Choosing an SEO Agency for a Small Business

As a small business person, you really need to vet your SEO agency. Not only do you risk paying for bad SEO – there are also valid SEO practices that aren’t designed for small businesses.

Many SEO agencies aspire to serve the largest clients possible, rather than develop their craft around the clients that actually pay them money. Their skill sets can be suited to huge corporations who happily throw tons of money into their marketing campaign without a second thought.

You (most likely) don’t have that. These are the things to look out for in your search for an SEO agency.

Small-Business-Specific Advice

Look for: A laser-focus on revenue generation

Watch out for: A preoccupation with pure traffic, rankings, or esoteric SEO metrics

You’re not Walmart – if your site doesn’t ring up a lead today, that customer is not going to remember you four months from now because your SEO guys wrote a post about Thanksgiving. Worry about exposure and mind-share when you’re big – right now you need money.

Look for: Specific and tangible deliverables with clearly stated revenue goals

Watch out for: No short-term definition of success

Your website needs tangible additions and improvements that draw the attention of your customers and get them to contact you.

There’s nothing wrong with long-term goals, but a small business can’t afford to find out two years from now if the marketing budget is paying off. A consistent cadence of strong but small successes is the only reasonable way to market an SMB.

Look for: Service integration

Watch out for: Hyper-specialization

Specialized SEO-only agencies are great for large corporations that can afford to hire a wide range of consultants and the internal staff needed to bring that value together. Small businesses need an SEO agency with integrated design, development, and other creative staff to get rid of that coordination overhead.

Advice Applicable to Any SEO Agency, for Any Business

Look for: A completely open process

Watch out for: Claims of “trade secrets”

There’s no secret to good SEO! To generate money online you need hard work, smart analysis, and a firm grasp on what your customers want.

If an agency won’t tell you what it plans to do, run. They’re either planning to do nothing, or they’re doing something useless and don’t want you to know about it. Secret sauces and proprietary tricks died out a decade ago.

Contact Greenlight Designs to get a consultation today.