Who should and should not try Search Engine Optimisation?

Achieving return on investment via Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can be tough depending on your target audience and/or line of business. The following examples illustrate several situations where SEO may not provide a sufficient return on the investment of time and resources.

Company type:

• “Very small businesses undertaking DIY SEO, with all the time wasted on trial and error, may be better off advertising in the local press. For targeting those audiences who are not going to use search engines, you’re better off investing marketing budget elsewhere. For example, if you have a very high-value service, it may not be worth advertising online.” Luke Farley, Founder, LCubed.

  Companies with high value, premium priced services targeting top-end clients may not initially benefit from SEO, primarily because these companies trade heavily on reputation and past performance, utilising high-level networking and direct sales approaches. For example, a very large marketing agency offering premium-priced marketing services to a niche of corporate clients will already have direct relationships with both current and potential clients. 
• Design companies may also struggle to benefit from SEO. Their need to showcase a portfolio of designs results in a graphically complex site that may not be SEO-friendly. Trying to reduce the graphic content for SEO purposes would interfere with the purpose of their site.
• Very small businesses, may struggle to obtain ROI when accessing SEO expertise and implementation costs, Often these businesess try a do-it-yourself approach. However, the opportunity cost to their business resulting from haphazard trial- and-error can be counter-productive.
• Companies with a brand/product that people would not associate with the web or consider looking for it there face an uphill battle when building website visitors

Target Audiences for which SEO would have limited success:

• Blue-chip clients needing high-value premium services, who expect a greater level of personal attention.
• Customers (primarily within older age groups) who are not yet frequent users of search engines. 
• Customers in remote locations who may have limited access to the Internet and therefore may not be frequent search users.
• Global customers in developing countries without access to the Internet.