How an SEO roadmap can be very important for your small business

An SEO Roadmap can have a profound impact on your ability to get leads and sales as a small business, but this article will highlight some practical values of an SEO Roadmap. 

Let’s face it, in inflationary times and times of uncertainty from an economic standpoint, it’s hard to part with the money it takes to engage with a digital marketing agency. We get it. 

And we (as an agency aligned with small and medium business) try to do some things differently than most digital marketing agencies for small businesses. For instance we can usually provide enough value for our per hour a la carte pricing, that our overall total cost per month yields better results and better value than other agency peers. We also engage at lower total spend levels and have a better ROI proposition than our peers. 

But that flexibility from a digital agency is sometimes not enough – sometimes as a small business you need to source a contractor from a geographic location that has a lower wage structure than the USA. Sometimes you need to count on internal employees or yourself to do the work.

There are a lot of problems that can come with that decision. This article is going to talk about how an SEO roadmap can add a lot of value to your small business – especially if you are implementing the work yourself (or in-house) or hiring a freelancer to implement your digital marketing strategy. 

What is an SEO Roadmap?

Generally speaking, an SEO roadmap is a document that helps you understand the best ways to leverage resources to achieve the most important and the best ROI related goals in the SEO space for your digital footprint. That is: A guide for the important action items, the steps needed to make the goals a reality, and the markers on a map of where to go related to Search Engine Optimization. 

You can read this article (about SEO Roadmaps and their definition) for a more in depth article on SEO roadmaps and what they will generally consist of. You can also read articles in the blog tag for SEO that will have multiple articles about SEO roadmaps that will help you understand the ways they can be leveraged to help you bring in additional revenue and produce a better bottom line. 

Why is an SEO Roadmap an essential piece of the Planning process for a Small Business?

As a small business you are likely to be “in the weeds” on many facets of your business, and if you aren’t behind, you’re juggling a lot of moving pieces. Having an SEO roadmap keeps things in the front of your view, and allows you to provide oversight and give priority or presence to the most important, or most cost effective, or more ROI -aligned tasks from an SEO perspective. And those goals or priorities can shift, so having a “map” gives you options but also keeps you focused on moving toward your ultimate destination. 

As most small businesses are aware, SEO can have a dramatic positive impact on their growth and lead generation and business development channels. SEO can be a source of buy-through, and it can be relatively cheap on a long-term basis compared to other channels like PPC/CPC for small businesses. 

If you’ve got an immutable set of must-do tasks, and that is combined with a choice for pivoting when necessary, you can get a lot of things done over time with SEO. And for a small business, while it would be ideal to front load all of your SEO work and reap the benefits sooner rather than later, it may not be completely executable as a strategy.

What are the pitfalls with Small business SEO and the hurdles for some small businesses?

Small businesses can sometimes not have the free cash flow, or resources to devote to a full-time, agency style SEO program. Many cannot even hire an in-house professional to do implementation of SEO strategy. So, while we are a full-service small business digital agency who would love to be working with you, we realize sometimes it’s too early to engage on a long-term SEO journey together.

The following are some reasons why small businesses can’t implement a proper SEO program for growth and lead generation:

• Agencies might be too expensive at this time
• Owners may not be able to understand the ways they need to oversee, and maintain control over the campaign
• SEO “professionals” are not all top class talent
• Some people say they can implement full-service SEO programs, but they may be a “one trick pony” and that can lead to a lot of misunderstanding, lost money and wasted time/lost opportunity
• Freelancers can be affordable in other countries or on a part time basis, but they are hard to monitor and effectiveness may be a dubious concept in real world scenarios
• Small business owners might want to do the work, but not have the right understanding of when and how an impact is realized from SEO work on their small business website 

Here’s how this problem can be solved using these bullet points:

Agencies might be too expensive at this time

If you have an SEO roadmap built by a reputable SEO company, you can implement the plan at rates less than their hourly rate – which admittedly can range from moderate to exorbitant. 

So, while they are pricey, you are paying once for exceptional experience and competency and your total cost outlay can yield much better total value. You engage with a reputable SEO agency (we’d put our hat in the ring on that one), and you get a finely tuned audit and roadmap of what you need now, in the intermediate term and over the long-term from actual SEO experts. 

So, you can hire freelancers, or other contractors to help you implement an SEO program that is easy to understand and aligns with your business and where it’s at on a growth trajectory and from a positional placement. 

Owners may not be able to understand the ways they need to oversee, and maintain control over the campaign

As a business owner you can be wearing a lot of hats. No one is expecting you to understand how to do SEO. But when you understand what has value, what needs to be prioritized and the reasoning behind those tasks and goals, you can better oversee a project that relates to SEO. 

And it’s your job to get customers, and help the business to be successful. So, you need to know something about this SEO work.

It’s true what you often hear: “I spent $10,000+ with SEO firms and can’t even be sure I benefited at all as a small business”. That DOES happen. Usually it’s a combination of factors, not the least of which is that we have a lot of Fake Gurus in our industry. But as a business owner, the buck stops with you, so you need to know how to control those bucks. SEO is a proven value to MOST small and medium businesses, but you need to know that you are getting something – so SEO roadmaps help you get deliverables, and not just theory and endless hourly invoices.

An SEO roadmap and retaining an SEO agency for hourly consulting as needed, can help you define and run campaigns, projects and other things with a freelancer, or your nephew, a spouse, or business employee. Basically – you will know how to control costs, and help to focus those who are helping you, to get leads, and ultimately make more money. 

SEO “professionals” are not all top class talent

Again, we have a lot of fly by night, unscrupulous, people in this industry. And more importantly, SEO “specialists” exist in droves, that are maybe 1 week more educated than you are about SEO, in this industry. 

You cannot afford to lose money and worse: lost opportunity on people who aren’t able to implement best practices. So, when you are hiring for an SEO position, or overseeing a contract, you need to know they are doing what’s in your best interest for your company as an SEO purveyor. 

An agency that provides SEO roadmaps can be seen almost like a fiduciary for your marketing and SEO funds.

Some people say they can implement full-service SEO programs, but they may be a “one trick pony” and that can lead to a lot of misunderstanding, lost money and wasted time/lost opportunity

A lot of SEO people are good at some part of SEO, but in order to impress a company enough to hire them, they tend to embellish. We had to curate a whole team of people to meet the varied needs of our clients over the years – it wasn’t easy and it wasn’t cheap. No one person can do it all, the marketing spectrum is too diverse and fluid to be able to. 

Instead of worrying that you are hiring the right person for SEO, an SEO roadmap and the support of an agency in an hourly or a la carte fashion, to help you get SEO done properly can be beneficial.

How so?

• An SEO Roadmap can tell you which projects to give to which freelancer or contractor. 
• It can help to segmentize your contractors to improve on their throughput and total value
• We (or your agency that provides you SEO roadmap) has already vetted contractors (some agencies do – we do), that may be able to help you at lower rates than industry average
• There will be no second guessing if a contractor’s work is aligned with your business needs
• As an SEO agency that supports its clients, we will be able to sit down with your chosen freelancers or implementation people (even if it’s an employee or family member) and help them do the job properly – the total outlay of costs is generally significantly lower than a full work contract with an agency 

Freelancers can be affordable in other countries or on a part time basis, but they are hard to monitor and effectiveness may be a dubious concept 

We have partnerships and we even have a company that we operate in a foreign country that helps with SEO work for certain clients where budget may be a concern. Usually we are able to help them recognize lower total all-in digital marketing costs through these channels, because of the lower labor hours price tag. You can call us for help in understanding if this solution makes sense for you.

And you can utilize existing platforms selectively, like Upwork or Fiverr to get specific tasks done at a savings, some of the time. Fair Warning, hiring on these platforms can have its challenges as well, and you should be well-versed on SEO needs prior to engaging with a contractor in the space. 

With a proper SEO roadmap, you can make sure your freelancer has tasks to do, and when there is some conflict, we can back up our roadmap reasoning, and help keep a contractor working on things that matter most for your ROI and business growth. 

Small business owners might want to do the work, but not have the right understanding of when and how an impact is realized from SEO work on their small business website 

Having some coaching and a bit of understanding through a collective arrangement with an SEO agency, and having a documented roadmap, you as a business owner would be able to implement a bit of the SEO strategy yourself, as you find time to do it. You can also find ways for employees to contribute, without having to hire a new person to get some basics done on your web presence.

Of course, you may not be in the position to do the work yourself – which is why you’re landing on this page, because you’re probably looking for a service provider to help you do the work. 

If that’s the case: we perform Small Business SEO work. We appreciate your consideration.

But as you learn and see work being done, SEO will become a bit less of ‘black magic sorcery’, and more of an indisputable, easy to understand process that aligns with best practices from a marketing perspective. If you have the right tooling in place – and in this case the SEO roadmap is part of that tooling; then you can work wonders as you have downtime in your business, over the long-term.

We’d love to craft a custom-tailored SEO roadmap at an affordable price for you. We are leaders in SEO roadmap work for the Small and Medium Business space.