Posted by on Mar 22, 2010 in Social Media, Web Design | 0 comments

I recently received a great white paper from Steve Schmidt with Effect Web Agency on the 3 major risks of casually investing in the Web. I will be talking about some fo the key points in a series of blog posts, but the entire white paper is worth the read.

The first danger is a lack of brand awareness and visibility. According to a 2007 survey, 65.3% of B2B buyers and 70% of consumers begin their search for products and services with a search engine. So if you don’t have a Web site at all, kiss more than half of your potential business goodbye.

Even if you have a Web site, if you aren’t optimized for search engines, you’re also losing business. 70-80% of Web traffic comes directly from search engines, and 68% of Web users will click on a link in the first page. So if you’re languishing at the bottom of page 3, your chances of being seen decrease dramatically.

Let this be a wake up call: If you don’t have a Web site, you need one. If you have one, do a quick Google search for your industry and geographic location–for instance, “business consulting, Indianapolis.” Where do you rank? If it’s not on the page, consider an SEO overhaul.

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