SMB: 67% of the market is out there searching, but are they finding you?

67% of the market is out there searching, but are they finding you?

By Lili Asgar, Management Consultant

According to research conducted by Warrillow & Co. for the upcoming report, SMB Media: A Rapidly Shifting Landscape, entrepreneurs not only use search engines, but also click on sponsored sites. Two-thirds of the SMB market are casual users of sponsored links, and almost 1 out of 10 are self-identified regular users. Search engines are essentially an oligopoly dominated by Google, followed by Yahoo and MSN. These three control 90% of the market.

Google – Still the Search Choice of Small Business

Percentage of SMB Market Regularly Visiting Destination

Source: Warrillow & Co, 2006

Most suppliers have made sure that an online search targeting their key products, such as “business loans”, “shipping”, or “cell phones”, will return results with the company placed high in the result set. What isn’t as obvious is ensuring that pain points addressed by your products or services, such as “managing cash flow”, “importing and exporting”, or “managing mobile workers” also lead business owners and decision makers to your Web site. A quick online experiment conducted by Warrillow & Co revealed that the opportunity to “own” pain point search terms is pretty much wide open. For example, no banks or credit cards appear in the first page of a result set for “managing cash flow”. Conduct your own search to identify where you should be that you’re not, and move quickly to gain valuable search result “turf”.