SMEs 'lack SEO knowledge', DotSEO survey suggests

A Dotmailer product story

Edited by the Marketingweek Marketplace editorial team Aug 4, 2010

A survey of marketers by DotSEO has revealed that nearly a quarter of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) still do not know much about search engine optimisation (SEO).

This is despite Google being the first port of call for most people looking for goods and services.

A fifth said that although they know what SEO is, they do not spend any of their marketing budgets on it.

Only 14 per cent identified SEO as being strategically important to their business.

23 per cent of marketers were also unsure about the benefits delivered using SEO, with 14 per cent saying there were no benefits as far as they could tell.

The survey findings are revealed in a DotSEO report entitled 'Naked SEO', which is designed to demystify what SEO actually entails and is downloadable from the DotSEO website.

'Naked SEO' also includes the results of a benchmark study into how 50 of the UK's leading SMEs, as ranked by the 'Sunday Times' are optimising their websites for natural search.

The study found that the majority are failing to take simple steps to improve search engine rankings, with only 28 per cent using relevant keywords on their site.

The DotSEO benchmark study shows SMEs were generally getting the more basic SEO requirements right with, for example, 76 per cent using heading tags in titles on their homepage and 64 per cent using meta descriptions to give a good summary of the site.

At the more technical end, however, the results were poor, with only 22 per cent of page titles beginning with a keyword and only 44 per cent having a clearly visible sitemap.

Skip Fidura, digital director at DotSEO, said: 'SME marketers in the UK are clearly unsure about the benefits of SEO, which in turn means they are not making the simple changes to their websites that could dramatically affect their rankings.

'The SEO industry itself is not helping to educate businesses.

'Too often, SEO techniques are shrouded in mystery as a dark art, not within the reach of ordinary marketers.

'Our report reveals how there are simple steps that any company can take to make tangible SEO improvements and drive real business returns.