As the global credit crunch starts to bite deep, businesses the world over are feeling the pinch, along with the consumers whose cutbacks in spending are causing the problems.
Shrewd businesses, and those who have been around the block once or twice and seen it all before know only too well that in hard times, as well as working harder, you also have to work smarter to make it through.
Often as the cashflow dwindles, a business’ first instincts are to cut back on spending on all non-essential items, and this is where a fatal mistake is so often made, in that traditionally, advertising was often seen as one area that was optional.
This could not be further from the truth.
Many businesses have gone under due to killing their advertising budget at the most critical time, when all the smarter businesses knew that far from reducing advertising and marketing spend, it should be increased.
Hard times should be seen as an opportunity to increase your market share, by poaching from your struggling competitors as they reduce their market presence, and ultimately remove their lesser business genes from the Darwinian business gene pool.
Ask any business who has been around long enough to survive a recession or two, and this approach is nearly always the same, as your competitors go under, through making this most basic mis-judgement, your increased market presence and customer awareness means that you can pick up their old customers, now looking for a new supplier and actually emerge from the period stronger, if a little leaner.
Being as SEO is a relatively new discipline and we havent really seen a global recession on this scale like this since the late 80′s, and some are saying since the Great Depression in 1921, it certainly seems like the minor blip after 9/11 will seem pretty insignificant by the time this one is finished anyway, this will be the first time this is applicable with SEO as the subject, but as Search advertising and marketing have to a large extent bitten very deeply into traditional advertising formats, Radio, TV & The Printed Media (…where do you think Google’s billions have come from ultimately?) we can safely assume that the SEO-savvy businesses can apply the same logic to SEO in this recession, as the business savvy ones have done in the previous recessions, and that businesses that make SEO work well for them during the difficult times to come, should emerge leaner and stronger, having actually picked up market share from their dying competitors along the way.
Business SEO Services have never been more important as they will prove to be for the duration of the credit crunch,and the global recession that inevitably follows. Businesses both large and small will all have to decide our business strategies over the coming months and years, and the value of SEO Services will be a part of that decision making process.
As we are old enough to have seen this all before, we urge you to make your upcoming decisions wisely.
Luckily as an SEO Company ourselves, we don’t have to ponder the worth of Search Engine Optimisation to our own business, and we will continue ever onwards on our chosen path of Global SEO Domination but be assured we will feel the pressure from the credit crunch very acutely, through increased pressure to perform above and beyond the call of duty, and to ensure that it is OUR customers (who mostly become our friends very quickly too) who are the ones who emerge through the other side of the troubled times ahead, in as good as shape as possible.
We wish you all the very best of luck in the times to come.
Part 2 on this theme here Credit Crunch SEO
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Thanks for your post. I totally agree with what you are saying. To stop advertising, especially online advertising would be a mistake for any business, national or local.
Things changes – as more and more companies have had their expieriences with SEO others want also have a piece of the online-cake. I don’t see problems in the near future – credit crunch or not…
Andreas
Hi Michelle.
we’re the lucky ones I suppose as we don’t have to pay for our services as things get tighter. Think we’re going to have to come up with recession packages for loyal clients though, or switch to profit sharing in some cases maybe?
Hi Andreas.
I agree, things are really just ramping up for us now from super-busy to ridiculously busy. I didn’t really mean I thought the crunch will hit SEO as an industry too badly, although of course as in all previous recessions, the weak always fall by the wayside, and a cleansing of the business (any business) from time to time is a good thing.
With the way the economy is today, local businesses need help advertising that exactly what we’re are trying to do at Jippidy.com. Our goal is to create a forum where the local business owner can deliver their message to a targeted audience.
you would say that wouldn’t you? we will be looking forward to the “above and beyond” part of this..
Ana
During recession time, businesses are very careful in balancing both the business existence and as well as business growth. Many companies tighten their marketing budgets to minimize the wastage of the funds. In the process, obviously they implement cost cutting measures. But At the same time, it cannot be ignored to invest in marketing wisely to get more results for less.
Hello “SEO India” – we rescued this from Akismet, not because it isnt spam, it is, here’s your spam trail..
..so of course your link has been nofollowed for your cheek. if you want a real SEO India link, go to..
and enter the competition. and stop spamming it’s lame.
While the tough economy definitely has an impact of business spending, I agree that it would have the inverse effect of investing for the future. A large problem arises though; the problem of uncertainty. SEO, while the fastest growing marketing segment today, is still incredibly unknown to many people and businesses. I firmly believe it is our jobs as SEOs to instill that sense of worth into our potential clients, as it can and will inevitably turn around businesses of all sizes.
Best of luck to my fellow SEOs.
thanks for your comment Marc and the best of luck to you too.
& have to say things are still accelerating here.
It’s been a year since I commented on this post and the credit crunch has grown to a global financial crisis. Since then the SEO-business for me has not decreased but actually more and more SME are realizing that being #1 in Google IS important (also in such small countries as Austria) thus my business is growing as we speak.
I think that webdesign and SEO need to go hand in hand in order to make a difference – you wouldn’t believe on which sites by so called full-service web agencies I have worked on…
Br,
Andreas
we have just launched our new website and understand the value of SEO completely, of course the tougher the business environment, the more every lead and referral is worth to a business, and SEO is one of the best ways of generating qualified relevant leads on an ongoing basis.
And what’s wrong with spammers?? =)
I think that Business Seo Services are very important. But not only the Seo Service is important and not forget the webdesign. I think that much forget this!
I found very much good sites through blog comments links. I think yes, tooo much spam is not good but also it can bring you to good websites…..Greetins from Switzerland!
hello Switzerland. welcome to SEO Ibiza.
..but lets not pretend we dont know how you found us eh? ..we run Woopra here, we know everything
so welcome but lets not over-do it eh?
Since Google unveiled real time search and its new layout and maps features, the organic results space is shrinking. This potentially has a huge impact on the importance of SEO in a businesses marketing plan. This could reduce the need to have full time SEO employees thus creating less demand for SEO people all together.
Hey Joe
it’s true, it could, but were not seeing any signs of it yet, in trader-talk SEO is still definitely in a bull market at the moment
we could get by with 1/3 of the work but it just keep coming and coming..
how are you finding things?