A small studio
in Durban.
One channel, understood properly, run by the people who do the work. SEO Studio is a small online SEO agency in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.
What we are
A Durban-based SEO agency working on technical SEO, local search, content, structured data and AI search visibility. Small, deliberately, and run by Mvelo Gumbi and Qiniso Ntanzi, who do the audit rather than briefing someone else to.
We are online. There are no premises in Durban and none in any of the surrounding areas we serve, which is why you will not find an office address anywhere on this site.
How we work
Evidence first, then the argument, then the work. Every recommendation comes with the reasoning attached, so you can disagree with it on the merits rather than take it on trust.
We work with businesses across the Durban metro and throughout South Africa, and we have hands-on experience working on SEO for deck-building companies in the United States. That is industry experience, not a second location.
The founders
Mvelo Gumbi.
Founder & Principal Consultant
I started in SEO because I wanted to understand why some businesses get found online while others disappear behind their competitors. Since then I have worked across technical SEO, local search, content strategy, website development and AI search visibility.
A lot of my recent work has been with home-service businesses in the United States, building location strategies, improving site structure, working with schema and creating content around real search intent rather than pages filled with keywords.
I am also interested in what comes next for search. I spend a lot of time testing how Google, AI systems and search engines understand businesses, entities and information. That curiosity is why I build my own SEO tools and experiment with new ways of measuring visibility.
I am based in Durban, South Africa, but most of my work happens across borders.
Qiniso Ntanzi.
Co-founder & SEO Specialist
I studied Logistics and Supply Chain Management because I liked understanding what happens behind the scenes of a business: how things move, where money gets wasted, why some systems work and others do not. Somewhere along the way I started paying more attention to the digital side of it.
You can have a good service, a good team and a solid business, but if the right people cannot find you, growth is much harder. That is what pulled me into websites and search. It started as curiosity about why one business showed up everywhere on Google while another barely appeared, so I began learning how sites were built and how search engines actually understood them.
I stopped seeing a website as something a company simply needs to have and started seeing it as part of the business itself. It should help people understand what you do, trust you and take the next step. Search works the same way. Behind every query is a real person looking for something, and the work is putting the right business in front of them at the right moment.
The supply chain thinking never left. I look for where something is not working and ask why. Why are people not finding this business? Where are potential customers dropping out? What are competitors doing better? Can we actually measure whether a change worked?
That is what led my cousin and me to start this company. We are early in the journey and I am comfortable saying so: I am constantly learning, testing ideas and finding out what holds up in the real world. What I do not want to build is an agency that throws around marketing terms and sends clients reports they cannot read. We are starting in South Africa, and I do not expect the work to end here.
The studio
Small, on purpose.
Who you deal with
No middle layer
Every engagement is run personally, the audit, the recommendations and the work that follows. There is no account manager in between.
How we are set up
Small on purpose
A small operation taking on a limited number of clients at a time. It is the reason we say no to work that is not a good fit rather than absorbing it.
How we work
Online
Calls, screen shares and shared documents. No premises, no travel overhead, and no cost passed on for either.
What we do not do
One channel
No paid media, no social retainers, no brand workshops. Organic search only, which is the reason we can go deep on it.
We would rather lose a pitch than win it on a promise we cannot model.
Location
Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
An online agency. We work remotely, so there is no office to visit.
Focus
Organic search only: technical, local, content, schema and AI search visibility.
Direct
Mon–Fri · 08:00–17:00 SAST
Next step
Come and see the working.
We are happy to walk you through the reasoning on your own site before any commitment. It is the fastest way to tell whether we suit each other.