//SEO
Small business SEO
without the enterprise invoice.
Most SEO packages are built for companies with a marketing department. Yours is not one of those. This is search work scoped to a business with one location, one owner and a real budget, run by the people who do the work.
A small business does not need an enterprise SEO program. It needs to be found by the people already searching for what it sells, usually within a few miles, and it needs the money to go to the two or three things that actually move that. The rest of the deliverables on a typical agency proposal exist to justify the retainer.
We run small business SEO services from Irvine, California, for businesses across the country. The engagement starts with a real audit written by a person, not a tool export, so you can see what is wrong in priority order before you commit to anything. Then we fix what is blocking visibility, build the pages your buyers search for, and get the local signals right. Month to month, and every account stays in your name.
//What you get
What a small business engagement includes.
A written audit and a baseline
What is actually wrong with your site, in the order that matters, plus a measured starting point so every later month compares to something real.
The technical fixes that pay
Crawl and index problems, speed on a mid-range phone, and the debt quietly hiding pages you already have. Usually the fastest win.
The pages your buyers search for
A real page for each service you sell and each area you serve, written to answer the search rather than to hit a word count.
Local search and the profile
The Google Business Profile, near-me terms and reviews, which for most local businesses decide more than the website does.
Content on a sane cadence
Enough to build the topic, not so much that you are paying for a blog nobody reads. Quality over a monthly quota.
Reporting you can read
Calls, forms and the terms that produce them. If a month is flat, we say so first.
//What is usually broken
Why small business SEO usually disappoints.
You bought a package built for a bigger company, so most of the deliverables have nothing to do with your phone ringing.
The report leads with traffic and keyword counts, numbers that climb whether or not a single customer called.
Nobody fixed the technical problem underneath, so every new page launched into a site Google struggles to read.
The contract was long, the work was junior, and the accounts were never in your name.
Want this for your business?
Sound familiar?
Most owners recognize at least one of these. The fix is usually smaller than the problem looks, and the first conversation costs nothing.
Not ready? Keep reading
//How we work
A clear order of operations.
Audit and baseline first
A real audit written by a person, with a measured baseline. You can act on it with or without us.
Fix what blocks visibility
Crawl, index and speed problems before any new content, because content on a broken site is money set on fire.
Build the pages that convert
The services you sell and the areas you serve, each with a page worth reading and a clear next step.
Earn the local signals
Profile, reviews and citations, run as a habit rather than a one-time setup.
Want this for your business?
That is the process.
Nothing exotic, just done properly and in the right order. Want it run on your business?
Not ready? Keep reading
//Receipts
What this work has produced.
Method of Beauty
406 keywords ranking from zero in three months
A med spa with page one for its name and page two for most of what it sells. Search impressions rose 46%, and 138 non-brand terms landed in Google's top three, including the near-me searches that bring people through the door.
Read the case studyWheelhouse
From page 3 of Google to top rankings
New users on the website up 236% and total users up 232% once the site was rebuilt around what buyers actually search for.
Read the case studyWant this for your business?
Want the same rigor on your account?
Every number above has a case study behind it, and a founder who can walk you through how it happened.
Not ready? Keep reading
//Two-minute quiz
Are small business SEO services your next dollar?
Four questions. At the end you get our honest read, including when the answer is “not this, not yet.”
Question 1 of 4
Do people search for what you sell?
//Why trust us with it
Built for a business, not a department.
Senior operators do the work
The people who write your pages are the people who ran the campaigns on this site's case studies. No junior behind a template.
We never promise a ranking
Google says nobody can guarantee position one, and the people who promise it usually break rules in your name. We promise the work and honest reporting.
No long lock-in
Month to month. If we are not worth keeping, you should not be trapped.
Everything stays yours
Search Console, Analytics, the content and the code stay in your name and come with you.
Want this for your business?
This is how we work.
If it sounds like the way you would want it done, the next step is a ten-minute conversation with a founder.
Not ready? Keep reading
//What you can count on
How we operate.
//Learn the work first
The thinking behind the work.
For owners without a marketing team, in the order that matters.
An honest pricing guide and the red flags that should make you walk.
The checklist we use, which you can run yourself.
The playbook for winning the map results near you.
The questions to ask before you sign with anyone, including us.
The ones that keep small businesses off page one.
Ideas that do not cost a fortune.
The three jobs a search engine does before you ever rank.
//Related services
The work this connects to.
Technical, on-page and content SEO that turns into calls, forms and booked revenue.
Map Pack, near-me searches and location pages for businesses that serve an area.
Optimization and management of the listing that is your real homepage now.
Pages and articles written to rank, to be cited by AI, and to be read by a buyer.
Authority earned through real coverage and relationships, never bought in bulk.
Getting cited inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews.
Pages and articles written by operators, for the searches your buyers run.
Paid search and paid social run as one account, measured by booked customers.
Messaging, friction and proof, fixed in the order that moves the number.
Welcome, nurture, win-back and newsletter flows to the people who opted in.
Design and engineering as one job: fast, crawlable, on brand, built to convert.
Every Door Direct Mail: the offer, the piece, the routes, the printing and the drop.
Press releases, local features, awards and the outreach to the outlets that matter.
Practices, med spas and clinics: local search, ads that clear policy, and trust.
Who to win, why they pick you, what to run first, and how you will know it worked.
Every service we offer, grouped the way buyers look for them.
The receipts, with the numbers and how they happened.
Local help if you are in our home county.
//Our work
See this work in the wild.
Four businesses we have grown, including our own. Every number on these pages is one we can show you.
Body Juice
We built a juice bar that fought human trafficking and went viral
600% customer growth, on a founder's budget.
Read itMethod of Beauty
We put a med spa on the map
80+ guests from one campaign, 406 new keywords from zero.
Read itRomée
From a name to a brand, four cans and a store
A whole brand, live before launch day.
Read itWheelhouse
From page 3 to the top 3 for 300+ keywords
Five Dispensary of the Year wins came with it.
Read it//Plain English
What the initials actually mean.
Defined in a sentence, with a link to the organisation that owns the term.
Earning your place in the unpaid results. Google publishes its own starter guide, and the short version is that you make the site easy to crawl, useful to a reader, and clearly about the thing people are searching for.
Source: Google Search Central: SEO starter guide//Common questions
Things we get asked first.
How much do small business SEO services cost?
It depends on the size of the site and the competition on your terms, and we quote after the audit rather than before it. What we will not do is sell a package built for a bigger company. Month to month, no long lock-in, and the ad and analytics accounts stay in your name.
What is included in SEO packages, and do you sell them?
We scope to what your business needs instead of selling a tier. A typical small business engagement is the audit, the technical fixes, the service and location pages, the Google Business Profile and reviews, and reporting on calls and forms. If a line item will not move your phone, we leave it out.
How long does small business SEO take?
Technical fixes can move things in the first one to two months. Local signals and new pages build across 60 to 120 days, and the compounding shows across months six to twelve. We set the expectation for your market up front and report against it.
Can I do SEO myself?
A motivated owner can do a lot of it, and we publish the checklists free on this site so you can. People hire us when the technical work gets deep, when the writing keeps falling to the bottom of the list, or when the competition is funded.
Do I need SEO or ads first?
If you need customers this month, ads. If you want the cost per customer to fall over time, SEO. Most small businesses end up with both, and we will tell you honestly which is the right first dollar for your situation.
Do you work with businesses outside California?
Yes. We are based in Irvine and we run search work nationwide. Local research is part of every engagement, wherever you are.
Want this for your business?
Still have a question?
Ask a founder directly. No call center, no sales guy, and no obligation.
Not ready? Keep reading
About Mining Wells
We're on a mission to fix bad marketing.
Maybe:
- You are spending thousands on marketing tools, ads, and your website, with zero revenue increase to show for it.
- Every campaign you have tried gets minimal results.
- You have a great product that nobody seems to find.
- You are getting interest, but it never converts to a sale.
- You have a low retention rate.
- You have been paying a marketing agency for over a year and have not seen results.
You are not alone. Many founders and leaders live with the results of bad marketing without ever finding the reason.
And often that is because it can be many reasons. Sometimes it is the wrong ICP, sometimes the wrong messaging, sometimes the wrong targeting chasing impressions.
We are here to take the hard guesswork out and provide that clarity before it is too late.
At Mining Wells, we help founders and leaders grow their businesses the right way.
Tired of bad marketing?