
Does search engine optimization (SEO) work for all businesses? To some degree yes, but many businesses would be better off to spend their limited marketing resources another way.
A good SEO marketer should be able to spend a couple of hours on preliminary research to determine how competitive the industry/keywords are and how costly is will be to effectively market your business with SEO. By looking at the amount of search being done and the number of competitors in your marketplace, a good supplier of SEO services should be able to advise how much time and effort (read expense) will be required and whether you can achieve the goals you have shared with them.