Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go, there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know.
Should I stay or should I go?
- The Clash
Now granted the seminal '80s punk anthem was presumably written about a tormented love relationship in which one partner is asking, ney begging, to be given advice to be with her or just leave and cut his losses... at least that's how I read it. But really a similarity can be drawn to a startups SEO/SEM strategy in a given city and whether they should expand to another city or not.
The quintessential problem many startups face, is how to I get people to know about our company? Sure an article in the local paper is good and a nice website can tell a person a lot about you, but I am talking about the masses; that mass audience on the Internet that somehow will be mysteriously driven to your site when they are looking for what you are selling.
A monumentally daunting task.
You start out small in your beta city and then slowly grow out to more cities under the tutelage of supposed professionals. When we were faced with doing this we were receiving some nice traction in a few cities. Naturally, we turned to our seasoned professional direct marketing people and said, "If we spend 5x more, will we get 5x more traffic?"
Seems logical, right?
Unfortunately, our SEO guides said, "We are not seeing the necessary traffic on the web to believe a 5x spend will reap 5x rewards."
Now, on the one hand, I greatly appreciated their honesty. But, on the other hand, what the hell were they seeing, or not seeing, that would make them say that?
Instead, they felt we should roll out to another city to attract more people to our site.
The Clash played in our collective heads: "Should I stay or should I go now? This indecision's bugging me."
My partner and I had to think.
Were we prepared to roll out to a new city? Had we tapped out our market penetration in our current cities? What if we increased the budget merely 2x, would that capture more hits in our current cities?
These are the very types of questions we faced. Our SEO/SEM guides were simply not seeing the necessary traffic to quantify our spend, so why not go to an area that would be new to us and start to penetrate that market?
Ultimately, we decided to go. We decided to go into a new market where our product would be fresh and new and attract the "low hanging fruit." Instead, of pumping more and more money into the same marketplace, we ventured out.
Don't let indecision bug you. When faced with the advice of a professional, listen to the words and go after anything, I mean anything, that will drive more people to your site.
As a startup, you will constantly hear those immortal Clash lyrics in your head. Just trust the professionals you hired and go for it.
This article also appears on The Huffington Post.