Doing some IT support for a business earlier this year, I was concerned by how old many of their systems were. I originally went in to fix up a printer that refused to cooperate with the system that it was intended to be fixed to. I got it sorted via a back door route, but the overall issue was that the software they were using was very outdated and was having a job cope with something that was considerably more up to date.
I was back a few days later when the firm owner’s machine collapsed quite stunningly. It took ages to fix, eventually needing a total rebuild but we got there finally and I was told that the situation is not atypical. Apart from their accounting software, they had no IT support at all which left them exposed and meant that their IT systems had slipped more and more out of date. And this isn’t odd with smaller companies in the Black Country that are so focused on their primary purpose that the admin work was taken for granted.
This in itself is perfectly ok, you do not have to have the most modern systems, upgrading and changing every 6-12 months or even every couple of years, but operating systems and essential software should be upgraded every three years at least. Because some suppliers, partners and customers, particularly the major ones, will upgrade and as a matter of course they will share files and data and sooner or later, these files won’t be readable as the formats will alter. For instance, somebody operating MS Office from the mid to late 90’s (and many are in my experience) will not manage with a file sent from Office 2010 and when the day comes, everything to do with that partner and information will come to a halt. What if it’s an invoice or a big order? That could be very expensive.
The same pertains of SEO for companies who put their business online with an expensive and well constructed website, which looks fabulous, behaves well and is rarely seen by buyers looking to buy that could be going to that company. Let us imagine a Black Country steel company needs a new lathe and would prefer to get it from a firm close by the area, but cannot find a lathe manufacturer on the internet since all their online searches come up with firms who are better optimised. Our lathe manufacturer might not even be logged with the search engines in which case the most exact search in the world isn’t going to find them and they may as well not bother with a website at all. Maybe they are aware of SEO which, I will confess, has a poor PR image sometimes, and they see it as a doubtful outgoing. But proper SEO does work, is worth the outlay and how costly is not securing that lathe order?
Small firms have to prioritise on their primary business, of course they do. But they need to be kept up to date with their admin systems which means good IT support, SEO as well as the more obvious such as anti virus software. To let them get behind too much will one day make the dreaded outlay a self-fulfilling prophecy instead of a help to profitability.
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categories: SEO,Black Country
