So you are in the Dallas area and think SEO will save your business or you just think you should probably be doing something with your website? Maybe your competitor is killing it on the internet and they’re everywhere on Google? If this sounds anything remotely like your current internet pains, then you’ve come to the right place. I, as the Dallas SEO Guide, am here to educate you on whether SEO is a home run for your company or it’s not worth your time and money. 

I’m of the opinion that SEO isn’t a must for all businesses in all industries but is a must for a lot of businesses in a lot of industries. Sorry if that was hard to follow. Let me simplify it. Is SEO going to be a homerun for you? It depends. A lot of business owners that I speak with have tried to do SEO with no results or have an SEO service being done for them are getting little to no results. There’s a lot of shady companies and agencies out there that really do just the bare minimum while making it sound like a big service. This makes SEO look bad. I’m here to shed some light on what SEO is and how it actually works. But first here are some tell-tale signs you’re getting ripped off. 

How to Know If Your Dallas SEO Company Sucks 

• If your SEO company is a newspaper first and foremost then yes you’re probably getting a terrible service. I’m looking at you Fort Worth Star and Dallas Morning News! Don’t do digital marketing with companies that were reluctant to move into the new age of advertising. They’re really bad at it.  

• They have a cookie cutter site design that they sold you on. Companies like Dex Media & Reach Local all have prepackaged websites that they’ll change colors on based on your business and give you a few basic pages. Then charge you a monthly fee for poorly done tracking services that are a lot cheaper on other platforms. Not every business is the same and as such needs a custom website with special considerations for each industry. 

• The only obvious deliverable is they write blogs. A lot of SEO agencies will write blogs for their clients saying that it’s really important for SEO. It is something that helps to a small degree but if that’s the only thing that you can tell that they’re doing you need to jump ship. 

• They are building you local citations or directories like Yelp, Google Places, and Yellow Pages every month. These need to all be done right after the site is optimized and if they’re not doing all of these correctly within the first month I’d say you’re losing a lot of money with their SEO service. 

• If they’re creating a ton of pages dedicated to one keyword in a specific city/area on your website. For example, if you see pages on your website that are titled similarly to “Plumber Dallas”, “Clogged Drain Dallas”, “Plumbing Company Dallas”, “Plumbing Services Dallas”, and “Emergency Plumber Dallas”, this is spam and will only make Google hate your website. 

• If your SEO contract is for less than $1000/month you’re either getting the deal of a lifetime or you’re getting a service where they spend less than an hour a month thinking about you. I’m pretty sure it’s the latter. 

• Next time you get your SEO guy on the phone ask him how many clients he is working with. If he hesitates and says anything north of 15 then you’re not really getting the attention you’re paying for.  

Being in the SEO business for as long as I have it drives me nuts when I see people come to me and tell me their agency is doing these things above. They’re just taking your money and making SEO look like snake oil.

When deciding if SEO is for you need to consider a few things. Let’s jump into that here. 

How Do Your Customers/Clients Find You? 

If your clients or customers would have typically found you in the phone book back in the days before Google then odds are SEO is a good fit for you. Google in a lot of ways is just a replacement for the phone book when it comes to local businesses. Rather than looking for a plumber or dentist in their phone book people now pull up Google at home or on their phone. If your business isn’t traditionally something people look for and requires a certain amount of awareness, like a new invention or product, then SEO may not be the best plan of action for your business. 

If you’re a realtor, car dealership, tourist attraction, or any business where people tend to find you on certain websites like Zillow, cars.com, or trip advisor SEO can still work for you but less so and I wouldn’t recommend you pour all of your marketing budget into SEO.  

The Basics of Local SEO: Start Here 

Local SEO in Dallas has changed a lot over the years. The basics are all still generally the same but tactics of how to implement the basics and what is emphasized changes all the time. As long as you have the foundation your business’s website will be in good shape. But do you want to be in good shape or do you want to dominate and be everywhere on Google when potential customers look for you and your competitors on Google? Google is a gold mine of leads and targeted customers. 

Your Business Address. Make or Break? 

Always start with your business address. If you’re a local business everything that you are to Google is based around your location. Your business address is your foundation when it comes to ranking on Google. What I mean by that is when someone searches for “Plumber”, “Roofer”, “Dentist”, “Under Water Basket Weaver [Symbol]”, or whatever your business does in their area Google considers you more relevant if you’re in closer proximity to them and will rank you higher. If you’re in Dallas but they’re in Fort Worth then you obviously see what I’m talking about. 

It’s pretty much next to impossible to rank for any local based keyword without a visible address to Google. You can of course hide your address on Google maps in the case that you don’t have a retail location and don’t want customers walking in the door, like most roofers, plumbers, and other contractors, but you need to tell Google where your base of operations are. 

Your Website Sucks! 

OK, it might not suck but odds are it does. It’s losing you customer! Well odds are anyway.  In order to illustrate the pitfalls that are Let’s say you walk into an interview for a job and you’re in a wrinkled T-shirt.