We’ve all wondered “how much does SEO costs?” since it isn’t as simple as just starting a direct e-mail campaign. SEO is a complicated marketing strategy, but is also one of the most effective today. It is not as measurable compared to other marketing activities that affect online search traffic.
The cost of SEO is directly proportional to its potential gain. For example, a highly ranked keyword can go for as much as $10 per click in AdWords, while a locally oriented keyword will have fewer costs associated to it. The price for it varies greatly, and even in a domestic level it is highly difficult to measure whether in a whole state, county, city, or even a small area like a town or city.
We will now be tackling how much does SEO costs by examining the benefits of organic search via SEO, in order to help you decide on how much you should be willing to invest on SEO and other online marketing strategies.
Everyone that uses digital marketing strategies, whether they are a nationwide corporation or a small family owned business, you might be able to pick up a thing or two from this guide that will help you to grasp a better understanding of SEO.
How to determine the cost of SEO?
The pricing of SEO is based on the following variables:
- Situation: Where are you currently?
- Objectives: Where do you want to be?
- Timeline: How fast do you want to improve?
Any business needs to take some time and consider these three important elements in order to calculate how much they should spend on SEO.
In order to have a better grasp on this, we have prepared an example. Imagine that your local business website is currently ranked as the 12th spot for your main target keyword and other variations, while your competitors have invested more resources on local SEO which means that the competitors on the first page have more links and have higher authority metrics than your business.
If you take this information into account, then a few things can be measured. First, a broad estimate of the links; second is how much time and resources you need to invest on SEO, and lastly is how long you can achieve your desired results.
In order to calculate the price, you need to analyze the current situation and also set a clear goal, and a precise timeline. There are a lot of factors in play, and business owners do not have a grasp on what their competitors are doing and planning, but attempting to calculate the required level of work and subsequent should be made in order to have an edge over the competition.
Even though you are done setting up, you still have to do regular maintenance and updates in order to be always on top of the competition. Simple SEO KPI or Key Performance Platforms such as keyword ranking is not enough in order to measure if you are hitting all of your targets, which is why a more detailed means of measuring SEO success is required to accurately track progress.
Is it Alright to Use Cheap Marketing Strategies?
An important variable about SEO is its quality. You wouldn’t want your business to be marketed using cheap but bad marketing strategies, right? There are cheap strategies such as buying expired relevant websites and then placing contents that link to the customer’s website. This kind of strategy is called a PBN or a Private Blog Network, which is a series of websites that is controlled by a single party, and is used to artificially build links. PBN goes by other names such as a link farm, link network, and blog network, but is basically just a link scheme. Google has actually been trying this down by putting up manual penalties and algorithmic adjustments ever since 2014.
Even though this type of online marketing strategy (if you could even call it a strategy) is cheap, they are just a complete waste of money. They will either do nothing or just using their owned network of websites in order to add links, which would do nothing to help you out at all, and may even cause you to get fined and ruin your reputation and in turn your business. These sort of marketing ploys may indeed be cheap, but if you are trying to build a very successful and long-term business then you better stay clear from marketing strategies such as these.
SEO Price Range in the United States
There is a survey conducted on SEO providers that included their price range for monthly pricing. Take not that these prices are not specific to just small-time businesses, but they will still give you an idea on how much they are worth.
The survey question was “For those clients you service with ongoing/multi-month contracts, what is the average client’s monthly billing?”
- 10% — less than $500
- 27% — $500-1,000
- 29% — $1,000-2,500
- 20% — $2,500-5,000
- 15% — $5,000-10,000
In the United States, the majority of the businesses are just spending no more than $5,000 monthly on SEO. Around 40% of the participants of the survey were spending less than $1,000 on SEO; these guys are mostly the small-time businesses and startups.
How much you need to spend on SEO?
The prices that were listed above are relative to some factors, such as the size of the market and the competition. The size of the market and the how much you can potentially earn affects to an extent how much you should be spending on SEO.
So in order to truly determine how much you need to spend and to determine the true value of SEO, you need to take a good look and examine your current situation and the state of your business. For example, if the business you’re in has the potential to make a lot of profit then you can be sure that there will be a lot more competitors, and if the potential for profit is low then there will also be less competition.
SEO & Web design
Every business owner should consider spending a few bucks on building an SEO-friendly website, which is essential to your success. This may seem like a huge investment, but making your website easily accessible to everyone and keeping the people happy will pay for itself in the long run.
The Return on Investment
Since you are running a business then it is crucial for you to get back your money’s worth, and in order to do that, you need to measure the returns of all your online marketing strategies and which yields the best return. For example, if you are able to get a lead for $20 from a paid search, $15 from social ads, and $5 from an organic search then it is safe to assume that out of the three, an organic search is the most valuable channel which can have the highest overall return on investment.
We at The Fields Agency can cater to all your online marketing and SEO needs and we can guarantee that our services aren’t a wasted investment. With digital marketing strategies done by our specialists, we can surely help you and your business get on top of the most competitive search terms!