5 Reasons Why Hiring a Top SEO Consultant is Crucial for Small Business

“Want to know how an SEO consultant can save you time and effort while helping your business to make money online?
” A top SEO (Search Engine Optimization) consultant can do more for you than edit content to rank better in search results.
The fact is that small businesses, as a general rule, are struggling to make money online. Everyone is investing resources into SEO, social media, Internet marketing, mobile development and a host of other things – without seeing much return.
Unfortunately, most of the time and energy expended online by business is wasted through ineffective, poorly conceived, misguided and, sometimes, destructive Internet marketing strategies.
This article will show why business tends to suck at Internet marketing, SEO and social media. Followed by a discussion on how a little bit of accurate, intelligent, relevant and customized SEO and marketing advice can channel your business resources into driving traffic and gaining customers.

Some of the major reasons that businesses aren’t as competitive online as they are in the real world (although, in business terms the Internet is quickly becoming “the real world”) are:
MisinformationInformation overloadLack of understandingLack of expertiseUnrealistic expectationsPoor planning & strategyLack of resources
SEO, social media and Internet marketing are medium term investments – they take time, skill and determination to get right.
Did you start your business overnight for $20 per month? Probably not. So why should you expect business rules to change on the Internet?
Resist the urge to believe that business success online comes in the form of $20 per month marketing & SEO services.
The most important thing you can do in order to start succeeding online is to change your mindset.
Recognize that the Internet is an important component in your business. Work out how important it is in terms of the percentage of your business it could/should make up.
Assign it a value. Invest in it accordingly.
If you haven’t already done this then that is your first and most immediate problem.
However, simply determining how much SEO, social media and Internet marketing are worth to your business may take the skills of an experienced SEO consultant.
In my article entitled Why small business is making a mess of social media, I highlighted many reasons why businesses fail online – especially with regards to social media and social marketing.
This time I am going to look at the other side of the coin and focus on all the ways in which a business can succeed online through SEO and marketing intelligence, creativity, focus, skill and experience.
Remember that it is not your job as a business to have the skills and expertise it requires to succeed online. It is your job to succeed regardless of the skills and expertise you have in-house
.
Hiring a top SEO consultant is arguably the most cost efficient and effective way to do succeed sooner rather than later. But be warned, it’s not always easy to find the right person. I recommend you read How to hire an SEO consultant or Internet marketer to get a better feel for the task.
Many businesses have no idea what to expect from the Internet. Most small business owners have been weaned on stories of overnight success. Many are seduced by ridiculous promises of huge returns for small investments (i.e. get to the top of Google search for only $9.99 per month
).
Many SEO and marketing businesses are unscrupulous and bend the truth
about what you can expect from their services. Sure, they may get you to the top spot on Google search for $10 per month, but I can guarantee it will be for a relatively useless, long tail search term that drives no traffic whatsoever.
The fact of the matter is that, on the Internet, as in traditional business, you don’t get something for nothing.
A good SEO consultant will help you to determine realistic targets based on your business, the market, and available resources. This will help inform your own expectations so that you can make informed decisions about how to proceed.
Many small businesses I talk to have a website, a blog, social media accounts, they’ve tried PPC ads, and much more. Very few of them understand what they are doing
. They may know what they want to achieve, but not how to go about it.
An SEO consultant can tell you why it is important to do certain things and in a certain way in order to have the maximum benefit.
Despite the fact that you are paying a top SEO industry professional for their time, the amount of money you will save over the short, medium and long term will far exceed this investment.
Having someone who understands online business, developments in search engine marketing, social media, new technologies, trends and changes in Internet marketing, and so on, helps to focus your efforts where they will be most effective.
Here’s a quick example:
What percentage of your online marketing activities go to social media? Do you know what percentage of eCommerce sales social media drives?
You should do, since this probably relevant to your business (unless you specifically need to rely on social media
).
According to Forrester research, social media contributes 1% of eCommerce revenue. Knowing that, and combined with the fact that the majority of all Internet traffic originates with search, do you feel that your online marketing efforts are properly focused?
A good SEO consultant can inform your strategy and decisions early on so that you don’t have to learn
from costly and time consuming mistakes.
Generating plenty of content for your business website or blog is great. But how effective is your SEO? Are your articles ranking in the top page on Google?
I’ll lead by example here:
SEO Entrepreneur is a blog dedicated to everything that businesses and entrepreneurs need in order to succeed online. As a result, it is important for the site to rank well for search terms like:
Click on these links to see how SEO Entrepreneur dominates Google search results for these highly competitive terms.
A good SEO consultant can help your content perform like this in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) so that your business enjoys plenty of sustained and highly relevant organic search traffic.
Not only that, but a truly top SEO consultant will be able to look at your Web platform and tell you things like:
“Yes, your CSS and JS aggregation is working, webpages are gzipped, but your server is not making proper use of APC to cache PHP in order to speed up the server response time
“.
In other words, look for an SEO consultant who is also programmer/developer, knows HTML and CSS, understands CMS platforms, as well as the standard SEO skills. There are very few individual consultants who can advise sensibly on the entire spectrum of SEO and Internet marketing, so be prepared to pay well for the right person.
Everything I have talked about so far has been about planning and proper implementation. But that is only one side of the coin. Once your business is doing all the right things to drive traffic and get people interested, you still have to convert them into fans, followers or paying customers.
A good SEO consultant will also be able to analyze and refine your strategy to help get the most of the burgeoning traffic arriving at your business website. After all, the point is to make more money.
In other words, not only should an SEO consultant help to reduce costs by focusing your resources into effective activities based on the specific requirements of your business, but (s)he will also be able increase revenue, using analytics and design, to help maximize ROI (Return on Investment)
That’s what I think an SEO consultant should be able to do for your business. At least, that is one of the things I will be telling the people at SAICA when I give a talk on Internet marketing next week.
Has your business succeeded in making money online through SEO, Internet marketing and social media? Has your business failed? Share your thoughts and advice on the best way to convert the enormous business potential of the Internet into cold hard cash.
Follow me on your favorite social media, or sign up to my newsletter to get all the latest SEO, marketing and business advice.

View the original article here