What is SEO
Before describing what small business SEO consultant services offer, let’s start by understanding the principles of SEO. According to Moz.com the definition of SEO is as follows:
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.
Source: https://moz.com/learn/seo/what-is-seo
And, indeed, it is, but for me this definition needs to be adjusted for the current SEO reality. Here is my definition of SEO:
SEO is the practice of first understanding the online users’ behavior and intent, then adjusting the products and services to fulfill the needs of the targeted audience, and adjusting the website’s content as needed to increase the quantity and quality of organic traffic and achieve better conversion rates and user satisfaction.
It is very important to understand that the real work of a small business SEO consultant is mainly to find ways to satisfy the user intent.This can be accomplished only by devoting time to seo marketing research services. By understanding the user intent and forming seo strategies to satisfy it, we can achieve a qualitative increase in the organic traffic of a website and in addition get better conversion rates and user satisfaction. Content is the king when the goal is users’ satisfaction. Thus, I believe the definition of SEO by moz is missing the most important factor – user satisfaction. At the end of the day, this is what Google’s AI bots rank websites on.
How do SEO consultant services for small businesses differ from SEO?
Small business SEO consultant services do not differ from the general principle of SEO. They are based on exactly the same logic. What makes them a special category is the budget limitations that exist (which makes it a necessity to find affordable seo consultant services and at the same time effective) and the fact that websites that need ‘small business SEO services’ usually offer products or services in local markets and are relatively small in size. These factors are important while designing the SEO strategy of a website and selecting the SEO tools that can be used. These factors will also impact the hours / month that will be devoted in SEO optimizing a small business website.
I have a small business. Do I need services from a small business SEO consultant?
My answer to this is YES ABSOLUTELY and I will explain why. If you own a small business or you are thinking of creating a startup, for me, SEO is the first step that you should take. SEO marketing services are a must for any company and even more so for a startup. Why is this? Because the findings from this research will help us understand the target audience (even help us find it in some cases). The data gathered during an SEO marketing research will help us understand how much we can expect from SEO, how to focus on our key products and services, what sets us apart from our competition, which are our online competitors and how strong they are and a lot more valuable information. Most importantly, all this info will be based on accurate statistics provided by Google’s own tools and not just intuition or knowledge based on a small sample. Google stores a lot of valuable marketing research data, which SEO professionals have the chance to access and interpret. Access to valuable data is important, but it is useless if you do not know how to spot important correlations, which comes with experience.
Why are the small business SEO consultant services ideal for startups?
I mentioned that SEO consultant services for small businesses are extremely important for startups but why? When a company has access to SEO marketing research data it can form its whole business around its targeted market audience. So, when it is ready to create its website, it will know exactly where it needs to focus and form the user experience based on this. This is crucial and it will take less time to do it in the beginning instead of having to alter something that already exists. This is true not only for the SEO aspects of the website project but even for the business aspects of the startup. Spending valuable time at the beginning doing proper SEO research is an important element to success.
What other SEO services except SEO marketing services does small business SEO cover?
As mentioned already, all the types of SEO services are important for SMALL BUSINESS SEO but because of the limited size of the budget and small size of the website, the hours we can devote to SEO are usually less compared to the amount of time a big website needs. An example of what I consider a relatively big website for SEO is expatica.com which happens to be one of my clients. You may find some additional info about my work in expatica.com here. SEO services for a website like this one are a must because its business is to offer valuable content to users who need it!
Below you will find a list with additional valuable SEO services for small businesses that I offer:
SEO optimization services for content
How big of a budget do I need for small business SEO?
The answer to this question is not easy. It is difficult to give a number without knowing what the topic of the business is, the size of the website, the competition etc. If you request an offer for small business SEO services using the respective form in this website, I will be able to give you an estimation. I want to use this opportunity to clarify that I do not work using SEO packages. I estimate everything according to the hours I will agree to work for my clients on a monthly basis.
Why is this? I believe that small business SEO consultants who have a good understanding of SEO and consider themselves fair do not work with SEO packages. A package is a predefined agreement of services no matter what an SEO marketing research might present and what an SEO project might need. Also, how is it possible that professional seo consultants accept to offer variations in the quality of their SEO services depending on the budget a client has available? Not in the quantity but in the quality… Because this is what most of the packages do. In order to get a full coverage of what can be offered by aprofessional SEO consultant (all the range of SEO services mentioned above) a company need to sign a long term contract. But not the starter packages that are less expensive but the most expensive packages. Because the full SEO services range is offered only with them. As a result small businesses lack the opportunity to buy proper SEO services and thus they cannot compete with their big competitors.
I believe it is fair for a company to be able to choose the amount of hours of SEO services they need / can afford per month based on my recommendations. This allows me to start with as little as 10 hours per month, which I believe is within the budget limitations of every small company. The work of every SEO professional is to train the clients to understand the basic SEO principles and monitor an enhance their progress. With just ten (10) hours per month you can start working on a stronger online presence and that is merely the beginning.
Lastly, I would like to clarify that I do not claim that 10 hours are enough to see the results you are after. But, 10 hours per month focusing on the proper things can bring positive results very soon.
How to choose an SEO agency or an SEO expert who offers SEO for small businesses?
The best way is word of mouth. Do you know anyone who has seen really good results from an SEO professional, who offers small business SEO consultant services? Then why not give their services a try? But what if you do not know such a person? This is where things get more complicated. Having access to some SEO case studies and being able to speak with some clients of an SEO agency or an SEO expert is valuable. Unfortunately, not many SEO agencies give you this option. In this website, I am listing some of my clients who would be willing to be contacted in case you would like to know more about my work. If you are interested about projects I have done in the past, please visit the SEO case studies section of my website, where you will be able to look at performance statistics for some of my clients. Examples of case studies:
- Starting a home renovation business with SEO and Adwords. Case study of a home renovation startup in Athens Greece.
- How to start a language school and promote it with SEO and Adwords. Case study of a small local language school in Sofia Bulgaria.
- Increase organic traffic with SEO training and gain 50% higher traffic in one year. Case study that shows an increase from 1m sessions per month to 1.5m sessions per month within a year. It involves a Dutch online business that creates useful content for expats.
- How to increase your business with SEO. Case study of a small music school in Thessaloniki Greece.
In general, I believe it is hard to find SEO experts who are professionals at what they do in every aspect and it can become even more difficult as the ones that do know what they are doing have to compete against established SEO agencies. There are SEO agencies that have been creating content on the topic of SEO daily for years. They have people devoted to blogging. Yes, they know how to do it, but they have big teams, which of course drives up their prices and stops small companies from being able to approach them. On the other hand, there are SEO professionals who work for them and do not rank at the top of Google Search results as individuals for their professional SEO skills. So while difficult, it is not it is impossible to find good and affordable SEO services, but it requires good research.
What can you do in this case? You will eventually just have to take the plunge and give someone a try until you find a good fit for your business.
Small Business SEO training is essential
Before I conclude my thoughts on the topic, I would like to stress that SEO training for small businesses is extremely important. I tend to say to my clients that some sites look similar to others but in SEO terms there are many important differences. The effort it takes to make a website SEO friendly is significant, which translates to additional costs. If a website owner does not have the option of paying an SEO expert to do it, then it is important to at least understand what needs to be improved. Learn the basics and you can consult an SEO expert for more difficult SEO tasks or for reviewing the changes you and your team make. If you want to attract organic traffic to your website, you at least need to understand the basics of targeting topics with content.
Are you interested in SEO services for a small business?
If you are interested in small business SEO services please follow the link by clicking on the below button ‘Request a small business seo offer’ , fill in the form and I will get back to you with an estimated offer for your website.
Additional professional SEO consultant services
Would you like to learn more about all the types of SEO services I offer? If yes, please follow any of the links below.
SEO consulting services per website type
You might be wondering if all websites require the same type of SEO consulting and how this service might differ from website to website. In my experience, I can say that the SEO principles are the same but the effort and continuity that is required definitely vary not only for different website types, but also for different industries, business sizes, locations and even the CMS that is used. If you would like to learn more, please follow any of the links below.
