How to Find the Right SEO Service for Your Small Business

For any small or local business looking to stay afloat, search engine visibility is a must. Running paid ads is a great way to get immediate visibility and highly targeted traffic, but it's crucial that you're working on your long-term organic visibility as well. The problem is, search engine optimization (SEO) is a complex marketing strategy that requires consistent effort over time.

And this is the conundrum. Local businesses aren't making use of one of the most crucial and effective marketing strategies for local businesses because of the very fact that they are a local business. Woof. You don't have time to do SEO, but you also don't have the time to learn enough about it to be able to hire the right small business SEO services.

And that's precisely why I've written this post. I'd like to change that for you so here's what we're going to cover:

• The basics of what SEO is and why it's crucial for local businesses.
• The benefits of hiring small business SEO services.
• How to find affordable local SEO services.
• What to look for in an SEO service provider.

Search engines are is where your customers are, and it is there that you need to stand out to them and stand apart from competitors. So let's get you equipped to do that.

What is small business SEO?

Before we get into the types of services an SEO agency provides, let's first make sure you have a firm understanding of what SEO is. Many business owners see search engine optimization (SEO) as an enigma that only those with inside knowledge can solve. Yes, an SEO service company will have the inside knowledge that you don't have, but knowing the basics is a must, and it can be broken down into simple concepts:

• Even though you are optimizing for search engines, search engines build their ranking algorithms around user behavior, as they aim to be the most trusted source of information out there. What this means is, at the end of the day, you are really just optimizing for search engine users—aka people just like you.
• SEO isn't just one tactic, but a combination of efforts that work in tandem to help search engines like Google find your business website, identify it as trustworthy, organize the information you’re publishing on it, and present it to users searching for it.

Let’s look at each component more closely.