10 Reasons SEO Is Harder for Small Businesses

October 18, 2012 - Why is SEO harder for small businesses? We’ve been saying for months that SEO is getting harder, and that it’s especially difficult for SMBs to excel at. But why? Why is SEO easier for the big dogs? Make no mistake, it is – even if it’s getting harder for them too.

Here are 10 reasons why smaller businesses struggle to succeed at SEO.

1. You have less money.

This is the #1 reason SEO – and everything else! – is harder for small businesses. It’s an old saw but it’s true: You have to spend money to make money. The reason companies spend money on marketing and advertising is because they deliver ROI, but sometimes there’s a tipping point. For example we’ve seen small businesses that didn’t see ROI from PPC until they raised their daily spend, counter-intuitively. SEO is the same way. If you can devote more money to your search engine optimization efforts, you’ll see better returns. Bigger companies have bigger budgets they can allocate towards hiring more employees, bringing in top-notch consultants, investing in “big content” and great web design, and so on.

2. You have less time.

OK, I lied: This is tied for #1. Time is money, and if you have less money you also have less time. Fewer heads on the marketing team means that everyone is juggling multiple tasks and nobody can focus 100% of their time on SEO. Some businesses are so small they have just one or two people doing EVERYTHING, making SEO exponentially harder. Real SEO takes a lot of time. Creating worthwhile content, optimizing your web pages, promoting your assets and securing links, running A/B tests – none of this is easy. Small businesses end up doing a rush job or neglecting it altogether, resulting in underoptimized sites with poor rankings ...