SEO · Worth it?
Three situations where SEO is a waste of money, a worked example with real numbers for the rest, and how to check search demand yourself in twenty minutes.
No search demand, no SEO
Expect months, not weeks, before it pays
Fix the website before ranking it
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Most advice about whether SEO is worth it comes from people who sell SEO, and I’m one of them, so take what follows with whatever pinch of salt you think fair. Here is my answer anyway. SEO is worth it for a small business when two things are true: people already search Google for what you sell in the area you sell it, and you plan to be in business two years from now. If both are true, it is usually one of the cheapest sources of inquiries you’ll ever have. If either is false, spend the money somewhere else.
There’s a third condition that people forget, which is that your website has to be able to turn a visitor into an inquiry. Ranking a site that doesn’t convert is like paying for a storefront on Main Street and leaving the door locked.
I’d rather tell you this now than six months into a contract.
Some businesses sell something people don’t look for. A new kind of product, a very specialized industrial service with forty possible buyers in the country, a business that wins all its work through tenders or referrals. SEO can only capture demand that already exists. It can’t create it. For these businesses, LinkedIn, trade shows, partnerships and plain old phone calls usually do better.
SEO is slow. This is my own view from watching a lot of sites rather than a published figure, but a new or neglected site rarely produces meaningful inquiries from organic search in under four to six months, and competitive terms take longer. If the business needs revenue in the next 60 days, Google Ads will get you in front of the same searchers tomorrow, and you can start SEO once there’s breathing room. Our comparison of SEO and PPC goes through the trade-off.
If the site is slow, confusing on a phone, has no clear phone number and a contact form that emails a mailbox nobody reads, more traffic just means more people leaving. Fix that first. Our guide on websites that don’t generate leads has the usual suspects.
Here are the numbers I’d want a client to run before signing anything. They are illustrative, so replace them with yours.
Say a commercial cleaning company gets one extra inquiry a week from search. It closes one in four, and the average new customer is worth $3,000 in the first year at a 40 percent gross margin.
Now the part that explains why the two-year condition matters. SEO doesn’t start producing on day one. If the extra inquiries only begin around month six, the first year gives you half of that: roughly $7,800 in gross profit. The second year gives you the full $15,600, plus whatever those first-year customers spend again. So the first year often looks like break-even at best, and the second year is where the money is. A business that might close or sell in 12 months never gets to the good part.
Turn the sum around and you have a useful test for any SEO proposal. If the monthly fee is more than the gross profit a realistic number of extra leads would produce once things are working, the arithmetic doesn’t work, however good the pitch. For what SEO usually costs, see how much SEO costs for a small business.
If your five phrases add up to a few hundred searches a month in your area, SEO is very likely worth a serious try. If they add up to almost nothing, believe the numbers.
Three or four things, more or less in this order. A complete and active Google Business Profile, which for local businesses often produces calls before the website ranks for anything. A separate page for each main service, and for each city you genuinely serve, written with real detail rather than swapped place names. Reviews, asked for every time a job goes well. And patience about the rest, because links and authority build slowly. Our local SEO checklist covers the details.
One more opinion, for what it’s worth. Be wary of anyone who promises the top spot on Google or a set number of leads; Google’s own SEO guide says plainly that no one can promise a number-one ranking. Ask instead what they’ll do in the first 90 days and how you’ll know whether it’s working.
Our SEO service is billed month to month, and you can cancel after any month. I prefer it that way. If it isn’t working, you shouldn’t be locked into paying for it, and if it is, you won’t want to leave.
If you’d like to know whether SEO makes sense for your business before spending anything, book a free 30-minute call. We look at your site and your search demand and tell you what we’d change first, or tell you SEO isn’t the right spend yet. Pick a time.
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In my experience (this is my judgment, not a published benchmark), most small businesses should plan on six months before organic search produces a steady flow of inquiries and a year or more before it has clearly paid back. Local businesses with a good Google Business Profile can see calls sooner. Anyone promising results in weeks is either very lucky or not telling you something.
Usually, yes, because people search for local services with their wallet already out: “emergency plumber near me” is not idle browsing. Start with your Google Business Profile, reviews and a page per service, then build from there.
Some of it, certainly. Claiming and completing your Google Business Profile, asking for reviews and writing useful pages about your services are all things an owner can do. Technical fixes, site structure and steady content are where most owners run out of time rather than ability.
Look at Search Console before deciding. If impressions are rising but clicks aren’t, the titles or pages need work. If impressions are flat, the strategy or the demand is wrong. Either way, that’s why I think month-to-month contracts are the fair way to sell SEO.
