Local businesses continue to fall behind when it comes to using a website to promote themselves, with research finding the majority of sites have substandard search engine optimisation (SEO).
According to SEO start-up NLYZER, research shows that whilst most SMB owners use the internet to find information about products and services, just over half use a website to promote their own business. This issue is further compounded by the fact that those with a website rarely invest further in their online presence, meaning they miss out on large amounts of web traffic.
NLYZR Founder Craig Wilson said a major factor in online retail success is having a presence in search engine results, with 97 percent of Australians using a search engine when looking to buy online.
“The first and most essential challenge for any business wanting to compete online is to be easily found in search for relevant search terms. This alone can make an incredible difference to your business.”
NLYZR’s study of 6000 local websites found 87 percent of sites had substandard SEO and 29 percent had now SEO at all. Only 6 percent were properly optimised.
Given that Australians will spend more than $13 billion online this year, a strong online presence needs to become a high priority for local businesses, despite many identifying a lack of time, knowledge and resources as barriers to successful online marketing.
“The more we spoke to businesses about their online marketing, we realised that most found search too complicated to understand and solutions too hard to implement. We decided to develop NLYZR, a website optimisation system that anyone could use.”
“Our overriding principle was to keep it simple, clear and easy-to-use. We wanted to give business owners and marketers the information they really need to compete successfully online, even if they weren’t web geeks themselves,” Wilson added.