[Discuss] Will Google Kill Small Business SEO

[WebTrust]

Just wanted to know people thoughts on the future of SEO in Google.

With the cost of competitive SEO rising, will the little guys survive?

With devalued link exchanges, directory listings and article marketing.

Low cost SEO has started to vanish, things like guest posts have arrived but realistically the blogs these are going on without a large budget are rubbish.

Paid links will never be detectable by Google, simply by their nature.

For competitive keywords such as "home insurance" there isn't a listing on there who doesn't buy links(I know I've sold to half of them).

Realistically small companies are not going to have 200-300k a year to spend on links that these companies do, I've been doing SEO since 2005 and this seems like where we're almost at.

Opinions?

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Maybe I'm a "glass half empty" guy ... but when I first heard people talking about how the internet would let them "do business all over the world", my first thought was that it would let people all over the world compete with them.

(Or, in the case of markets that aren't international, "people all over the UK")

That's bound to mean fewer - but bigger - winners in each market.

As for SEO, the bar was always going to get raised. Google was going to get ever smarter and, at some point, too smart for most people doing SEO.

If that means it's about big budgets and link buying, then so be it. There's more to life than SEO.

Steve

 

[Mike tells it like it is]

Any small business who relied on seo for their enquiries was unwise and naive in my view.

The physical world is a big bad unfair place, why did one think the internet would be any more of a level playing field.

Now I will tell it like it is...

Technologies change

People don't change

sales techniques don't change

marketing techniques don't change

pfffft

 

[RedEvo]

Small businesses generally don't get SEO. They don't, sorry won't understand, preferring to bury their collective heads in the sand or moan about how corrupt the SEO 'industry' is.

Furthermore, big business has always held the whip hand when it comes to interruption marketing (magazines, papers, TV etc). As they get switched on to new ways of winning customers they will throw money at that too.

However, through the whole TV industrial complex the small guys still beavered away and made a crust, some of them even did quite well.....



d

 

[trebor8]

Just wanted to know people thoughts on the future of SEO in Google.

With the cost of competitive SEO rising, will the little guys survive?

With devalued link exchanges, directory listings and article marketing.

Low cost SEO has started to vanish,

Do you mean the low cost garbage is starting to vanish

Then it seems Google is cleaning up it's backyard, sweeping up the rubbish and throwing out the trash - making way for The Real Art of SEO/M ?

and I'm unable to see why this means the natural listings will be full of big companies with big budgets - after all it won't be lining G's pockets

 

[WebTrust]

Do you mean the low cost garbage is starting to vanish

Then it seems Google is cleaning up it's backyard, sweeping up the rubbish and throwing out the trash - making way for The Real Art of SEO/M ?

and I'm unable to see why this means the natural listings will be full of big companies with big budgets - after all it won't be lining G's pockets

People with quality websites, wont link to stuff for free, doesn't happen.

I was just paid 13k for a few links from one of the insurance companies.

How can you compete with that?

Viral content, is hard to do and usually costly(more so) than the buying links.

The reason it will all big companies is because companies worth 20k don't usually have the same budget as one worth a billion.

 

[trebor8]

People with quality websites, wont link to stuff for free, doesn't happen.

I was just paid 13k for a few links from one of the insurance companies.


The reason it will all big companies is because companies worth 20k don't usually have the same budget as one worth a billion.

You are saying listing is going to boil down to the monetary value of a backlink/s?

How does a website become a "quality website" and who determines that, you with your 13k price tag links, Google or visitors?

 

[WebTrust]

You are saying listing is going to boil down to the monetary value of a backlink/s?

How does a website become a "quality website" and who determines that, you with your 13k price tag links, Google or visitors?

It already does boil down to that in competitive industries and it's starting to spread.

I don't know how they value, I was just offered an amount and accepted, as most do.

 

[RadiusBPO]

Yes the little guy will survive. Because a lot of the big brands are using even bigger SEO companies who just don't get SEO.

They will do 100 guest posts per month for £2-3k per month and that is all. Any decent SEO can out rank these guys on smaller budgets.

The right small guy with the right SEO can and will out rank large brands.

 

Its not in googles interest to have the big brands ranking highly.

Sure they would prefer them to spend the dough on adwords.

Earl

 

[WebTrust]

Yes the little guy will survive. Because a lot of the big brands are using even bigger SEO companies who just don't get SEO.

They will do 100 guest posts per month for £2-3k per month and that is all. Any decent SEO can out rank these guys on smaller budgets.

The right small guy with the right SEO can and will out rank large brands.

Wheres the small guys for "home insurance" or "car insurance"?

SEO experts...fail.

 

Wheres the small guys for "home insurance" or "car insurance"?

SEO experts...fail.

They are there ,you just don't know who they are.

Earl

 

[WebTrust]

How's that? there all house hold names, mostly listed of the stock exchange.

 

How's that? there all house hold names, mostly listed of the stock exchange.

The SEO's behind the sites.

Earl

 

[WebTrust]

The SEO's behind the sites.

Earl

Since I've sold links to half of them, I know their budget and it's certainly not on what people like you get paid.

 

Since I've sold links to half of them, I know their budget and it's certainly not on what people like you get paid.

Even she who must be obeyed don't know what I get.

But you seem to be struggling.


http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=230914

Earl

 

[WebTrust]

Even she who must be obeyed don't know what I get.

But you seem to be struggling.


http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=230914

Earl

I'm not seeing a point here?

 

[RadiusBPO]

E

Wheres the small guys for "home insurance" or "car insurance"?

SEO experts...fail.

Are there any new or small insurance companies? Even new ones would likely have massive budgets. There are also more than just 2 keywords to rank for on the Internet.

You remind me of a directory owner.

 

[IInfluence]

Big business would've always had this edge, beit in SEO or old traditional marketing methods.

I don't look often but I suspect things like 'home insurance' has been taken up by the big guys for a long time, that doesn't mean there is no room for smaller companies. Let's be honest if a one man band got the top term for Home Insurance he wouldn't be a one man band for long and the cycle would repeat.

There are millions of niche's out there and they are still available, and attainable. If I ran a small insurance company now I'd not really look to waste my budget on trying to get to number 1 on 'home insurance' but diversify a bit.

If Google just have it so the big companies are the main focus of the majority of the terms, they just become a glorified yellow pages, I'm pretty certain they won't allow for that.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Wheres the small guys for "home insurance" or "car insurance"?

I'd be interested to know if any of the 118,000 members of this forum is running an insurance company.

I suspect not.

Steve

 

[finejewellerys]

I think it will stay a free seo methods for the small business.coz no small business will result in no big business for sure.I think google will not effect the origanic search for the site ranking. even though many people want to use the paid seo service to get the good SERP fast.but the small business still have the rights to struggle to be number 1 in google by good seo work.

 

[Deleted member 61074]

I don't look often but I suspect things like 'home insurance' has been taken up by the big guys for a long time, that doesn't mean there is no room for smaller companies.

There are millions of niche's out there and they are still available, and attainable. If I ran a small insurance company now I'd not really look to waste my budget on trying to get to number 1 on 'home insurance' but diversify a bit.

Who types in "home insurance" as a search term nowadays? I tend to search "moneysupermarket", "compare the market" etc etc

 

Who types in "home insurance" as a search term nowadays? I tend to search "moneysupermarket", "compare the market" etc etc

About 27k a month as opposed to money supermarkets 1,300.

Earl

 

[eog]

About 27k a month as opposed to money supermarkets 1,300.

Earl

Not sure about your figures, according to adwords keyword tool exact match

home insurance - 74k
money supermarket - 673k
compare the market - 823k
go compare - 550k

 

Not sure about your figures, according to adwords keyword tool exact match

home insurance - 74k
money supermarket - 673k
compare the market - 823k
go compare - 550k

yep your figures seem right must have pressed wrong button.

Bloody specsavers.

Earl

 

[wykthorr]

Maybe we were doing it worng( I mean SEO). SEO was about fooling the search engine as opposed to making the site more relevant and that's what Google's trying to fight against. Sure there are big players out there that are hard to fight against, but the general terms aren't the only way to go. You could aim for the more specific terms and generate decent traffic (I'm saying decent because people tend to search for the general terms).

As it usually happens when a door closes another one is opened. Now the thing is social networks and how you get people to be interested in your products and offerings. It's probably a bit more complicated as you get to deal with humans, but there's a new field waiting to be explored (there's still little to it). Also Google's linking the two together so SEO and Social Marketing will have more and more in common.

 

[jhardy2008]

Yes.. One day google kill small busines seo. Latest Panda updates do SEO experts jobless.

 

[PIngels]

I wonder if the Long Tail does not also apply to SEO service companies where a larger share of the market rests within the tail end of the market rather than where the big players are? In other words don’t compete with the big companies but focus on the small ones competing against each other in niche markets.

Things will always be fluid and change and technology will automate more and more things but as far as I can see the effect of this change is that it strips away all the layers between the creative idea and the consumer. I now have a whole game/animation/editing/marketing company on my desk. I can sit here and produce incredibly sophisticated and creative stuff and get it to consumers all on my own if I want to. That would have been unimaginable a few years ago.

I don’t know much about SEO but I think the small ones that will do well are those that focus on being highly creative and adaptable with their ideas and strategies while focusing on niche markets.