What to expect when first diving into building an SEO campaign as a business owner.
In My SEO career I have never seen an SEO/GEO article that is geared toward small business owners. Most articles are written in the perspective of the SEO practitioner not the business owner. Let’s flip the script. Now that I have an SEO business, I find that a lot of my job is to manage expectations just like any good SEO director at an agency or leader should when they acquire a new client. In this article I will talk about a couple of things. A) Why SEO is important for local businesses. B) What you should expect when you decide to pursue an SEO campaign for your business.
Local businesses have to think about ROI when it comes to marketing for their products or services. Most marketing services are direct input and expecting results immediately. For example, TV, radio, PPC, you can choose your audience and some idea of the people you will reach and measurable results. What local business owners don’t take into account is how well their website is servicing or providing a good UX (user experience) when the customer (user) gets to their website.
Without optimizing your website first you could be throwing money out the window with your marketing. By having a website that is not optimized, your bounce rates are usually high, customers can’t find what they are looking for and they go to a competitor. This is why SEO is different.
What is different about the ROI when starting an SEO/GEO campaign?
- SEO is a slow burn, you are at the mercy of Google’s and other search engine’s algorithm. However, the process of optimizing your website will yield longer term benefits. The proper way to think of user experience is to think about it in the form of customer service.
- Progress comes in the form of brand visibility first then traffic/leads/conversions this is why it takes a while.
- Consistency is key! SEO is a long haul, remember that. But it will stick with you and you will be glad you started it when you did.
- The ROI is much better than other forms of marketing if you are willing to wait for the results.
- Measurement is different especially now with AI, brand impressions are paired with click through rates
- SEO is subject to algorithm updates which impact the visibility of certain types of results depending out what the update entails therefore, volatility is common in SEO.
Why should you invest in SEO if your business is a referral based or lead gen business?
I get this question a lot at networking events. This is the frequent opinion from people who own general contracting businesses, real estate brokers, lawyers, etc. My response, who cares. Business owners who generate their leads through referral mostly are underestimating the value website optimization. In their mind it may seem like a wasted effort but having two sources of leads is better than one, no matter how strong the referral system is. A lot of these types of businesses that I mentioned before have similar websites and therefore it is hard to stand out of the clutter. This is why SEO helps.
How long will I have to wait for SEO results?
On average between 2 to 4 months. There are a lot of factors that go into this but most individual SEO campaigns are not nearly as expensive as a paid search, paid social, TV or radio campaign. I won’t list what factors play into this, if you want to read into that, here.
How much does SEO cost?
Usually between $500 to $2,000 a month for local SEO (SMBs). Enterprise you can expect to pay sometimes at least $10,000 a month.
As A business owner, how much effort do I have to put in when hiring someone to run my SEO?
ideally, some. SEOs loves an eager client that wants to learn and participate in the building of their business. Part of building out a website is creating content that describes products/services. Content creation is one of the plethora of jobs the SEO practitioner has, it is smart to have the owner approve and edit content that goes on the website. This is because the owner is the business expert and we are there just to guide and structure the content. Obviously this depends on how busy the owner is.
Hiring an SEO is different than hiring any other digital marketing practitioner. A good SEO will essentially help you run the business. instead of focusing on budgets and where to spend your money on what markets. A good SEO acts as a partner to help you identify areas to draw in targeted traffic and leads. Building you SEO/GEO will help all other forms of digital marketing.
Want to take the next step for your business?
Contact West Loop SEO and lets discuss a strategy.
