A popular bumper sticker among college professors reads “if you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” A similar analogy can be used for SEO. If it is done right, it is worth every penny. If it isn’t correctly executed, then the same money would have been better spent on some other form of marketing. In fact, we have had to turn away potential clients who spent tens of thousands of dollars on black hat SEO techniques that got them banned in Google.
So how much does search engine optimization cost? It depends on the job. If you’re painting a house, you need to know the size of the house, how many coats, the quality of the paint, and whether you’re going to do it yourself or hire contractors. Similarly, a small local site might only need a few hundred dollars worth of optimization if you only expect to get customers from a tiny area. A large national or international web presence may require tens of thousands of dollars per month to get all its pages optimized.
An interesting paradox involving large companies is that they will hire an “in-house” person to do SEO, and often this person has no experience. No matter how diligently the new hire (or new lateral) works, there are pitfalls that can only come with the management of diverse search engine verticals. Going back to the education analogy, a person with a well rounded field of study will present solutions that someone in a specialized field would never consider. The more successful approach for enterprise level SEO is to have a knowledgeable in-house contact, and retain a professional SEO firm to handle the heavy lifting.
Small companies may not need a high-dollar solution, but usually the initial setup cost is high compared to other marketing expenses. Small business optimization could easily cost $5000 for the first 6 months depending on the needs of the site. Web.com Search Agency generally creates custom quotes for clients. This is because every site on the internet has individual characteristics, from the amount of content currently on the site, to the type and kind of links pointing at it from other websites on the internet. We also spend more time educating small business clients about SEO, because we want them to understand how optimization and link programs will benefit them, and how much time it will take.
In the final analysis, the price of an SEO campaign is justified by the results. In the same way that Wal-Mart stores succeed on converting foot traffic, most websites need search engine traffic to turn a profit. One of the features we offer is advice on what to do with the traffic when it gets to the site, because non-converting traffic is worse than no traffic if you’re paying for it. By combining effective search optimization with conversion optimization advice, and giving regular progress reports on visitors and rankings, we strive to provide the highest possible value for your SEO dollar. By squeezing all the possible ROI out of optimization costs, we make it possible for our customers to grow in the most challenging of business environments.
