How to Hire a Small Business SEO Agency

As a small business, capitalizing on available marketing solutions is more important than anything. The resources that are available are growing on a daily basis and it is critical that your company gets on board now if you aren’t already. If we’re being honest, it’s almost too late to just start your SEO, but at least you’re starting somewhere. With the assistance of a small business SEO agency, you’ll have your small business on track in no time, no matter what your search engine optimization needs might be. 

Every business has growing pains. For a small business, those pains are often exacerbated more than they need to be. Don’t add more stress to your plate by trying to take on more than you can handle with your own SEO campaigns. Rely on the professionals to get better results, ensure that you’re following all best practices, and to build a solid foundation and a strong future for your small business. Read on to learn everything that you need to know about why you need SEO and how to hire a small business SEO agency that can make all the difference. 

Why you should hire a small business SEO agency

An SEO agency that specializes in helping small businesses market themselves is going to be much more beneficial to you than some giant corporation that doesn’t give you that personalized service that you deserve. When you work with a company that understands the unique nature of your business, you are going to get much better results. That’s why small business SEO services exist in the first place. 

If you want to improve your search results and your SEO campaigns in general, you need the assistance of professionals. Not only do you have other elements of your business that require your attention, but a small business SEO provider will have the expertise and experience to get the best results every single time. The benefits and services are discussed in more detail below. 

How can a small business SEO agency help my company?

Hiring a small business SEO agency will help your business in a number of ways. They will start by building a comprehensive, full-service SEO solution for your company, which begins with an in-depth audit to determine where your optimization efforts currently stand. They will also be there every step of the way, monitoring and making adjustments to your campaigns to ensure that you always get the best results. 

A dedicated SEO team will build a dynamic campaign and integrate some of the best optimization efforts into its marketing plan for your business. They will even make sure that you stop and pay attention to local SEO, which can be especially critical to a small business in today’s economy. They will take all of the work off your hands and give you the peace of mind of better results with a stronger campaign than you could design on your own. 

Perhaps the best benefit of hiring a professional SEO service is that they can customize a campaign or marketing solution that fits your exact needs. You can pick and choose from available services and included features, and get only what you need to create the best optimization efforts both on-page and off-page. Investing in small business SEO services will put your business on the path to success and be an investment well-made. 

What do small business SEO agencies do?

Although every small business SEO company has different offerings, the general services provided in this industry are very similar. Typically, you will start with a consultation or phone conversation where they will learn about your small business and its needs in terms of search engine optimization. Then, they will dive in and perform a detailed audit of your SEO efforts as they currently stand. This will allow them to create a strategy and road map for your content and search engine optimization efforts. 

Other services that are offered as a part of your SEO solutions from a professional agency include:

  • Advanced monitoring and analytics
  • On-page and off-page optimization
  • Blog management
  • Technical SEO
  • Local SEO
  • Tactical outreach
  • Monitoring and auditing of the competition
  • And more

The exact services included in your small business SEO plan will be based on what your company needs and the discussion that you have with the specialists regarding how optimization can be improved. However, small business SEO services could include any or all of the things on this list. You might even be able to employ their assistance in managing or monitoring your social media accounts and other online presence. The right small business SEO services will be the ones that fit your exact needs. 

How much does it cost to hire a small business SEO company?

One of the biggest concerns for any small business is money. However, when it comes to marketing, you really can’t put a price on professional results like this. Search engine optimization is no longer a luxury for those who can afford it. It’s a must-have tool that Google and others use to track businesses and ensure that everyone is marketing themselves fairly and correctly online. Therefore, even those who are on a budget shouldn’t be too focused on the cost of professional SEO services

SEO services for a small business will always cost less to outsource than if you hired a staff of marketing professionals to do the work in-house. Capitalizing on professional solutions and improving your SEO will also cost less than doing nothing, which could essentially ruin your business and leave you in the dust. The future relies on SEO and the best brands are already there. The cost of professional SEO for small businesses is well worth every penny, regardless of what it might be. 

More importantly, when you work with a dedicated agency, they will be able to help you customize a solution that suits your needs and then provide you with a quote so that you can see how much you’re getting for your money. If nothing else, you can’t afford not to invest in professional SEO for your small business at this point. 

Putting small business SEO to work

Search engine optimization and other marketing best practices are different for a small business than they will be for a larger company or enterprise-level business. Therefore, the marketing solutions that they need, including SEO, are going to be different, as well. That’s why a dedicated small business SEO agency will be able to guide you in the right direction. Working with an agency will allow you to see which aspects of search optimization you need to improve or incorporate and how to develop a strong marketing strategy that is rooted in SEO. 

There is a lot to learn about search engine optimization for small businesses. Fortunately, when you leave the hard work to the professionals, you only have to learn the basics of how things work so that you can keep up and keep informed on your campaigns and their success. 

Effective optimization improves website and off-page digital assets

The overarching goal of search engine optimization is to improve traffic, which then leads to conversions eventually down the sales funnel. Therefore, it’s imperative to have focused efforts on both on-page and off-page traffic and optimization. What’s the difference between the two?

Put simply, on-page SEO refers to the work done directly on your website. Off-page optimization refers to everything else including social media, search engine results, ads, forums, links, and other places where your small business has a presence. The ultimate goal of any marketing strategy should include optimizing both in order to capitalize on all potential sources of traffic. 

You can’t pick one or the other. It’s not an “either/or” situation. The only way your small business SEO is going to be successful is if it focuses on both aspects of optimization. Fortunately, when you hire a professional agency, that’s just a standard part of their practices. Any effective SEO strategy for small business, or any business, will cover all aspects of optimization of content on the website, social media pages, and anywhere else the business can be found online. 

Elements of small business SEO that are often overlooked

A lot of people talk about SEO and there are some elements that are more popular or common than others. Just the same, there are some elements that get overlooked, time and again, and those can become costly oversights for your small business. Working with an agency will ensure that everything is checked and double-checked and that monitoring is in place to keep an eye on optimization efforts and their outcomes. 

Some of the elements that get overlooked in small business SEO can impact your bottom line and the success of your campaigns in a number of ways. For starters, let’s say that you forget to address local optimization. Today’s consumers are big on local companies and if your small business has a local presence, you need to optimize for that. Otherwise, you are missing out on a huge potential local customer base. 

Here are some other common areas that get overlooked and could be valuable to your optimization efforts:

  • Images: In addition to having high-quality images on your website, you need to optimize them with keywords and appropriate image tags. When search engines index your images and find keywords, that will improve your SEO. 
  • Keyword-Based URLs: So many companies don’t optimize their URLs. They simply build a page and accept the auto-generated URL that’s usually something like “about” or “contact”. When you optimize URLs, you can add in keywords and common search terms. 
  • Customized 404: If you really want to get creative with optimization and getting people’s attention, customize the 404 (Page Not Found) response on your website. There are so many reasons they could end up here, and if it looks generic, they might just leave. If you at least let them know they’re just in the wrong place, you’ll keep them moving forward. Plus, this can be a great way to sneak in cheeky messages and make a statement at the same time. 
  • Long-Form and Long-Tail: Too many small business owners want to play the short game. Long-form content is ruling the Internet right now, with Google having a preference for about 1,000 words per page or blog post in order for it to be considered “authoritative”. Long-tail keywords often get overlooked, too, and can be some of the most valuable keywords that your small business can use. 
  • Meta Tags and Descriptions: Here’s yet another underutilized space for optimization. Your meta tags and descriptions should include keywords and every single page on your website should have its own meta title and description included for search engine indexing. 

Hiring a professional small business SEO service guarantees that none of this, or anything else, will get overlooked as your website and small business are optimized for the future of online marketing. When you are fully optimized, you will be practically future-proofing your business. 

How hiring a small business SEO agency can lead to conversions

The journey from optimization to conversion is an obvious one, for the most part. It does take some time and won’t always go the exact same way, but the general concept is similar. Optimizing your content for search engines means that you will get better rankings. Increased rankings mean improved traffic, and more targeted traffic that actually meets your marketing goals and demographics. 

That traffic is more valuable and less likely to be in the wrong place, which means they will continue on to the website, peruse through the offerings, and be far more likely to convert as a result of their journey. If it weren’t for SEO, many of these people would have never made it here in the first place. Therefore, you can guarantee that if you improve your small business SEO, you will improve your conversations and increase your revenue and profit potential. 

SEO can lead to conversions from the website and from off-page content, including social media pages and online directories. The more places that you put your small business out there and use optimization to do so, the more likely you are to generate results and get noticed in search rankings when people are looking for related products or services. This is all part of brand visibility– if your audience can’t find you, they’ll buy from the competition. 

What to look for when hiring a small business SEO company

Hiring any professional service is always a bit harrowing. You want to make sure that you get the right people for the job, but you also want to make sure that you’re not taken advantage of along the way. Hiring an SEO agency to assist with your small business optimization needs is not a huge challenge. As long as you know what questions to ask and what services to look for, the rest should take care of itself. 

Always start by making sure that you choose smaller agencies that can dedicate their resources to your marketing and optimization efforts. There is nothing worse than choosing some company that’s going to hand you a cookie-cutter optimization plan that you could have come up with on your own for the “bargain price” that comes from settling for second best. A boutique SEO agency will give you personalized solutions and 100% support from start to finish and beyond. 

Ask specifically about small business SEO

While any SEO agency can handle basic campaigns and follow industry best practices, there’s a special knack to small business marketing that requires a special touch. Companies that have experience marketing for small businesses will be your first choice. Look for companies that are small businesses themselves, also sometimes referred to as boutique agencies, where you can get dedicated service from a small, but capable team of professionals. 

What makes small business SEO different? Aside from the elements discussed above, there’s also the factor of market saturation to consider. A small business isn’t going to cast as wide of a net, and they shouldn’t need to. The right SEO experts will understand this and help you determine how to target your audiences appropriately based on the marketing goals and optimization strategies that you set out with. 

Other questions to ask before hiring a small business SEO agency

Before you hire any small business SEO agency, there are some other questions that you will want to ask in order to make sure that they’re right for the job:

  • How much experience do you have in small business SEO?
  • What kind of results can I expect and how long will they take?
  • How many clients or campaigns do you actively have? 
  • Are you familiar with SEO best practices and guidelines?
  • What is your track record like for successful campaigns?
  • Do you have references or reviews that can give me more information?
  • What is your plan for monitoring and outpacing the competition?
  • Can you also manage my blog or other marketing essentials?
  • What makes you better than any other SEO agency?

Really, the list of questions that you could find yourself asking a professional agency could be quite extensive. This list here is just an idea to help you get started and figure out what other things you want to know about the company that you work with. Feel free to ask anything that you want to know. The best companies will be forthright and give you the answers that you seek. After all, they understand the importance of doing your homework. 

Read reviews and ask for proof from the small business SEO agency

It might sound a bit forward to some, but the far best way to learn what an SEO agency can do is to see what they’ve done. The best way to do that is to ask them for proof. Whether this is in the form of references from previous clients or even a portfolio that showcases their projects from start to finish, it should be indicative that they are clearly the best team for the job. Any agency that is worth your time understands how important reviews and proof can be and will gladly provide as much as they can. 

Client and customer reviews can also help you learn more about small business SEO services so that you can hire the right team for the job. Don’t just read the reviews on their website, of course. Check for third-party reviews and off-page write-ups on online directories and social media, and so forth. Find out as much as you can from as many people as you can so that you know that you are absolutely hiring the best agency for the job. 

Small businesses deserve big success

SEO is not just a tool that your business can use– it is the key to your marketing success both now and in the future. As a small business, you have to work twice as hard as the larger companies to market your brand and grow your revenue. With the assistance of a boutique SEO agency that understands the unique needs of a small company like yours, it will be easier than ever to get the results that you deserve. 

Just because you have limited resources doesn’t mean that you should lose out on the benefit of professional SEO solutions. You don’t have to spend a small fortune on an in-house team or try to navigate the complex world of search engine optimization on your own. The assistance of a professional agency is an investment that is more affordable than you think and it’s one that is well worth making. Start by figuring out what you need so that you can get your SEO on track for the future.