Your microbusiness may be more invisible on Google than a vampire in a mirror. After all, how are new people supposed to find out about you? They won’t Google your business name if they don’t already know you exist!
You may have raving customers and a robust word-of-mouth operation in the physical world. Perhaps you are even running some local advertising. However, there is an entirely different source of potential customers you can tap into on Google. And you may be completely missing out.
According to BrightEdge research, 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine. And, according to SparkToro research, 63.41% of all US web traffic referrals come from Google. Many of these Googlers may seek a product or service like yours. But if they do not know about you or are unfamiliar with your brand, this is going to help you as much as a metal spoon in a Star Wars lightsaber fight.
How can you reach these people and convert them into customers? That’s where an SEO consultant like me comes in.
An SEO consultant’s job is to help businesses like yours optimize their online presence for Google search. When done correctly, you will rank higher on Google for search terms important to your business. This will generally lead to increased web traffic, leads, and sales.
In this article, we’ll discuss the role of an SEO consultant and how we can help a microbusiness like yours grow. We’ll look at key services an SEO consultant can provide you, how to choose a consultant that’s right for your business, and the benefits you can expect to reap from doing so.
What Is an SEO Consultant?
An SEO consultant is an independent marketing professional or small company that understands the complex world of search engine algorithms, searcher behavior, and online trends to improve website visibility (like AI search!). They offer strategic guidance, recommendations, and solutions tailored to a business’s unique needs.
SEO Consultants vs. Agencies
SEO consultants are different from agencies, although there is some overlap. SEO agencies are typically larger organizations that offer a wide range of marketing services. However, an SEO consultant is often a solopreneur, small partnership, or microbusiness (like yours) of fewer than ten individuals working together in a more specialized or niche area.
SEO Consultants vs. Freelancers
SEO consultants are also different from freelancers, although, again, there is some overlap. Freelancers are often hired for limited or specific tasks. These are usually client-directed. For example, you might hire an SEO freelancer to write titles and meta descriptions for some web pages. Or to write you a specific series of blog posts.
On the other hand, SEO consultants are often more deeply engaged with the client’s overall business and tend to work more strategically and comprehensively. Sometimes, consultants are merely advisory and do not implement their recommendations at all, while others handle both strategy creation and implementation. On the other hand, a freelancer is likely mostly handling the implementation side for a client.
SEO Consultants vs. In-House Specialists
An SEO consultant is also an alternative to an in-house SEO specialist. An in-house SEO specialist is a full-time employee of a business, whereas a consultant is an independent contractor or part of an external company. In-house SEOs tend to be experts in the particular business for which they work, but may have less experience across different companies and industries.
SEO vs. Digital Marketing Consultants
Ultimately, an SEO consultant differs from a digital marketing consultant in the services they offer. Once again, the caveat is that there is some overlap. But, generally, an SEO consultant’s goal is to help you improve your performance in organic search. On the other hand, a digital marketing consultant may advise you on many different marketing functions and channels, like paid advertising, social media, email marketing, and more.
Benefits of Working with an SEO Consultant
You may think your microbusiness does not need an SEO consultant. And you may lack the resources (time and money) needed to hire and empower them to succeed. However, there are several reasons why hiring an SEO consultant can be a boon to your business.
To begin with, SEO is a cost-effective marketing strategy. However, it is essential to clarify that SEO is not free despite being an “organic” marketing channel. To win at SEO, you must either implement it yourself (takes lots of time, education, and experience) or hire someone to do so for you (takes more money but frees up your time). These are real costs.
SEO is an organic marketing channel because you are not paying to run advertisements. Running ads with a daily or even weekly spend can consume your entire marketing budget faster than Batman can say, “I’m Batman.” Sometimes it’s worth it. But if your ads aren’t working, are too cost-prohibitive, or you are seeking additional sources of online customers, SEO might be perfect for your business.
SEO consultants can also help you with local SEO strategies. Local SEO focuses on specific and limited geographic markets, such as a town or city, whereas national or generic SEO has a nationwide or international scope. Although complementary, the strategies and tactics differ significantly for local versus generic search. A consultant can help you make tactical decisions for your microbusiness’s local market.
Finally, SEO consultants can create customized strategies for your business. Every microbusiness has its own mix of objectives, customer personas, opportunities, and threats. While someone with general knowledge of SEO may be able to create a broad strategy, a custom-tailored approach is often far more effective and efficient.
Key Services an SEO Consultant Provides to Microbusinesses
Keywords, Content, and Technical SEO
The first step in any SEO consulting engagement is for the consultant to learn about your business and your ideal customer. This is the fact-finding phase. Once that foundation is established, a consultant will develop several comprehensive SEO strategies that work in tandem.
The first is almost always keyword research. Keywords are the lifeblood of SEO. They are the terms or queries that users type into the Google (or Bing or Yahoo, etc.) search bar.
For example, if a user in Portland, Maine, is seeking a place to order pizza for dinner, they may search for “pizza,” “pizza near me,” or “restaurant with pepperoni pizza in Portland.” An SEO consultant will research and identify all important and relevant keywords for your business. Without this research, you are essentially flying blind.
Second, an SEO consultant will optimize on-page and technical SEO factors. On-page SEO refers to factors related to your website content, and technical SEO refers to your website’s setup, structure, and performance. There are many tactics at play here, including things like:
- Optimizing meta tags (titles, descriptions, image alt descriptions, etc.)
- Improving your URL structures
- Creating relevant internal and external links
- Adding sections or passages to make the content more thorough
- Improving the speed of your website, including loading time
All of these factors, and many others, contribute to SEO success. An SEO consultant can identify and prioritize the best tactics for effective and efficient marketing.
Other SEO Strategies for Microbusinesses
As mention previously, local SEO optimization targets specific geographical areas, such as towns and cities. For example, a small pharmacy in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, may only want to target potential customers in or near Portsmouth. An SEO consultant can help you optimize your online presence, including your website and your Google business listing for local search.
Another SEO strategy that a consultant may implement is link building. Link building refers to acquiring external links to your website from other authoritative and high-quality websites. High-quality links signal that your business is also of high quality and trustworthy. An SEO consultant will know which methods of backlink acquisition will be effective, which won’t, and which may be effective in the short term but are not ethical and pose risks to your long-term success.
Finally, an SEO consultant will often help you create new SEO-targeted and optimized content, including blog posts, long-form articles, and videos. SEO content often differs from other types of content, which may be more focused on achieving virality or engaging with an existing customer base. A viral or engaging blog post may perform poorly in search. A consultant will help guide you on the types of content that will perform well on Google and how to create this content.
How Microbusiness SEO Consulting Differs
Some SEO consultants specialize in working with small, midsize, or enterprise-level businesses. However, you may have different needs if you are a microbusiness owner such as a solopreneur. Several factors distinguish microbusiness SEO from other types.
Locality
For one, many microbusinesses, especially those with brick-and-mortar locations, are primarily concerned with local SEO. That means you want to hire someone with ample experience dealing with regional markets, customers, strategies, and tactics. These can differ significantly from general national or international SEO campaigns.
Budget
Budget considerations are another difference. It may be easy for an enterprise or large corporation to hire a massive digital marketing agency or a team of in-house full-time SEO specialists to pump out high-quality content daily, as McDonald’s does Big Macs. However, microbusiness owners are aware that they have resource constraints and may be unable to afford those options. While a great SEO consultant won’t be cheap, they will also understand the budget constraints of your situation and be able to provide services that work within your budget and are cost-effective.
Personalized Service
SEO consultants for microbusinesses may provide more personalized, hands-on service than their peers who target large enterprises. When dealing with an enterprise, there are typically multiple teams, points of contact, specialists, and departments collaborating. However, with a microbusiness, most affairs may be conducted directly between the owner or executive team and a tiny SEO consulting team.
ROI-focus
A microbusiness SEO consultant may help you identify and target immediate ROI opportunities. This can be a game changer for businesses with thin margins and small budgets, whereas large organizations may have the time for campaigns that span months and even years without producing a measurable ROI.
Keyword Strategy
Finally, microbusinesses will likely have different keyword strategies than major brands. It may be impossible to directly compete with large brands. On the other hand, there may be many keyword opportunities where a microbusiness with razor-sharp focus and niche interests can beat its larger global competitors. A great SEO consultant will help you identify these opportunities.
How to Choose the Right SEO Consultant for Your Microbusiness
Choosing the right SEO consultant for your microbusiness can be more overwhelming than the crowds in Times Square to a small-town introvert. There are thousands of options, from basement-cost operators on platforms like Fiverr and Upwork to global powerhouses like the Big Four management consulting firms or international marketing agencies.
Experience
You want an experienced consultant who can work in your sector, industry, local market, or niche. That experience doesn’t have to be as an independent consultant. Many SEOs begin their careers as in-house employees or work for larger agencies to learn the ropes. However, in SEO, you can discover no magic formula in college; only time and direct experience will provide the knowledge an SEO needs to succeed.
Outcomes
You also want to know that your consultant can get you results. To help with this, you can read reviews and ask for testimonials or extended case studies that vouch for the consultant and explain how their strategies worked. If you can’t find information about an SEO and their performance, they are either relatively inexperienced or are raising a major red flag.
Cost
Cost is a premium concern. SEO consultants can be expensive. You are paying not only for their hourly labor but also for the knowledge and years of experience they have acquired to become an expert in the industry. However, SEO consultants should be transparent about their pricing. You should completely understand the various costs associated with the service and what drives them. If an SEO cannot communicate what their services will cost or how this is being calculated, run, don’t walk away from the consultant and find someone else.
Mindset
Finally, look for an SEO consultant who can communicate well with you and is a good temperamental fit. You don’t have to be best friends with your SEO or feel like sisters from another mother, but at the very least, you want to be able to get along and communicate well with each other. A lack of strong communication can be one of the most important reasons an SEO campaign fails.
Available Resources
Finally, microbusinesses usually have smaller and simpler websites than their larger competitors. These will likely require some basic fixes, but you should not need the intensive focus on technical SEO that a large global company will need. An SEO consultant will help you determine how much of your resources should be devoted to technical SEO and when it is more prudent to focus on content creation, backlink building, or local search optimization.
How to Measure Your SEO Results
An SEO consultant is there to help you get results. If you’re not seeing improved performance over time, you are likely wasting your money with an inexperienced or low-quality service provider.
The first sign of SEO success will be increased overall search engine visibility. A consultant will help you get your website pages in Google’s index, start ranking for relevant keywords, and show up in actual search results. This factor can be measured by metrics like
- Impressions
- Number of keyword positions
- The average rank of keyword positions
- Share of voice
The next sign of SEO improvement will be an increase in traffic to your site or Google listing. This traffic will be relevant to your business because your consultant will target the correct keywords. This factor can be measured by metrics like:
- Sessions
- Visits
- Entrances
- Clicks
The third stage of SEO success is an improvement in leads. Leads are visitors who take some action that demonstrates they may intend to become an actual customer. Leads may be highly engaged with your content or take some action, such as signing up for a newsletter, submitting a contact form, or clicking to call your business. You may measure leads with such metrics as:
- (lead) conversions
- (lead) conversion rate
- Form submissions
- Calls
- Subscriptions
Finally, the fourth, or money stage, of SEO success is increased sales. This is when SEO pays off for real. Unless you have a business built on acquiring web traffic, conversion to sales is the whole ballgame. You can measure it with metrics like:
- (sales) conversions
- (sales) conversion rate
- Purchases
- Revenue
- ROI
How Reiser Digital Can Help Your Microbusiness
You now understand what a microbusiness SEO consultant is and how they can help your company thrive. With my decade-long experience as an SEO expert, I have the knowledge and skills necessary to help businesses like yours exponentially grow through Google search.
If you’re interested in learning more about the benefits of SEO, I invite you to sign up for our newsletter for a monthly dose of helpful digital marketing tips, tricks, and insights.