out there for SEO companies. It’s a matter of adjusting to what the time brings and being in the right places. And if WE can not get enough exposure to increase our ROI…who can?
Have you all a great day.
I actually jumped into this industry during the recession not knowing it was all that affected, so I’ve actually come into this expecting my earnings to be how they are. I’m very much looking forward to when things kick back into gear so that I’ll see increased earnings that for most others are normal, but for me will appear to be a huge boost.
I think one way to keep SEO business alive in this time of recession is to get the right people doing the job. And still consider organic marketing, it works.