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, finds vSplash in an audit of 3.9 million US SMB websites. The audit unearthed a series of deficiencies, which the researchers believe translate into a $24.3 billion revenue opportunity for digital media and marketing solutions providers. That’s despite a recent report suggesting that 1 in 2 SMB online marketing service dollars are already being spent on web presence. (For that study, from Borrell Associates, web presence represented $202 billion in spending in 2012, and included such services as website design and management, hosting, and social media management.)
A separate study recently issued by Constant Contact found other discoverability issues with small businesses: half admitted never updating their online listings, and the same proportion had seen inaccurate listings.
Meanwhile, other deficiencies cited by the vSplash study include:
- 94.5% of SMB websites not being mobile optimized;
- 94.6% lacking a Twitter widget on their home page, and 91.2% without a Facebook widget;
- 94.6% lacking an e-commerce shopping cart;
- 93.7% without a contact email address on the home page; and
- 49.4% without a phone number on the home page.