Service
SEO for small business: the budget, the order, and when to say no
For a small business the SEO question is not what is possible but what is worth doing first on £399 a month. The answer is almost always the same: fix what stops Google indexing the site, fill in the Google Business Profile, rewrite the two service pages that already appear at positions 5 to 20, then ask every customer for a review. That sequence is the Local tier, 3-month minimum then monthly, one business per town and sector, confirmed personally in the reply. This page also says when not to buy SEO from us or from anyone.
The budget reality
What £399 a month buys, in hours and in outcomes
The Local tier is roughly eight to twelve hours of one experienced person's time a month, front-loaded into month one. That is enough to fix a small site's technical problems, build the profile properly, rewrite one page a month from query data, keep the profile and reviews moving, and read Search Console. It is not enough to write ten pages a month, chase links in a national market, or run advertising, and any company that promises those things at this price is either not doing them or doing them with a machine.
What the money should produce, by month, is on the pricing page under “how to judge it”: rising impressions for named searches by month three or four, traceable enquiries by month six, cost covered several times over by month twelve. For a small business the enquiry count is small in absolute terms (a remapping client in Chester went from 7 clicks a month to 42), and it is the direction and the value of each job that matter, not the percentage.
The order
Seven things, in the order they pay back
Each step is cheaper and faster than the one after it. Doing them in this order means the first month's money buys the fastest-showing work.
- 1
Open Search Console
Free, and the only place that shows which searches already show your site. If it does not exist we create it in week one. Every later decision comes from it.
- 2
Fix indexing and speed
Pages that are not indexed cannot rank, and a page that takes six seconds on a phone loses the visitor. Both are checked and fixed before any writing.
- 3
Build the Google Business Profile
Right category, every service ticked, real hours, photographs of your work, the review link ready. For a local business this moves the map pack within weeks and costs nothing but time.
- 4
Rewrite the pages already at positions 5 to 20
The query report shows them. A page Google already half-likes is the cheapest ranking gain on the site; a new page from nothing is the most expensive.
- 5
Ask every customer for a review
One sentence at the end of the job and the link the same evening. Steady reviews are the difference between third in the map pack and not listed.
- 6
Add the missing service page
The service you do that has no page. One a month, written after a fifteen-minute call with you, with your photographs.
- 7
Earn two mentions a month
The trade body, the supplier's stockist list, the directory people in your sector actually use. Never bought.
When not to buy SEO
Four situations where we tell a small business to keep its money
Nobody searches for it. Some services are bought on recommendation and never typed into Google. The audit checks the query volumes for your service and your area; if they are near zero, SEO cannot manufacture them, and we say so.
You need enquiries this month. SEO shows in months, not weeks. A business with an empty diary in March needs Google Ads in March, and the ads page explains how we run them and in what order with SEO.
The site cannot be edited. A builder that locks titles and pages cannot be optimised, and paying for SEO on it is paying for advice that cannot be acted on. Replace the site first; the smallest package we build is on the pricing page.
You cannot spare fifteen minutes a month. The pages come from a conversation with you about the work. Without it they are written from guesswork, and guessed pages do not rank. We would rather wait until you can.
What you can do yourself
The split between owner work and our work
An owner is better than we are at three things: photographing the work, asking for reviews, and knowing what customers ask on the phone. We give you a photo brief, the review wording, and a list of questions to note down, and those feed the pages.
We are better at the rest: reading Search Console, fixing what is broken, writing a page that answers a search, setting up structured data, and knowing what not to touch. The honest version of “can I do SEO myself” is in the guide on how much to spend: yes for the owner work, and the paid part is worth paying for when the searches exist.
Questions small businesses ask
Is SEO worth it for a business with one van or one shop?
If people search for what you do in the place you do it, yes, and the free audit checks that before anyone pays. A small business often has an advantage: the competitors are also small, and the one that fills in its profile and writes real pages wins the town. Where nobody searches for the service, we say so and suggest what would work instead.
What does the Local tier at £399 actually buy a small business?
Month one: the technical fixes, the profile built properly, the service pages rewritten. Every month after: one piece of work from your query data, the profile and reviews kept up, a check for anything broken, and the two-page report. Roughly eight to twelve hours of one person's time, more in the first month.
Can we do part of it ourselves to keep the cost down?
Yes. The profile upkeep, asking for reviews and taking photographs are things an owner does better than we can, and we give you the wording and the checklist. The technical work, the writing from query data and the reading of Search Console are the parts worth paying for. The guide on doing SEO yourself sets out the split honestly.
We tried an agency before and nothing happened. Why would this be different?
Usually because the previous work was content on a site with a technical problem, or a profile left untouched, or twelve months judged at month two. Ask for their reports and we will read them with you in the audit and say what was missing. Shared Search Console access from week one means this time you can see for yourself.
Do you take one small business per town?
One business per town and sector on the Local tier, confirmed personally in the reply to the quote form. If your town and sector are taken we say so in the first line.
Is a three-month minimum a risk for a small budget?
It is the shortest period in which anything can be judged, and it is the honest one. A company that offers month to month from day one is planning to be judged on nothing. The £150 audit is the smaller commitment: the diagnosis alone, credited against month one if you go ahead.
Find out whether SEO is worth it for your business before you pay for it
Send the site and your town. The audit checks whether the searches exist, what the three businesses above you did, and whether the answer is SEO, ads, or neither yet.