Where does search engine optimization (SEO) spend rank in your 2012 marketing budget? According to a recent assessment of US small business, the answer should be, “our number one focus.” What, you say? SEO isn’t on the top of your priority list? Consider the following information from Greg Sterling at searchengineland.com,

“SEO: one channel to rule them all? A new “merchant confidence survey” from lead-gen company MerchantCircle/Reply.com, among 2,500 US small businesses, finds that search engine optimization is the marketing channel they would choose if they could choose only one.

The question asked was: “If you had to put all your marketing time and budget into only one channel, what would it be?” The list of choices included SEO, paid search, mobile, social and traditional media. SEO beats everything else by a mile.

What’s also interesting is how high “traditional media” ranked. That category would include newspapers, yellow pages, direct mail, traditional radio and so on. Newspapers and direct mail were the top traditional channels being used by this group of survey respondents.

However Facebook (not Facebook Ads) was the most common marketing tool, used by 70 percent of these SMB respondents. The question was, “Are you promoting your business with the following websites/services?”

The online survey was conducted in November. The sample came from MerchantCircle’s 1.6 million SMB member database.”

We find the results of the survey encouraging, as it shows small businesses are becoming increasingly more aware of the importance of prominent web placement on the major search engines. As more and more web users come online, it is highly likely that a consumers first impression of your business will be on the web. Visibility within search is critical in the process of effectively being found online.

Effective, organic SEO is a long term strategy that takes time and professional expertise to execute. As always, we welcome answering your questions and learning about your experiences related to SEO at info@neocloudmarketing.com