You get the emails. “I noticed your website is not ranking.” Three a week, probably. You sell technology, so you have a better nose for this than most business owners. Still, SEO is its own trade, and the mistakes IT companies make with it are the same ones over and over. Here are the six, then the questions to ask before you pay anyone.
Mistake 1: One services page for everything
Managed IT, support, security, cloud and phones on one page. It cannot rank for any of them. The keywords guide covers the split, and it is the first thing to fix.
Mistake 2: Writing for other IT people
“Proactive endpoint detection and response with SOC-backed remediation.” Your buyer is a dentist. She searches “IT support for dental offices.” If your page does not use her words, Google will not match it to her search, and she would not read it if it did.
Mistake 3: Skipping the map
“We are B2B, the map is not for us.” The office manager with a dead email server is searching on her phone, and the phone shows a map. The listing guide is about this.
Mistake 4: A blog nobody reads
Twenty posts about password tips, each three paragraphs long, written by whoever was free that week. They do not rank and they do not bring clients. One real page about switching IT providers beats all twenty.
Mistake 5: No pricing, no proof
A site with no pricing explanation and no reviews with real company names and towns gives a buyer nothing to trust. They go to the next site.
Mistake 6: Buying the package
An SEO company sells you “ten keywords, four blog posts a month, a monthly report.” The keywords are generic. The posts are thin. The report shows rankings for words nobody types. A year later you have paid a lot and your phone is not ringing more. The package was built for every business, so it fits none.
What to ask before you hire anyone
- “Show me one site you rank in a local service trade.” Not a client logo. A site, a search you can type right now, and a result you can see.
- “Which two or three searches bring IT companies clients?” If they cannot name “managed IT services” and “IT support near me” without looking it up, they have not done this trade.
- “What would you build first?” The right answer is pages and the Google listing, not a blog and not backlinks.
- “What is the contract?” Be careful with a twelve-month lock-in. Good work shows in a few months. Month-to-month means they have to keep earning it.
- “Who does the writing?” If it is a pool of writers who have never talked to an IT company, the industry pages will be swapped-name pages, and Google ignores those.
- “How will I know it is working?” The answer should be calls and form fills from the right kind of business, not a ranking chart.
What you can do yourself first
Before you hire anyone, split your services into pages, finish your Google listing, and set up the review routine. Those three things are free, and they are most of the early result. Then an SEO company has something to build on instead of starting from zero.
What good looks like after three months
Not a ranking report. A few things you can see yourself. Your listing shows up on the map for “IT support” in your city when you search from your phone. Your managed IT page shows up somewhere on the first page for “managed IT services” plus your city. Your reviews are newer than they were. And the phone rings with a business owner who says “I found you on Google.” If none of that is happening after three months, ask why, and listen closely to the answer.
Want this done for you?
I run a managed IT lead site in Tampa Bay myself, so you can type the search and see it. If you want me to look at your site before you hire anyone, including me, the audit is free and it will tell you which of the six mistakes you have.