How the Recession helped Small Business SEO become More Affordable

Most folks wouldn’t expect to see the words “recession” and “helped small business” in the same sentence, but the recent recession actually did help small business SEO become more affordable. That affordability didn’t come without big business paying a hefty price for it; but positioning on the internet ebbs and flows. During the recession, decreased sales numbers for big retail and technology companies opened up opportunities for small businesses to grab larger shares of their respective markets.

How does that work?

On the web,  page rank establishes dominance. Page rank is attained by doing dedicated organic SEO and search engine marketing, like PPC. With SEO, you add pages and build links. With PPC, you spend large amounts of money bidding on major keywords related to your industry. When done properly together, the combination of marketing techniques puts a company at the top of Search Engine Page One and brings them regular traffic through Pay per Click ads.

Big retail sustained the internet arm of their business on PPC before the recession hit. Certain PPC programs, like Adwords, were the bread and butter of many retail companies until in-store sales numbers began to decline. With less money to invest in advertising, tough decisions had to be made and PPC campaigns were the first to go. SEO spending followed soon after as retail stores focused more on traditional print and coupon advertising; hoping to increase foot traffic. Some companies survived using these techniques; others went under. Either way, the keywords and page rank position they once owned on the web went up for grabs.

That’s the point where small businesses were able to step in and take over those niches left vacant by the collapse of larger businesses. Keywords once prohibitively expensive for PPC campaigns became more affordable with fewer bidders. Site-building became more practical without the competition from companies capable of throwing millions of dollars into content development. Summed up metaphorically;  “The dinosaurs went extinct and smaller forms of life took control.”.  It’s too bad for the dinosaurs, but for small business it has helped a great deal. They now have an opportunity to evolve.