Runs every strategy call DJ Van Zanten
Co-Founder, Digital Marketing Consultant & Business Coach
Runs every strategy call. Over 20 years of experience and has consulted with over 1,000 businesses.
Small business SEO
Small business SEO services that spend your budget in the right order.
More calls from Google for owner-run service businesses, with each month’s budget going first to the work most likely to bring in jobs.
- Owner-run service businesses
- Six-month starting term
- Reports in calls and leads
Byers Septic Service
Organic visits a month, before and after
9X91
799
BeforeWith Lithium
9X the organic visits: 91 a month before a new website and SEO, 799 after. Byers ran Google Ads with Lithium too.
Google PartnerView our Partners listing
5.0on Google · read our reviews
2010Lithium Marketing, established in 2010
$10M+Over $10 million in Google ad spend managed
Businesses
we’ve worked with
Businesses we’ve worked with
- Willard Power Vac
- Sarkinen Plumbing
- Robinson Restoration
- Town & Country Glass
- Dixie Glass
- Byers Septic Service
- F&W Fence Co.
- Drake’s 7 Dees
- Rickabaugh Construction
- Hillsview Building
- Dozer Dave
- Mt. Hood Pro Painting
- On-Target Landscape
- Atiyeh Bros Carpet
- Lovett
- Westmore Construction
- Northwest New Homes
- Porter Sealcoating & Paving
- RescueHero Restoration
- Panda Plumbing
- Biermann Plumbing & Heating
- Ballistic Junk Removal
- Smart Doors LLC
- Peak Performance Roofing
- Deluxe Heating & Cooling
- Lifetime Exteriors
- Bruce Johnson Construction
- Madrone Painting
- Smart Tree Service
- Premier Gutter Cover
- NW Pacific Electric
- Universal HVAC
- Lenny Martin Painting
- Next Level Decks & Exteriors
- Prodan Construction
- Smooth Rollin’ Sealcoating and Paving
- Lovett Restoration
- Greenlight Titles
- G.W. Hartley IV
- Advanced Coatings
- Thomson Equipment
- MyADU
SEO for a small business
What does SEO do for a small service business?
SEO puts your business in front of people who are already searching for the work you do, and Google never charges you when one of them clicks.
Gets you into the map
Search “septic pumping near me” and Google shows a map and a short list of local companies, each with a call button, above the regular results. A complete profile and steady reviews are how a small company earns a spot in that list.
Matches the job they typed
Buyers search the job itself: drain cleaning, fence repair, water damage cleanup. SEO makes the words on your site match those searches, so Google can tell exactly which work you do.
Competes on proof, not ad budget
Clear pages, real reviews and the same business details everywhere let a small company hold its own towns against much bigger names.
Shows which searches paid
Call tracking and GA4 tie each call and form to the page that produced it, so you can see which work brought customers and put the next dollar there.
What to do first
Where should a small business start with SEO?
Start with your Google Business Profile, then fix what is holding the website back, then give each service and each town you work in its own page.
- 1Start here
Get the Google Business Profile right
Choose categories for the work you do, list every service, mark the towns you cover, keep your hours current and post real photos of your crew on the job. Google’s own advice for local ranking starts with complete, accurate business information.
- 2Next
Fix the website before adding to it
Slow pages on phones, pages Google has never indexed and missing schema hold back anything you add later, so those get repaired before a single new page goes up.
- 3Then
Give each service and town a page
Write a page for every service that brings in good money and every town where you take jobs, each with real detail about the work. If the only difference between two town pages is the town name, one of them shouldn’t exist.
Small business SEO results
Two local companies that started out buried on Google.
A fence builder and a restoration company, with each figure taken from that client’s published case study.
Fence
F&W Fence Co. grew its ranking keywords about 4X.
The fence searches that bring quote requests were going to other companies. Lithium built F&W a new website and an SEO program around those searches, and its ranking keywords went from 190 to 745 while organic traffic rose 138%, to over 630 visits a month.
F&W’s Google Ads, also run by Lithium, sit outside those organic numbers.
F&W Fence Co.
Keywords the site ranks for on Google
4X190
745
BeforeWith Lithium
Robinson Restoration
26X
more organic traffic
Who you work with
A small business SEO company with names and faces.
Your first call is with a co-founder, and the team that plans your SEO is the team you keep talking to every month after it.
Runs every strategy call 
Kurt Schell
Co-Founder, SEO, PPC & CRO Expert
Founded the business in 2010. Oversees operations and crafts high-ROI marketing programs.
Allison McKenney
Account Manager
Your day-to-day point of contact who keeps projects running smoothly.
Small business SEO pricing
How much should a small business spend on SEO?
Budget $1,300 to $3,000 a month for a typical SEO retainer with Lithium, measured against the revenue a single lead brings in.
$1,300–$3,000
per month
For a small company, that pays for the profile work, site fixes and new pages in the steps above, plus link building, call tracking and the monthly report.
“Lithium Marketing is awesome to work with and the results you’ll get are outstanding. Once I started working with them I saw increase in my online presence and my sales increased too. I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for help with marketing!”
Matt JohnsonOn-Target Landscape“I highly recommend Dj Van Zanten if you need any help with your website and your internet marketing.”
Dave TurinDozer DaveFAQ
Small business SEO questions, answered.
Still curious?
Call (503) 766-5964 or email [email protected].
Is SEO worth it for a small local business?
SEO is usually worth it for a small local business when people search for the work you do in the towns you serve. The fit is weaker when hardly anyone searches for what you sell, or when you need calls this week: Google Ads usually shows first results inside a week, while SEO takes months to pay off.
How long until SEO brings in calls for a small business?
For a small business, local rankings typically start to move within 60 to 90 days, after the technical fixes take hold in the first 30. Revenue builds from month four, and the monthly report shows the movement along the way.
Can I do some of the SEO work myself?
Small business owners can handle much of the Google Business Profile themselves: keeping it up to date and asking every customer for a review take time, not special tools. The technical and link-building work is different, because it needs specialist tools and steady monthly hours.
What if my business serves only one town?
A one-town business needs a smaller, more focused SEO program. Map results favor businesses near the person searching, so being based in that town already helps, and the effort goes into beating the few local competitors on each job you do, with no pages for towns you don’t serve.
Can SEO work for a brand-new business?
SEO can work for a brand-new business, with realistic expectations. A new company with no reviews, no citations and no authority has to build those signals before rankings move. Lithium typically launches the site with all its core content from day one, then adds Google Business Profile work, citations, reviews and links while Google Ads covers the early lead gap.
Free action plan
Ready to put a small SEO budget to work?
Let’s have a real conversation about your business. No fluff, no high-pressure sales pitch. In a 1:1 strategy call, we’ll review your goals, your website, and your current marketing efforts. You’ll leave with a prioritized plan outlining quick wins and a clear path toward long-term, sustainable growth.
What we’ll cover
- What’s working (and what isn’t) in your current marketing
- Site and funnel gaps that are costing you leads
- Local SEO and paid traffic opportunities
- Simple tracking and KPIs to measure success
(503) 766-5964
[email protected]
2000 NE 42nd Ave Ste D Unit 2370, Portland, OR 97213
Prefer to pick a time? Book a 30-minute call with DJ