We generally consider hiring an SEO to be confusing and an expensive undertaking. 

Traditionally you had two choices, hire a good SEO which was not cheap or hire a cheap SEO and, well, hope for the best. 

But what if there was a way you could get a good SEO within your budget without cutting corners. Well, the good news is that there is!

I will walk you through 3 potential SEO solutions and the pros and cons of each. 

You will notice that I discuss SEO partnerships not SEO packages because, as the name implies, a partner considers your needs first rather than a package focusing only on deliverables. 

This is a mistake many people make. They try to fit their business to an SEO package, and this often means that support falls short, and or they pay for services they don’t need or could do themselves.

The premise is the same, but the focus is different. Find a SEO partnership that suits you and your business and cares about your needs, then discuss deliverables. 

I will explain this more in this article, but let’s look at the elements that go into SEO for a small business and how you can identify the right partnership based on this knowledge.  

What is SEO for small business

When it comes to getting traffic to your website, there are a number of elements that need to be addressed for your website to be considered optimised and as a result visible in Google’s rankings. 

There are a number of factors that influence your organic rankings, let’s take a look at some of the most obvious. 

On-page Optimisation

On-page optimisation is about meeting Google guidelines and delivering a clear message to both Google and the user about the intent of the website and each individual page. 

We do this by crafting a site map and implementing it as a URL structure, leading users and Google to the relevant pages. 

Those pages are optimised for specific keywords, with SEO optimised content and page structure that once again meets Google’s constantly evolving guidelines.

These guidelines include, how to structure websites and pages as well meeting minimum requirements for website speed and user experience, just to name a few. 

Off-page SEO considers how the rest of the internet is talking about your website and what your network looks like, i.e. backlinks, citations and other mentions of your website that bring authority to your optimised website.

A SEO partnership considers all your website needs and compares them to your KPIs.

For example:

• Are you pressed for time and require the best results at any reasonable cost?
• Do you have an in-house copywriter and just want advice or content briefs created?
• Do you require someone to do the on-page while you focus on outreach and backlinks? 
• Are you just starting out and want to test the waters and implement some changes yourself?

All of these have very different KPIs, let’s review them below. 

What SEO solution is right for your small business?

Let’s look at the partnerships and KPIs to measure them against. 

Partnerships

1. Full Stack SEO
2. SEO consulting Advisor or Mentor
3. SEO Course

KPIs

1. Performance
2. Skills
3. Budget
4. Support

1. Hiring a full stack SEO

Performance: If you want the best performance, efficiency and don’t have the time to be involved, then hiring a full stack SEO is your best option. 

A quality SEO will have fine-tuned SOP’s (standard operating practices) in place that coordinate you and your team, as well as establish strengths and weaknesses in the SEO strategy and implement changes to fix issues and take advantage of opportunities. 

There really is no faster, more effective way!

Skills: You won’t need any SEO skills as the full time SEO will take care of everything. 

Budget: This is the most expensive option, but you are effectively hands-off and allowing your SEO strategy to be done on autopilot. This leaves you to get on with business as usual and ultimately only review and discuss results each month or quarter. 

Support 

Support is from A to Z! It is all taken care of you. You don’t need to do anything, the SEO focuses all the efforts and support on the SEO campaign.

You may not work as closely with the SEO as you might with mentoring, however it is still important that the SEO respects your core company values, and you agree on strategy in advance. 

In this instance, you should focus on relationships and hiring someone you can trust.

Pros

1. A full time SEO takes care of everything.
2. A professional will do it faster and bring organic traffic and leads in sooner.
3. The systems that they implement will have your SEO strategy steaming along smoothly.
4. Less stressful and easy to manage and little to no learning curve.

Cons

1. Higher Cost: A full time SEO is more expensive.
2. You won’t learn anything: The SEO’s focus is entirely on the campaign, training and mentoring would be a distraction and slow the project down. 
3. Blind trust:  You aren’t privy to how they work or their tactics.
4. Misguided strategy: The results can be for the wrong niche or unrelated keyword. This is why it is so important to have a good relationship and communicate. 

Who is it for

Best for a business that does not have the time to be involved. Performance and expanding organic reach is the only KPI. Upskilling staff is not.

2. SEO Consultant / Mentoring 

A consultant is a great option if you have the time or staff to upskill and take on part of the SEO responsibilities.

Performance

Consulting can be slower than a full time SEO in the beginning, because factors like availability, skills, and willingness need to be taken into account.

As you or your team learn and improve, the gap in performance between full stack SEO and consultant SEO are greatly diminished.

Skills

Skillets and responsibilities will set the tone for this partnership. The more skills your team has, the less input needed from the SEO. For example, if you have in house dev and the SEO points out the issue and your team corrects them.

The same can be said, if you write your own copy, the SEO only needs to draw up SEO content briefs guides, rather than writing the copy for you.

Budget

An SEO consultant advising you or your team is significantly cheaper. There will potentially be higher costs early on in the relationship as the consultant steps in to pick up where you and your team fall short. But once again, this cost falls away as your SEO skills improve.  

Support

SEO consulting is the most flexible as you work very closely with the SEO. The partnership is based around your strengths and weaknesses. Guiding, Supporting and training you or your team is the main aim. 

A consultant assesses your website and points out areas of weakness and opportunity in your SEO strategy. They are the little angel on your shoulder that keeps you out of harm’s way. 

They don’t get hands on, but can if and when needed at a pre-agreed rate. 

Pros

1. Upskilling : You and or your team learn and improve under advisement.
2. Clear Direction :You are in charge, this can also be a downside, but less so the more you learn. With you at the helm, you can be sure the campaign is heading in the right direction.  
3. Scalable: The consultant can take on as little or as much as you require.
4. Cost : It’s generally about a quarter of the price of hiring an SEO full time. 
5. Flexibility: SEO consultants can be as hands-on as you require or not, depending on your skills and staff structure.

Cons

1. You are in charge: This can be confusing in the beginning. The good news is you can ask the SEO consultant to play a larger role early on and peter out as you grow and settle into the role. You are in charge, after all. 

Who is it for

Great for small businesses with some budget and want to learn and take on more and more as their SEO skills improve.

Medium to Large business that want an SEO to oversee and point out any SEO weaknesses or opportunities that may be present.

Medium to Large company that wants to develop an in-house SEO expertise. 

3. Course or workshops

Performance

Performance takes a back seat and results are entirely based on your interpretation of the course presented. 

Budget

Very low cost compared to full time or consulting. 

Support

Unlikely to be any support and any issues would be yourself to deal with yourself. 

Pros

Low cost: SEO Guides and courses are generally very reasonable.

Readily available: A course is only a click away and doesn’t cost anything extra if you need to review it again and again.

Work at your own pace: This can be a pro and a con, but you decide the pace you work at.

Learning: You will improve your understanding of what is needed for SEO.

Scalable: The only way is up, and you can always hire an SEO when things pick up

Cons

Mistakes: Implementation can be risky, if you misinterpret the SEO guide. Leading you the repercussions that you may not have the expertise to fix.

No support: If you make a mistake or come across as an issue not outlined in the SEO course, you have no fall back.

Who is it for

SEO Courses are great for small businesses or bloggers starting out with a limited budget.

Medium to Large business that want to upskill in-house staff.

A course is a good idea if you have no budget and the risks of it going wrong aren’t too detrimental. 

Conclusion

There are many cases where the three blend into each other and these are when partnership not packages becomes evident. A SEO that is prepared to adjust to meet your specific needs means sacrificing one of the three KPIs on some level. 

So understand what you and your business needs and set your expectations accordingly. SEO is a marathon, so don’t rush the start. Find a good partner, not a SEO package.