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Though the small and medium business (SMB) market has a handle on the importance of a website, nearly six out of ten are not actively doing search or other types of online marketing.

Small Biz Has An Attitude About Search

Those who follow the search industry and actively market their Internet presence in a variety of ways may be surprised to learn that a lot of their fellow entrepreneurs don't do so.

That's the determination Greg Sterling at Opus Research found in his study of current marketing trends among the SMB market. Of those respondents to the study's survey, 59 percent do not do online marketing.

Roughly the same percentage of respondents claim over half their business comes from word of mouth or from referrals by other customers. Though businesses rate websites as importantly as they do local newspaper advertising, many aren't making the same connection about online ads.

SMB spending has made the niche a highly desirable one for advertising companies. Sterling said the SMB market conservatively puts $30 billion in play for marketing and advertising services annually. They may want to consider more on the paid search and Internet advertising side.

"As a practical matter, Web sites without some other marketing element (e.g., SEM/SEO) aren’t particularly effective in reaching audiences," Sterling wrote.

For SMBs that do not pursue paid search or other online campaigns, they demonstrated the same concerns about these campaigns that businesses have about other projects. They don't have the budget, in-house expertise, time, or staff to devote to Net marketing.

It sounds like a logical connection. Unless an SMB has a way of attracting web traffic consistently, like being mentioned in a major mass media program like a nationally syndicated morning show, how does a businessperson expect that site to provide a return on investment?

If word of mouth and referrals work well today, that could change over time. Businesses that are taking advantage of search marketing have an edge over the competition. Maybe it's just a slight edge, but it could be the difference between viability and difficulty in tougher economic times.