SEO 'can help small businesses to compete with large firms'

15:00 14th May 2010

Owners of small businesses have been told that it is possible to compete with larger organisations in search engine optimisation (SEO).

This is the view of Rob Chant of Search Engine Watch, who stated that the rise of the internet has helped to level the playing fields for small businesses with regards to marketing.

He said it is no longer necessary to have a huge budget to reach a global audience in the era of the World Wide Web.

Mr Chant said the playing field is "absolutely" level, adding that small businesses could learn from the tactics employed by their successful competitors, as long as they do not copy them outright.

He advised small business owners to set up a blog and update it regularly with new content, because this is an "ideal" way to bring visitors to a website via long-tail keywords.

"This takes discipline and a few hours of work per week, but you have complete control over the process and it's a low cost investment compared to the thousands of incoming links required to target a generic term," he commented.

Digital marketing specialist Stephan Spencer recently posted a list of 36 SEO myths on Search Engine Land, including the belief that SEO is connected to paid search.

He explained that this is not the case, although the two tactics can combine together to form a digital marketing campaign.