Smaller, independent businesses feel they are ‘being ignored’ by Google against bigger brands
A new survey collected from 2244 small business owners has revealed three in four independent businesses struggle to gain visibility on Google, contending that the world’s largest search engine favours bigger brands.
According to the research conducted in April 2019 by London tech company UENI, over 1500 of the 2000 small business owners and sole traders surveyed highlighted that they struggled to appear in search results.
Additionally, the study also asked whether they ‘thought Google favours big brands over small businesses’ to which 46% said responded with a clear yes, although only 14 percent said definitely ‘no’.
Christine Telyan, UENI founder and CEO, commented: “When we speak to small business owners and sole traders, we find the vast majority have faced difficulties in appearing in relevant search results for their business.
“We all want local hairdressers, plumbers and dentists but it can be surprisingly tough to find them on the first page of search engine results. It would be in everyone’s interests if this was easier to do; everyone apart from the larger companies dominating search.
“Not only that, there’s a feeling among small businesses that search engines like Google favour the big brands over small and locally-based businesses – with big chains getting the most space in the search results.”
Telyan says bigger companies can often spend their way up the search rankings by hiring in agencies, content writers and investing in search engine optimisation, which smaller business owners may not have the time or finance to do.
“Larger brands often do rank higher on search engines because they have greater resources to spend boosting their online presence,” emphasised Telyan.
“Meanwhile, small businesses struggle to find the time or don’t have the money to hire in agencies or SEO specialists. It takes genuine skill, effort and time to rank highly.
“But the money we all spend each week is mostly spent locally. So when people go online, they are often looking for businesses in their own neighbourhoods.”
Calling for all people to support small local businesses, Telyan finished: ” We’d love to more people to visit them both online and off.”
