Is SEO the right next investment for your business?
More quote requests won't help if your engineers are already fully booked or nobody follows up the enquiries you receive. Before you commit to SEO, check whether search is the problem worth spending money on next.
We recommend this check for industrial and commercial B2B businesses weighing up an SEO programme. You don't need perfect answers. You do need to know which gaps could stop the work delivering value.
Start with the work you want
Name the service, customer and area you want more business from. “More traffic” leaves too much unanswered. “More maintenance enquiries from facilities managers within our service area” gives you something to investigate.
Then check whether those buyers search for that work. Your sales conversations, existing enquiries and search data can help. Search volume alone won't tell you whether a term brings customers you can serve profitably.
If demand is unclear, investigate it before agreeing a large content programme.
Can the business handle the work?
A business owner may control the budget and still depend on a developer or operations manager to get changes made. A marketing manager may know exactly what needs doing but need permission to spend.
Treat these as separate questions:
- Who can approve the investment?
- Who can approve website changes and claims?
- Who will provide technical knowledge and review content?
- Who will respond to enquiries and record what happens?
If your team will write and implement with guidance, reserve time for it. If that time doesn't exist, ask what managed delivery would cover and what would still sit with you.
Check what needs fixing first
A broken quote form needs attention before you pay to send more visitors to it. Poor enquiry follow-up may deserve priority over another service page. A business testing an unfamiliar offer may need customer conversations before a search campaign.
Paid search can be worth comparing when timing matters and there is relevant demand. It has its own costs and limitations. SEO can't promise to meet a fixed sales deadline just because the business needs it to.
Check the supplier as well as the plan
Ask for relevant examples, the proposed first priorities and how progress will be measured. Find out who approves changes, who makes them and how you'll see what has been done.
Google recommends checking an SEO's references and asking about industry experience, expected results, success measures and communication. For an initial audit, its advice is to provide read-only Search Console access. Be wary of guaranteed first-place rankings or an agency that won't explain its methods. See Google's guide to hiring an SEO.
A useful proposal should also say what your own team must contribute. If the plan depends on your developer or technical experts, confirm their availability before approving it.
Choose your next step
Choose one of four next steps: start a defined programme, fix a prerequisite, investigate an uncertainty, or put the budget elsewhere for now.
Agree what evidence would change that decision. The right review date depends on your starting point, competition, implementation pace and buying cycle. There isn't one investment period that suits every engineering firm, contractor or industrial supplier.
Next: prepare your business case or check the break-even threshold.
Need to discuss the plan? Talk to Josh about your SEO investment.