Data coming out of vSplash adds more evidence to the argument that most SMBs are hopelessly behind when it comes to digital marketing. Today the company released some new statistics, based on an “audit” of 3.9 million SMB websites.
It’s often the case that opinion surveys misrepresent the state of things because they get at aspirations rather than behavior and the “facts on the ground” (e.g., do you intend to build a mobile website?).
The short version of what vSplash says is: SMB sites are lame, they’re not mobile optimized and they don’t take advantage of social. Here are the datapoints vSplash formally released:
- Discoverability: 26.4% [of SMBs] cannot be found in online searches because their websites earn a Google Page Rank of zero or have no Google Page Rank
- Mobile: 94.5% are not mobile optimized
- Social: On the home page, 91.2 percent lack a Facebook widget (e.g., “like” button); 94.6% lack a Twitter widget (e.g., “follow” button) and 83.6% lack a Twitter link
- Robustness: 93.7% do not display a contact email address
- Localization: 49.4% lack a phone number on the home page
- Ecommerce: 94.6% lack a shopping cart, prohibiting them from transacting business on the website
And on and on . . . It’s not enough that tools or technology solutions exist for many of these problems; they’re not being used.
This is a depressing reinforcement of other data in the market. For example, last month ConstantContact’s SinglePlatform unit published SMB survey results (n=350) that found 49% never update their online listings despite the fact that an equivalent number have discovered errors with their data. And Yext found that 43% of local listings contain some sort of error (address, name, phone number).
There are many more such statistics. There are some contradictory data that argue SMBs are using digital marketing tools successfully but much of the SMB market data looks like the information from vSplash.
Neal Polachek (formerly of BIA/Kelsey) and I will be presenting “The SMB State of the Union” at the upcoming Local Search Association conference in Las Vegas on April 15-16. It will explore some of the vSplash information as well as other material to provide some unique insights on SMBs and their current thinking about and adoption of digital media.
March 13th, 2013 at 5:52 am
[...] SMB ‘State of the Union’ (Screenwerk) Greg Sterling: Data coming out of vSplash adds more evidence to the argument that most SMBs are [...]
March 13th, 2013 at 6:19 am
Hi Greg,
The link above goes to the vSplash home. Do you have a link to the report itself?
Thanks.
March 13th, 2013 at 6:40 am
This information was sent to me in email. There isn’t a report per se. I also didn’t find a release on their site. Hence the generic link.
March 13th, 2013 at 6:51 am
[...] Screenwerk [...]
March 13th, 2013 at 7:21 am
SMB does not spend time and money on their online presence because there is no clear link between what they spend and what they perceivably get in return. This is a combination of lack of tracking mechanisms that makes sense for SMB, lack of education but also that many of the online or digital marketing products/services are not great for small business. If you are a 2-3 person shop and get your business on referrals you probably don’t have time to worry about online “stuff”. Without and upfront clear idea of the ROI (that a small business owner can understand) it is also hard to spend 1500-2000 per month for someone to take care of it for you.
We need options that makes sense for businesses that want to connect with potential customers at the hyperlocal level that is priced right, has a good return and that helps SMB “get new customers in the door”.
March 13th, 2013 at 10:07 am
Henning
I cannot agree more with your comments. I am the CPMO at Yodle. I do not mean to use this comment as a publicity platform but we recently re-launched or Organic product for between $99-$149/mo including: desktop web site with unique content, mobile optimized web site, maps optimization, 40+ directories optimization, call tracking and simple dashboard – launched within 24 hours, full-service. Depending on the vertical, this package drives 6-10 qualified calls and emails per month or a price per call as low as $9. Early sales results confirm your assertion: there is a huge need for a low-priced, value-driven offer. We are dedicated to building more value into this price point over time and have high expectations from a customer retention point of vue.
Feel free to refer us SMBs who need this
Best
March 14th, 2013 at 8:28 am
Henning,
We’ve found that most hyperlocal businesses get that they need to have a basic online presence and also that they are most times happy to add their contact information and content if the user experience is a pleasure rather than a pain and the cost of doing it is low. Once they are online they can then add their URL to free directories or invest in SEM or directory optimization services to expand reach and increase traffic. We partner with companies in that space – what they value is the way we’ve simplified the web presence bit by wrapping the domain/mobile-optimisation/hosting into a single page, single price offering that hyperlocal merchants undersand and mobile users love – simple one page interface, click-to-call, map, social connections etc. Merchants like the way they can update anytime anywhere and publisher partners like having the web presence bit sorted without the update headache. Here’s an example of a British guest house – self-served and managed content via PC or free apps, check it out from any device but particulalry smartphone: http://croftsidebandb.tel/
March 16th, 2013 at 3:10 pm
Awesome Greg!
What a eclectic mix of replies to this post so far. Having served several hundred SMBs I can say that there is 1 main reason why their websites suck so badly: Almost anyone these days can build a website and that means that even most professional web designers don’t need to know ::ANY:: SEO or conversion best practices to call themselves a web designer/webmaster. The skill level of web designers has plummeted in the last 10 years to obscene lows.
In this world of segmented online marketing you’ve got designers who only design, copywriters who only write, ppc campaigners that don’t care about SEO, and SEOs who don’t design, and even Local SEO’s that only Local. But there is no shortage of great agencies that do it all – for WAY less than Henning suggests.
It’s also true that its easier than ever for an SMB to have a cheap template website put up in a few hours that looks decent. But it won’t have SEO at all and the SMB will need to know best practices already because for $19/mo there won’t be anyone guiding them to increased conversions.
I wish I liked Yodle more because they are really trying to be supportive to SMBs. Today I like them even a little bit less however.
March 16th, 2013 at 8:43 pm
Jeffrey: A lot of snake oil being sold to SMBs and promises that are too good to be true. Most of them don’t have the budget to get the kind of help they really need, nor the time to learn enough about all this to make them smarter buyers of third party services. It’s unfortunate all the way around.
March 18th, 2013 at 1:39 am
Hi Greg and all,
Trevor here from Yellow Medya. Interesting discussions and pitches.
Here in Turkey we license the SMB DigitalScape platform from vSplash and publish the SMB DigitalScape for Turkey. Last month we published the Winter 2012 SMB DigitalScape infographic on the analysis of over 800,000 SMBs in Turkey. To use the words of a journalist who interviewed me about the results – “Turkey is a tragedy when it comes to SMB digital presence”. They say there are 2.5 million businesses in Turkey with the majority being SMBs. Here is the sad state of SMB affairs here….our db of 800,000+ business listings only has 130,000 unique URLs and of those, 99% are not mobile optimized plus there is a myriad of other problems that make SMBs invisible in online and mobile local search in Turkey. We interview all the businesses that get published in our db by the way.
Our strategy here is really just addressing the massive gap between consumer adoption of mobile phones and the SMBs total absence from the internet all together. Give a business an accurate address, a category, some brand words and keywords, a perfect geo-code, a mobile optimized url – drop them on all the digital maps and get them indexed on Google and Yandex and their ability to be found on a local search sky rockets. These 2 digital presence baby steps (maps and a url) also lays the foundation for other types of location based engagement activities and facilitates the ability to play with Google Adwords once they (the SMB) start to figure it all out. This is the English version of the SMB DigitalScape infographic FYI. http://www.yellowmedya.com/2013/02/press-releases-en/smb-digitalscape-infographic-q4-winter-2012-2/
Thanks, Trevor.
March 18th, 2013 at 6:04 am
Thanks Trevor. It’s really a pretty depressing state of affairs. I think doing the “basics” well is a great service to these businesses, which have too often been disregarded or exploited by vendors.