Early in 2003 Neutralize (*\*)  published a report about SME/SMB internet strategies. It came out of our work on the Web Review Initiative (WRI) and the E-Commerce Review Grant, consulting exercises conducted by Neutralize (*\*) on behalf of Business Link & UK Online for Business.  This consulting exercise allowed us to do a very indepth analysis of how small to medium sized business websites were structured.

I am publishing it again because there aren't any other similar statistics around about SME websites.  They are really interesting becuase they highlight that for most small to medium sized businesses their website strategy is out of sync with their desire for what the website should be doing for them.

Firstly what is the actual purpose of the website?

Most interesting is that the primary focus of SME websites is some form of marketing or advertising, and not necessarily online sales. Websites with the purpose of providing e-commerce facilities accounted for only 18% companies, where as promotion, marketing and customer liaison together account for 82%.  So its pretty clear that for most SME's marketing is their primary objective.

Do the websites fulfil their objectives?

Nearly all companies we met with were primarily interested in their search engine listings, as these are the main way that new leads are generated online, and in most cases provide the most cost effective source of enquiries. Many SME’s were under the impression that the website itself would make this happen automatically and no thought had been put into how it would actually perform as intended,  they had not realise that there was more involved than the way the website looked.

The pie chart below shows how ‘indexable’  the websites were. This data was recorded using an automated spider which attempts to crawl  through the website in the same way a search engine spider would.

The most interesting fact is that the majority of websites under performed the indexability tests, meaning that it would be very difficult or in 40% of cases impossible for them to attract potential customers via algorithmic search, and thus justify their investment.

To clarify:

• 82% are mostly using the website for marketing and promotion
• 40% don't stand a chance
• 21% will find it really difficult

That's outrageous. Were their web developers deaf?

Edward Cowell
Technical Director
Neutralize (*\*)
Search Engine Marketing Services