This conversation is happening both in private (PMs), and in public. But I wanted to split something important, with redactions, for the benefit of others.
SEO vs Marketing
I've looked at your site. Buying "SEO" services would be like buying 6 inches of icing for a cake that's flat and 1 inch tall. As they say in my state, the site is "all hat, and no cattle".
SEO is simply:
- changing some site content
- trying, begging or buying links elsewhere ... often on non-helpful sites
- even worse, spam
But what you need is "marketing", not "SEO". SEO is just is a teeny tiny part of actual marketing. "SEO" firms are a dime a dozen, and is often a sole operation or small business with just a few people. Many times, they just outsource it -- sometimes even to India or Pakistan. (Indian/Pakistani SEO = spam crap, in almost all cases.)
Advertising vs Marketing/SEO
If you're going to spend $$$, don't waste it on SEO. Use it for advertising. That's a MUCH better use of your limited funds. Not Google AdSense, however, nor Facebook ads. Those are money pits for 99% of people. Those are only good if you have deep pockets, and already have business that you simply want to try and increase.
Honestly, even direct mail may be your best bet, for a local business. Same for local newspapers, magazines, etc. It really depends on the size and demographic is your local market. This is one reason local agencies tend to be best. Forgot about your websites when it comes to marketing, as your site is NOT your business. Ad, marketing, sites, etc -- that all works FOR the business. Those are just tools, like your business phone or printer.
Your Site
Your site, however, doesn't need an agency, or even anyone local. It needs work.
Problems:
- Flash-only elements (cannot be read by search engines, does not work on iOS, etc)
- Near-zero info on About page
- Somewhat sloppy design (elements run together, like the logo), with template feel
- "What" page = wall of text, and with similar font size for headings. Spacing issues. Dated to 3 year ago.
- Another page is 1 sentence
- Service page image is offset, runs of edge off page. No information, just headers or list
- Portfolio is again just a list
- Blog hasn't been updated in 2.5 years, and only has 2 entries
- Most of the pages lack any on-page SEO ... but it won't matter much where pages are sparse
The site honestly looks abandoned. It appears to be a site that was amateurishly thrown online with a template, partially completed, then forgotten. That's what it appears to be, therefore that's what it is to others. Even if you're a season pro, with a state-of-the-art office, your site looks like "blah" so you're blah. Image is everything.
So forget the SEO. Let's worry about the site design and content. To some degree, in the early stages of a site, "if you build it, they will come". (In later stages, "if you build you -- nobody cares!" But you're not there yet.)
Back to PM on this one.
Let's make this a tool for your business, not a waste of time/money.
Note: We actually spend so much time helping others, that we can't even keep up with our own site. So in some respects, it's "do as we say, not as we do". When this site makes huge changes, it often means we've had a slow month. Either that, or something takes months to finish before you see it appear here. We have LOTS of stuff unpublished right now, because it's not ready (incomplete drafts in the CMS).
Hosting Issues (EIG!)
The site is on an EIG server (
Hostgator,
Bluehost, Justhost, etc), as it's geotraced to Provo, Utah. I looked up the IP when the site began to crawl. Part of SEO is now site speed. EIG server are atrociously slow, and that's part of what will harm your ranking. It's especially harmful, as your site that been down for at least 3 whole days in recent months, because the DC was entirely offline. So there's something you can do right now to help the site's SEO -- move to a better host.
(We have some managed WordPress services, as that's what your site is running. I'll PM you with that. I can also suggest other hosts.)
Free SEO
Too bad you can't link your site here. In some small way, that'd actually help it's SEO. Not a huge boost, mind you, since this site is unrelated. But the in-post links are not no-follow, by choice. Not that no-follow is useless for SEO either, mind you. And this is one reason we zap spammers and even anything that looks suspicious. We have no problem sharing so-called "link juice" with site that deserve getting discussed. (This is how the web was supposed to work, back in 90s.)