HOW TO EVOLVE YOUR SEO COMPANY IN GRAND RAPIDS MICHIGAN Ten years ago, providing SEO services in Grand Rapids was rather easy, but has become increasingly more difficult with each passing year. I started my business in 2010 and quickly acquired a handful of clients and began optimizing. A few keywords on each page in strategic areas, linked their website from my own and to each other, submitted the sitemap to Google and boom, up the ranking ladder they went. I was one of three SEO companies in the area, so the competition was low and our pool of potential clients was growing as the need for SEO services became more obvious. Now it is 2019 and Google has practically turned their algorithm into a self-learning AI system measuring all the old stuff, plus location of the searcher, their searching habits, the amount of activity on your site, the frequency of updating, social queues, and on and on. Combine this with the fact that SEO providers are popping up under every rock, or that Grand Rapids is being prospected from all places around the globe; to say that “SEO in Grand Rapids is Challenging” is an understatement. So, what can be done to remain a thriving SEO company in Grand Rapids in 2019. There are several obvious things, like work hard, deliver what you promise, charge a fair price and communicate with your client. There are the less obvious, like choose a client demographic that fits your style, and provide services that you feel are important for that client pool, and lastly make friends with your clients by taking partial ownership for helping them succeed. Some SEO professionals are good at working with large businesses and doing huge projects with grand price tags, and others are best with small companies allowing for creative experiments, autonomous work, and relaxed trust. As a service business, you need to find the type of client you work with best and go after more like that. Owning your own SEO business is a lot of fun and even more enjoyable when you like the clients you are helping. Find customers, earn their trust, help them succeed, socialize outside of the project (golf, lunch, company events, etc.) and create a friendship that profits you and them in the long term. Find out what is most important to them, and provide existing services, research new options and experiment with ways of making their online presence achieve at least some of their goals. Let’s be real, not all of your clients are going to be a match. Some projects will come to an end naturally and you’ll go your own ways. However; there are those others that make your awesome self-employed life feel more like a crappy job with a crappy boss. Remember this, always be professional and protect your reputation, but also realize, you can FIRE a client. Just cut them loose, and don’t look back. Replace them as quickly as possible and then do what needs to be done (see the first suggestion). In the end it all comes back around to knowing your craft and putting your clients first. If you take excellent care of them, they will take care of you with ongoing retainers, new projects and business referrals. Good Luck!

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