You’re not the first person to ask and yes, you absolutely can.

If you run a small local business, you can probably do much of the Local SEO work yourself. It’s quite a learning curve, but if you have the time, it can be done. There are plenty of free resources online and “do it yourself SEO tools” that can help you with learning how to manage your own SEO.

And if you are a small business or a start-up (and you’re not in a rush to see results), it’s perhaps even a good idea to try to do it yourself before you hire an SEO company, as it will give you a basic understanding and appreciation of how complex search engine optimization can be.

Apart from the obvious time cost (the time to learn how to do your own SEO, and the opportunity cost while learning) you may also end up spending money paying for various SEO tools – tools that SEO consultants and agencies use day to day.

These tools help you to better understand the SEO opportunities, research keywords, and monitor your results along with your competitors, however their monthly costs can add up, quite quickly. For an SEO agency, the cost of these tools are spread across all of the clients and are just part of doing the job efficiently.

What you get with an SEO consultant is years of training and experience at a digital agency, learning from their peers, understanding the do’s and don’ts with search engines, access to the tools and reporting, along with having developed tried and tested strategies that can save you a lot of time (and potentially save you from making serious mistakes).

Remember that it will take time for you to see results: typically, from 3 – 12 months from the time you begin making changes until you start to see serious benefits (more on that below). If you think that you still need extra help from a professional, please get in touch.