Long-established marketing ideas have led marketers to believe that a strong presence in marketing channels requires a large investment that only big companies can afford (or a startup taking big risks). Nowadays, when we see the same ads on TV, they are usually from large, well-known companies with big budgets. This has created the idea that the bigger the company (or at least the bigger the investment in advertising), the more chances they have for visibility. In other words, small to medium-sized businesses feel they can’t compete in those areas.

Newcomers to search marketing might think the same applies to search. Many believe that bigger companies automatically have better search visibility, based on old ideas that spending more leads to better results. Our data, along with that of many of our clients, shows this is not true. Smaller businesses can actually excel in organic search if they approach SEO with the same seriousness as larger firms.

Search as the Great Equalizer
The reality is that search has been the great equalizer. Sure, a robust link profile can be easier to come by for mammoth companies, but the nature of search is that the opportunity is open to those who diligently pursue it. And, if Conductor’s recent research on the growing demand for SEO professionals is any indicator—people with ‘SEO’ in their job title/description grew by 112% year over year—companies of all sizes are indeed recognizing the opportunity and pursuing it.

To put some empirical findings behind this, our industry leading research team collected several examples of search results for medium to high volume keywords across multiple verticals that highlight the opportunity available to companies of all sizes that focus on natural search. To ensure we were evaluating keywords that large companies could be ranking on page one for, we verified that large companies operated in the space in each instance.

In our first example, we looked at the search results for ‘costumes’. The results page had a good distribution of small, medium, and large companies with equal chances of appearing in the SERPs with diligent effort. In addition, the following large companies carried costumes on their websites and could have outranked the small and medium companies for the keyword but did not:

  • Wal-Mart
  • Target
  • K-Mart

Next, we looked at the term ‘web hosting’. The following large companies serve as website hosts and could have ranked on page one for the keyword:

  • Rackspace
  • Hostway

The opportunity in the SERPs is not limited to appearing in the SERPs while larger competitors do not. Focused attention on SEO means you can also outrank competitors on page 1, capturing a higher percentage of clicks the higher up the page you rank.

Search as the great equalizer: Outdated “bigger= better” paradigms are no more

In the next example, we looked at the term ‘CRM system’ which had a number of small and medium companies ahead of the large companies on page one of the SERPs:

Shifting Paradigms:
Old Marketing paradigms used to mean that to operate as an enterprise in many mainstream channels, you needed an enterprise-sized marketing budget, enterprise-scale resources, and enterprise-sized ambitions. For example, you cannot truly advertise on TV without being an enterprise sized company.

Search has been the great equalizer in leveling the playing field, creating opportunity to drive traffic and brand exposure for small, medium and large companies alike. The implication is that small to medium sized companies can invest in enterprise SEO resources and technology and reap the benefits in the search results.

Indeed, while some of the world’s largest brands from the Fortune 500 and Internet Retailer 500 leverage Searchlight, Conductor’s enterprise SEO platform in their natural search efforts, we also see many small to medium sized companies that have made the investment in SEO budget–resources, headcount and technology–and reap far more SEO traffic as a result.

You don’t have to be an enterprise to practice enterprise SEO.