Do small businesses use digital agencies?
Website design is still very much a cottage industry right around the world and Australia is certainly no exception.
Looking at the Melbourne market alone, there are over 1000 businesses listed under "internet & web services" in the Yellow Pages online directory, which shows that it's quite a saturated market.
Because the listings in the Yellow Pages are biased in favour of those who pay higher advertising costs, virtually all the listings which appear on the first page of the results are digital agencies.
But if a small business owner wanted to hire someone to build a website for them, what is the terminology they would use? Would they look for a designer, a developer or a consultant? Would they use "web", "website" or "web site" when describing these designers, developers or consultants?
To try and answer that question, I ran some tests on Google Analytics using the following combinations of words:
- web consultant
- web consulting
- web design
- web designer
- web developer
- website consultant
- website consulting
- website design
- website developer
- web site consultant
- web site consulting
- web site design
- web site developer
The first page of the results is below, which shows the top 20 keywords as of October 7, 2009. Please note that the searches column represents a monthly figure and the cost is a suggested "bid price" for those wishing to advertise with Google for that particular combination of words.
| Keyword | Searches | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| web design melbourne | 3500 | 8.30 |
| web design sydney | 2800 | 4.67 |
| web design brisbane | 1800 | 5.73 |
| web design company | 1800 | 5.32 |
| web design templates | 1200 | 3.39 |
| web design australia | 1200 | 5.28 |
| web design perth | 1200 | 5.26 |
| joomla web design | 820 | 3.57 |
| web design adelaide | 660 | 3.95 |
| web design gold coast | 660 | 5.63 |
| cheap web design | 440 | 4.05 |
| web design courses | 350 | 2.69 |
| web development sydney | 230 | 5.46 |
| affordable web design melbourne | 190 | 7.66 |
| good web design | 155 | 3.88 |
| web design awards | 155 | 3.54 |
| web design agency | 155 | 4.77 |
| web design sunshine coast | 155 | 4.42 |
| creative web design | 155 | 4.11 |
| ecommerce web design melbourne | 125 | 4.04 |
What can be concluded from the above is that people search for designers, not developers. They especially don't search for consultants. The only other keyword of significance is "web", not "website" or "web site".
Interestingly, cheap, affordable and good were also used in a very small number of cases, with cheap coming out the clear winner.
If "web design melbourne" is by far the most used combination of words to potentially find people for hire, what would you expect to appear in the first page of results when you use Google to search using that phrase? The answer is very similar to the Yellow Pages online listing results:
Digital agencies.
However, are small business owners likely to engage any of these digital agencies, considering the likely costs? If they don't, who do they turn to instead?
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About the author
I'm Ivan Lutrov and I'm the owner of Lutrov Interactive. I have 25 years of experience producing interactive work and I create cost effective business websites that are simple, engaging and easy to use. I preach what I practice, and I say what I really think, even if it's sometimes not what you expect to hear. Subscribe to the Lutrov Interactive feed via RSS and follow me on Twitter.