Small business SEO UK coverage - cost-effective results-driven SEO whenever you want it
My name’s Guy Willett. I’ve worked in digital marketing for over 15 years and founded Ready Steady Go SEO in 2016. I have made it my vocation to offer SEO for small business owners by offering bite-size pay as you go SEO packages on a project-by-project basis.
So why choose Ready Steady Go SEO as your small business SEO provider? Fundamentally, I undertake search engine optimisation very differently from most SEO agencies you’ll encounter. Why? The reason for this is I’ve never worked for an SEO agency.
In fact, for many years, I was, like you, an end client who didn’t get value for money from the SEO agencies I hired. I was often locked into contracts where very little seemed to be done, and even less seemed to happen regarding results. When I questioned this, I’d frequently be met with a wall of technobabble or told that I’d need to wait a little longer to see results.
Which made me think.
That’s when I started undertaking SEO for my own companies and got some great results and really enjoyed doing it. So much so that after a few years, I decided to become a freelance SEO consultant who has, in the last eight years, worked with over 220+ organisations to improve their online visibility.
The route to this success is based on some simple principles:
- No contracts or retainers
- Single point of contact
- Quick wins & long term goals
- Competitively priced
- SMEs a speciality
- Techno babble free zone
- Transparent operation
- White hat SEO adherence
- All work done in-house
Don’t assume being on page one is enough!
Are you comfortable being on page one? Don’t be! If you appear towards the bottom, you might only see about 2-43% of that traffic.
There’s another issue. What’s the search volume for that keyword? Do you know? Additionally, do you know if it’s growing in size or is on its way out? If you don’t, I can share this information with you. Some SEO agencies won’t do this since they might not want you to be aware that they’ve focused their efforts on a page-one result for a keyword that no one has searched for in the history of the Internet!
It’s also important to understand the intent of the keyword. Does it fit well with my offering? Are they likely to proceed further or even convert? Where are they in the buying cycle if they type this?
Additionally, don’t forget that organic ranking is now only one way to reap the benefits of appearing on page 1. There are also rich snippets, map packs, and many more opportunities.
Small business SEO that is highly regarded
Choosing to use an SEO agency or consultant should not be taken lightly. I recommend that you review prospective small business SEO companies. Consider their online reviews and determine if they do a decent job ranking their own site. For instance, did you find them from an organic search, or were they using an AdWords campaign to get to the top of the page? When you have a shortlist, ask for references by all means.
I’d urge anyone to scrutinise and research their prospective SEO provider before taking the plunge. By all means, ask for references and approach former or current clients for feedback.
Of course, they also look at their online reputation. I’m very proud of the feedback that I’ve received setting up Ready Steady Go SEO. Feel free to look across my Google Business Profile, Bark, Yell, Facebook, or Trustpilot profiles to see how people feel about the work undertaken and the advice given. See below for just a sample of the feedback I’ve received.
One particular review platform I’m proud to be featured on is Clutch. This isn’t just because of the glowing reviews but also because clients are approached and are interviewed independently so their feedback is all the more impartial and welcome.
Moreover, from this independent research, Ready Steady Go SEO has been named as one of the top digital and marketing agencies in the UK three years in a row.
Ready Steady Go SEO – by the numbers
Benchmark your competitors with your free SEO report!
I believe in helping you to make informed strategic decisions. It’s vital that reflecting my findings with you at each step helps ensure continued success and no more so than at the outset of our communication.
This starts even before working with you with a free no-obligation report and 30-minute consultation that focuses on:
What makes this an even more valuable document is that I can share the same information with your competitors, too. This can give insights into new keywords, backlinks, and strategies you might wish to adopt.
Discover if you're ranking for keywords that you're not leveraging that might not be exploited
Though the report can show keyword rankings the consultation can also show live rankings for discussion
Full analysis as to your online reputation that may present highlight issues the organisation may need to addrress
But doesn’t SEO take ages before your see results?
In my experience as a consumer of SEO services, many SEO agencies emphasised that it would take months to see ranking results before I became an SEO consultant. Of course, from their standpoint, managing your expectations as to when you might see results whilst continuing to pay on a contractual or retained basis. Indeed, there can be some truth to this for certain SEO practices, e.g., backlinking, to see any benefits.
However, SEO activities like on-page optimisation, such as changing title tags, meta descriptions, and H1s, can often see rank movements within 48-72 hours of making this change. Sometimes, it can be even sooner, depending on when Google re-indexes that page.
One important consideration, however, is you may get ranking improvements from entirely unethical ‘black hat’ techniques that may also get results for you fast but may likely be unsustainable and, more importantly, leave you at risk of receiving hugely rank-damaging Google penalties. This makes it all the more important to understand what SEO services are undertaken on your behalf.
Study finds most SME sites have numerous SEO issues – with many quick win opportunities!
Given that there are certain SEO services that can have a fast ranking turnaround, this can frequently be even better news for SME websites. In a recent study of 200, admittedly US, SME websites there were some obvious issues that I assist clients with on a daily basis.
60% don’t include useful keyword phrases in SEO page titles
91% don’t feature keywords in image file names
89% don’t effectively use internal links
51% don’t have HTTPS secure websites
73% don’t include keywords in many of their page URLs
Many issues can be remedied quicker and gain results than you might have thought
All of the above can be relatively easy to address and can result in ranking improvements in the space of weeks and sometimes even days.
Lets discuss quick wins on issues your site is statistically likely to have
What is the best small business SEO service?
A wide selection of small business SEO services are available, including on-page optimization, such as keyword analysis and technical SEO, as well as off-page optimization services, such as building backlinks and local SEO. However, every client, and every client’s website for that matter, is unique. So there’s no one solution, which is why an SEO audit is vital to determine what SEO services are needed and, just as importantly, in which order. For more details on a typical SEO campaign, visit the Process page.
Four small business SEO tips
Consider long-tail keywords, the longer the better
When I ask prospects about the keywords they’ve ranked or tried to rank for, I generally find they’ve opted for the highest search volume keywords applicable to their sector.
There is nothing wrong with this, but it ignores search intent. For instance, one prospect was keen on ‘cherry picker’ but overlooked that the phrase didn’t inform you whether they wanted to buy, hire, train or even know the definition of ‘cherry picker’.
Given they were a rental company, I found that the best volume keyword was ‘cherry picker hire’. Dedicate, say, the Home page to this and then create pages for this phrase but with a location for a branch, and then you start to obtain people interested in hiring and from areas where the company operates or has coverage. It’s fair to say that many long-tail keywords are needed, perhaps to gain the same sort of traffic as a more generic high-volume search phrase, but the conversion rates tell another tale.
The key is that it takes a lot of work to devise landing pages that will only attract a few clicks each month, but those will be clicks from highly motivated prospects.
This is obviously a time-consuming exercise, so determining certainty as to the best-converting keywords is essential. One way to judge these is a small-scale Adwords campaign linked to a relatively basic landing page that can prove which terms actually convert.
Don’t put all your hopes (and SEO) in your Home page
It’s a frequent mistake to expect a home page to rank for every search term you’d like to rank for. As discussed in the first point, search intent can vary hugely depending on where each person may be in the buying process. This can frequently mean that the website becomes a portal that will be burdened with having to answer all possible concerns.
This can also mean that any SEO efforts revolve solely around the fortunes of the Home page. For instance, all keywords determined become stuffed into the page, and its metadata, all backlinks are focused on the Home page, and all user behaviour is expected to flow from this common origin.
No page should be the repository for all the keywords (or variants) that you’re trying to rank for unless it’s one or two, and then it will be a thoroughly confusing place for a search engine, let alone for a prospect. In addition, building a website with several landing pages can also mean there’s scope to develop some tailored user pathways to conversion.
Finally, with more landing pages, you can more closely optimise for a keyword (or a family of keywords) that you’re trying to rank for, as well as compartmentalise the development of each one, or for that matter, easy removal.
Don’t forget local SEO, it’s not all about the organic listings
Almost all clients who want to use my services want a boost in the organic rankings. This is obviously a reasonable expectation. However, when I explain that there is something that they can influence, generally more quickly, that is higher than the organic listings, then they tend to get excited.
Sometimes, the Google searches that produce maps with nearby businesses have completely passed them by as an opportunity to be grasped. Frequently, they will have done little else for their local listing than verify their Google Business Profile (GBP) listing.
However, you have the bare bones of a high-ranking local listing with a fully populated GBP, the most applicable categorisation, a good spectrum of photos, and a few positive reviews.
Harness this comprehensive listing with a range of other contributing directories, and you will have a powerful source that may be a greater traffic generation source than through the traditional listings on search engine results pages!
Consider pay-per-click. That’s right, Adwords.
Surely, hiring SEO consultants is often to stop the perennial splashing out on pay-per-click!
However, Adwords should be a definite consideration in the potential research of big search volume (which often prove to be vanity) keywords. It may take double-figure months, if not years, to possibly rank for certain highly competitive phrases.
Adwords can be a great way to sanity check if the phrase is actually going to be the highly converting keyword of your dreams. And you’ll get the result almost immediately (well, once you’ve devised a compelling ad, a highly optimised landing page and made any changes to the site to exploit this traffic).
The good news is that if you find that you have a gem, you’ve also pre-built much of the framework that can be exploited for SEO. In fact, with a pre-built highly optimised landing page, you may have found that it’s already in the search engine rankings in the organic listings!
SEO is more than just ranking for keywords – it’s about strengthening your brand!
Many prospects are surprised to discover that, on average, 80% of the organic traffic they receive comes from people who were looking for them anyway.
What do I mean by this? Well, most non-optimised sites receive almost all their traffic from people looking for them by their company or brand names.
Awareness of this makes it all the more important for many of your non-website assets to be as claimed, optimised, and populated as possible to maximise phone enquiries, website visits, and even visits to your physical location.
Consider, for instance, your Google Business Profile. This is much more prominent on Google searches, particularly on mobile devices, which are frequently shown above the organic results. Additionally, this asset is much more attention-grabbing than your own site regarding organic results, so investing time and effort into optimising this vital piece of real estate makes sense! Below are just a few things to consider.
All of these things help not only in your presence on the map pack but also make for a convincing portrayal that means your prospects will likely then go on to visit your website.
Are you sure you know who’s really undertaking your small business SEO?
How sure are you that the small business SEO services you commit to are done in-house? You might be surprised by the number of these services subcontracted to white-label offshore SEO agencies. The profit margins for an agency you employ may be very lucrative, but the impact can be immense since what control does the agency you’re dealing with have over these subcontractors?
When interviewing prospective suppliers, I’d always recommend you determine this from the outset since your online reputation and existence are at stake. For me, all the work is done by myself, so there aren’t account managers who are then passing on, possibly incorrect, information to their own technical staff or whoever they are using to undertake the SEO services.
However, should you want something from me that is a specialism of mine, say copywriting or a full-blown website, then I can always put you in touch with some great suppliers I work with within these areas who I’m confident will be able to do both a cost-effective and highly competent job.
It’s not just small business SEO!
There’s a lot more to digital marketing than just search engine optimisation services. It’s worth looking at your other digital assets that might be already being used or never considered. Every client has their preferences and prejudices, so it’s well worth looking into how these channels may play their part in your overall digital marketing mix.
Frequently Asked Questions about small business SEO services
Is SEO worth it for small business?
The temptation is to look at marketing areas that can be free marketing, like social media, or fully paid marketing for immediate results, like Adwords and Facebook ads. However, search engine searches drive 22% of all website visits, making it “one of the largest traffic producers for most brands (if not the largest),” according to Merkle’s 2019 Digital Media report.
Taking this into account, search is a huge sales channel to overlook. And it’s not just Google, there are other search engines like Bing and DuckDuckGo to consider and even less obvious opportunities for optimisation including Facebook and YouTube.
Why is SEO important for small businesses?
There are frequently two types of small businesses in 2024. Either one that generally serves the local community or one that is largely solely dependent on online sales. Of course, there can also be a mixture of these two types.
Both types have somewhat different SEO needs, but both have a high reliance on their online visibility. Their presence on Google Business Profile can be crucial for the local shop, as can their reviews featured on it. On the other hand, small online businesses will have a high need for exposure in Google Shopping snippets.
What is SEO and how does it work for small businesses?
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a range of techniques employed across a range of on-page (your website) or (off-page) other websites and platforms across the internet.
This works for large and small businesses alike, but the order and degree of these services can vary significantly depending on the size of a company.
For instance, a single-location local small business may need to focus more on its local SEO profile, given that most of its sales are driven by traffic to its location.
How does SEO helps your business?
SEO helps small businesses in a range of ways. It can help raise company awareness with its website profile across various directory listings.
It can improve and help convert customers by seeing their reviews across various platforms. Publishing articles and infographics can also help raise awareness and establish a small enterprise as a thought leader in its respective sectors.
Finally, it can help to determine what its audiences are actually searching for to assist the small business in being visible for the prevalent search terms that the company may have overlooked.
Do you only work with small businesses?
SEO for SMEs makes up about 99% of the SEO work that I undertake. However, given that the definition for an SME is up to 249 employees and makes up almost 99.9% of all UK businesses, it’s fair to say that I serve the majority of businesses.
So why not larger enterprises? Given the frequent number of locations, normally huge number of product or service inventories and frequent high dependence on existing e-commerce platforms, I believe that for such organisations, there needs to be continual SEO is undertaken, which my business model doesn’t do adequate justice to since for such organisations I’d be practically having to work full time which would mean I couldn’t serve the rest of my client base.
A sacrifice I’m just not prepared to make. That being said, I do serve much larger organizations that are franchises, where I will serve one or a number of their franchises to assist in their local SEO presence.