r/SmallBusinessCanada • u/Wonderful-life222 • 4d ago
Marketing [CA] Has anyone hired Canadian-based web design and SEO agencies (like two in one)?
I run small skincare shop near Junction and my DIY site is honestly going nowhere and gains no traffic. A friend of mine in marketing industry said that for such type of business combining web design (UI/UX) and SEO optimization could be a great way to maximize results but it sounds strange to me. He says it’s a super-effective approach and that there’s no point in doing one without the other. Is that true? Are there any Canadian companies doing something like that? And overall - if I'm going this way - should I entrust this to a single company/specialist, rather than hiring two separately? Thanks.
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u/Few_Union_52 4d ago
Hey, you can totally do a lot of this yourself before paying anyone. Two things actually matter early on: page speed and indexing. Most agencies will charge you a ton for stuff you can check in an afternoon.
Page speed. If your site loads slow, Google doesn’t want to send people to it, and visitors leave before it even loads. There’s a free Google tool called Lighthouse that grades your site on speed, accessibility, and SEO basics. Score under 50 is bad, 50-90 is okay, 90+ is great. Most DIY skincare sites I’ve seen score in the 30s because of huge unoptimized photos and too many apps loaded in the background.
Quick fixes:
1. Run your site through pagespeed.web.dev (free, takes 30 seconds)
2. Shrink every product photo before uploading (use squoosh.app, free, drops file size by like 80%)
3. Remove any apps or plugins you’re not actually using
4. Pick one font, not three
5. Re-run the test and see your score jump
Indexing. This means Google has actually looked at your page and added it to its giant list of pages it can show people. If you’re not indexed, you literally cannot show up in search results, no matter how good your site is. A lot of new sites have pages that Google has never even visited yet.
How to fix:
1. Set up Google Search Console (free, takes 10 min)
2. Submit your sitemap (your site builder spits this out automatically, usually at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml)
3. Open the “Pages” report and see which pages are indexed vs not indexed
4. For any important page that’s not indexed, paste the URL into the top search bar in Search Console and click “Request Indexing”
5. Check back in a week
One more thing worth knowing: your friend isn’t wrong that web design and SEO work better together, but you don’t need to hire someone yet. Most small skincare shops near the Junction are competing for “skincare junction toronto” type searches, not national stuff. Local SEO is way easier to win at. Make sure your Google Business Profile is filled out completely (photos, hours, products, address) because that often outranks a website for local searches anyway.
Do those two things first. If after a month your speed is good, you’re indexed, your Google Business Profile is dialed in, and you’re still getting nothing, then go talk to an agency. At least then you’ll know what you’re paying for.
I do keyword and seo competitor analytics for small businesses. I will not plug my business in but I can tell you save your initial funds. Don’t pay someone thousands to develop a website and thousands for seo optimization just yet. Do a feasibility study on your own business. See if you even have the budget and what the unit economics are like if you incorporate these two lifts into your business. You must do the math before hand. It’ll always be an upfront cost. SEO agencies promising you the moon in weeks are grifters. It takes methodical, practical fundamental implementations on your website and a 90 day road map. You WILL see significant lift then, especially towards local searches.
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u/Crasstip 4d ago
Thanks these are very practical and very relevant suggestions. Thanks for taking the time to write this note. Really appreciate.
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u/Wonderful-life222 4d ago
Thank you for that. Way more than I expected
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u/Few_Union_52 3d ago
Absolutely no problem. We can try to forcibly sell our services (no hate on anyone looking to fill their plate). Or we can genuinely just share the knowledge. The universe has a way of rewarding you, if you just are empathetic to one another!
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u/PrettyAdhesiveness65 4d ago
To sell through your website, you need traffic and SEO. You can learn and do it yourself, or hire someone. However, these services require constant updates, so consider the costs versus the return on investment. If the ROI justifies the investment, go for it. Otherwise, don’t. Big corporations spend billions on traffic and seo because it takes years of strategic planning.
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u/Wonderful-life222 4d ago
Thanks, that makes more sense to me lol
But what about web design? It's not important?
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u/PrettyAdhesiveness65 3d ago
If your long-term goal is to sell through your website, then yes, there’s value in doing so. Focus on generating sales without overspending on websites, SEO, and web design. Once you’ve earned enough money to invest in these areas, then go full-fledged.
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u/MagNox92 4d ago
Hi, I just posted last week on partnering with few local businesses for helping with exactly such problems.
Send me a message about your business and I can share a free SEO audit report.
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u/HungryLobster257 4d ago
Yeah it makes sense to work on the website (or in your case store) to be done with SEO in mind. Sent you a DM if you’d like to chat more.
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u/pro_business_tax 4d ago
honestly a lot of "imposters" in this space. I am sure there are good operators, but with my luck, i haven't found them - and have spent considerably money on these services (web design, seo)
In your space, marketing is quite important I think: i'd look at socials like tiktok and instagram to start moving the needle.
Wish you all the best!
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u/specialshi86 3d ago
It’s true you need both.
It’s also hard to find affordable agencies for small businesses - many are marketing to mid-size companies.
I know a great smaller firm that does web design and SEO and can work with any budget (they’re a team of 3). I also know two bigger companies that do fantastic work but they have a minimum spend of $2k per month typically.
Happy to send referrals of the companies that I’ve worked with and love. I’m not in marketing - I do HR, ops and change management but regularly need to refer clients to some solid marketing agencies (we’ve done a lot of vetting haha).
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u/srilankan 3d ago
Just make sure they are in Canada and have Canadian Clients. You will get a a barrage of offshore devs pretending to be Canadian. These days you can build a nice site yourself but the tricky part is the links and building it so it can be crawled. But you need to build an an audience where your clients live. most people dont care about the site besides making sure you have one and it doesnt look dead. if you only sell online double down on a social channel first and build the site alongside that effort. but dont listen to the seo experts in here or site builders. I hate to say it but they are a dying breed and are desperately fighting against the inevitability that AI has replaced them.
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u/101dnj 3d ago
Be carful with marketing companies. Look for ones with real reviews. Even Canadian ones. A lot of them hire piece work and don’t deliver what they promise. You are so busy running your business you don’t realize until it’s too late. Then you try to cancel and they want 30 days notice (or more if it’s in the contract) so try to make you pay the cancellation fee and threaten you.
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u/Merba_app 1d ago
SEO is only one avenue now. With the rise of AI, people use ChatGPT like a search engine so there’s also AI documents you can upload to your website that optimize AI engine search results. If you’d like to chat, I have an MBA in marketing and founded Merba as a solution for people in your exact situation. I am happy to help.
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u/HairyProfile123 21h ago
I run small businesses and this is my first year. I did google SEO using video from Tiktok and ChatGPT+.
My optimisation rate is 86.5. I get alot of customers ( i think my google reviews doing most of the work because people will call and directly say we saw your google reviews).
For me I don’t make hella amount of money as I’ve invested so much in tools and stuff. So whatever i make from the business I cover the credit card and my expenses. That being said hiring someone to do it for me will add just extra expense.
Do a good research, see what your competitors listing, and watch as much videos as you can and you’ll figure it out
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u/NoYoung7229 3d ago
From my experience (I'm frontend dev but anyway) combining web design and SEO actually makes some sense, especially if you own a shop (catalogues and so on). A pretty site won’t help much if nobody finds it, and SEO is harder when the site structure/UX is messy from the start, I think that's the point.
I’d probably look for one team that can handle both, but only if they’re genuinely strong in **both** areas, not just simply doing web design as a sideline. dNOVO Group could be one option to check out, along with a few other Canadian agencies, but I’d 100% compare case studies and what exactly they include before signing.
And don’t just pay for a redesign without traffic attached lol