Comments on: Small Business Website Marketing Frustrations

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 20:57:11 +0000

Great article and relevant comments.

So many small businesses get a web site designed, realise it is not ranking in search and then go looking for quick silver bullets. Then they are at the mercy of a bunch of people, all offering a solution for only $97 that will solve there problems.

As always a good, relevant, well designed web site with good content is the starting point. Then in many cases getting a good book from amazon with good feedback is a good starting point.

Perhaps if more SEO professionals offered to work on risk and reward, this would foster an environment of trust.

Simon
Colchester, UK

By: Brian Mathers

Brian Mathers — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 14:35:25 +0000

This is the best article yet that addresses the biggest problem that the small business owner is faced with. Sometimes the business owner of course is their own worst enemy as they combine trying to get a cheap website built and then trying to market the site on a show string budget.

I don’t know why a business owner would not spend some quality time with us commenting here and Matt Bailey. There are many ‘SEO Advisors’ out there giving the wrong advice, which sees the good guys get tarred with the same stick.

I just lost a client because whilst he was not paying a lot for support/training, he had shown a willingness to learn by doing some of the stuff that is the good advice contained in this article. But, he wants everything yesterday such as the being on page 1 of google for lots of keywords and selling lots of products from his website. We are a company just a bit smaller than Matt’s but strive to deliver based on SiteLogic best practice. However, this former client has been swayed by a big SEO company that has lots of offices in different locations and lots of staff, and now he is willing to pay more because he thinks they will get him ranking higher faster, because they have promised him.

The biggest problem I see is this SEO company have said “give us a list of the keywords you want to rank for along with the pages and we will get you on page 1 of Google”. How often have you heard that. There is a good chance the business owner will target all the wrong keywords that could be easy for the SEO company to get a page to rank high on Google but of course nobody is searching using these terms, and only the SEO company is winning, and when challenged, will say “but we got you onto page 1 of Google, didn’t we”.

As you can see my blood is now boiling, and so we should ping this article right round the world and get these business owners better educated so they don’t get ripped off and instead follow the right guidelines.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 20:22:52 +0000

It’s hard to know where to go for advice. Great list of the basics for those small business owners out there.

By: joomla development

joomla development — Mon, 25 May 2009 08:16:17 +0000

Thanks for the good information on using the Internet to advance a small business.

By: Tim Andren

Tim Andren — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 03:21:22 +0000

Great advice for the beginning small business owner. Marketing is so important to gaining an income stream and it’s essential to have a website presence these days. So many business owners go through the nightmares of domains, hosting and designers. This article will help some avoid those pitfalls.

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:45:19 +0000

For some reason the SEM snake oil salesmen always target the small guy… probably because they don’t know any better. I have had many frustrations trying to dispel stupid myths that are spread by these companies. I share your frustration.

By: EH

EH — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:54:31 +0000

The feeling of not knowing what to do is frustrating and it is easy to want to follow the advice of someone who supposedly knows what he’s doing. However, it is really informative to read such books as “Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint for effective Internet marketing.” Books like this can help you gain a better understanding before you go and ask ‘consultants’ for help.

By: Nikki

Nikki — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:07:55 +0000

I have been there, trying to get “good” advice on using the Internet to advance a small business. It is almost impossible to get any better advice than what you just dispensed. Thanks

By: Jay

Jay — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:20:38 +0000

I definitely feel this woman’s pain. It can be very confusing to try to figure out how to market yourself on the web, especially with all the secrecy that surrounds Google and the conflicting advice that is out there on what matters and what doesn’t. Even as a reasonably tech-savvy individual, I had a very difficult time wading through all of the misinformation.

By: Jonathan Hook

Jonathan Hook — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:44:33 +0000

Unfortunately there seem to be a couple types of people out there. Those who know that they don’t know anything about online marketing and those who think they know something but don’t. The downside is that those who think they know something are happy to rattle it off to anyone who will listen and those who know they don’t know anything will listen to anyone who talks.

My advice is to only take advice from someone who has a proven track record online. A great idea for small business owners is to hire a proven consultant to run the online marketing. It takes all your energy to run a small business – I know, I run one. You don’t have time to keep up with all the available online tools.

Most importantly, what you do online should tie in with what you do offline – it is not a completely different beast. Online marketing should enhance your offline marketing – or else you are really wasting your time.