92% of online searchers choose a listing on the very first page of local search results. You want to be on that page. To rank highly in online search results, you’ve got to pay for quality SEO services. You’ve heard it before, but you’ve also asked yourself, “But how much does SEO cost?”. That depends on several factors.
Because optimizing SEO is an essential component of your business website, it’s a good idea to have some understanding of how the pricing of SEO services is determined.
1. Number of Pages
The number of newly created and optimized pages directly affects how much SEO costs. Making sure each page on your website ranks highly for a keyword phrase takes time and expertise.
It is imperative that the metadata and content on each page aligns properly for Google’s algorithms to flag your page as being worthwhile. At the same time, it is vital to ensure your page content is useful and engaging to readers.
Polishing these two tasks on each existing or newly created page adds up to a higher SEO services price tag.
In a recent survey of 1,200 business owners, 74% said they consider their SEO services provider’s reputation “very” or “extremely” important. Choose an SEO services provider with an excellent reputation to get the best results.
2. Time
You know the well-known adage: Time is money. And in this case, it’s true. The amount of time spent optimizing or creating pages to perform well directly impact how much SEO costs.
Of course, not all SEO service companies are created equally in their pricing options, but time is still a factor in any case. How much SEO costs varies based on pricing strategies. You may choose to pay for a certain number of hours one time for a reputable SEO services company to keep your pages optimized. This may work if you are on a budget, but it may not keep your rankings where you want them.
Or, you may opt for the more thorough SEO services option of a month-to-month contract, agreeing to trust an SEO services company to continually work on your pages, optimizing content, aligning metadata, and making sure you are beating out your competition.
Another appropriate adage would be: You get what you pay for. The more time invested in optimizing your website, and the more attention to getting you to rank highly, the higher your return on investment will be.
The average American small business spends $497.16 on SEO services per month. However, those that spend over $500 per month are 53.3% more likely to be “extremely satisfied” with their SEO services. Proof that the more you spend, the better SEO results you see.
Companies dedicate around 9% of their marketer’s time to Search Engine Optimization and in return, convert 15% of leads into sales. How much SEO costs depends on how much time you are willing to pay for it.
Matt Weber, CEO of ROAR! Internet Marketing says, “if you don’t expect a lot from it, don’t invest a lot into it. However, if you expect a lot of from it, be prepared to match your expectations with the investment.”
30% of small businesses would recommend their current SEO provider, which means 70% go from SEO service provider to the next. It’s essential to choose a reputable provider the first time. Save time and money with SEO that works.
3. Link Acquisition
Google’s algorithms are always updating, but acquiring backlinks is still crucial because it is the #1 factor search engines use to ascertain how to rank pages for specific search queries. The higher the quality of backlinks pointing to your website, the higher your site can rank for relevant keywords because backlinks show Google that your website is trustworthy and relevant to that query, thus earning you a higher spot in the rankings.
To get to the coveted top spot in Google’s rankings, you’ve got to have a lot of excellent organic links pointing to your site; but this takes time and effort and could raise how much SEO costs your business.
There are some ways to get your site closer to the top that may not take as much time, thus may cost less when buying SEO services. To keep SEO costs lower, and still acquire links, try focusing on the following:
- Have Stellar Content: Make people want to read about you! If your site includes compelling content, you’ll almost automatically ensure that others will link to it.
- Get Reviewed and Mentioned: You’ve got to promote yourself to leaders and influencers in your industry, so they have the opportunity to review or mention you and your site. Try well-known bloggers or individuals and companies with a strong social media following. Reach out to them and try to get them and do what you can to get some noticeable credibility; every backlink helps, and if they reference your site, that’s one more link you didn’t have to work too hard to get, keeping the cost of SEO lower.
- Ask Friends and Partners to Link to You: Don’t forget about your friends! If they have a blog or social media site, you could always ask them to reference your business and link to you on their page. It’s important to note, however, that relevance is significant, so try to get friends or business partners in the same business segment to link to your page because those links will hold more value.
Using these shortcuts will help you acquire more links to your page while keeping how much SEO costs your business lower.
4. Your Site’s Current Technical State
If you’ve got a long way to go in making your website high-rank-worthy, then that’s going to increase how much SEO costs for you. What worked for ranking years ago may not work today because Google’s algorithm is always updating. In some instances, your SEO cost may be lower if your SEO was appropriately done years ago and only needs some fine-tuning, or if you are starting from scratch with a whole new website rather than spending time attempting to restructure your current site.
5. Current Rankings
Wherever you start from in terms of your organic rankings has a direct impact on how much SEO Services costs because maintaining may be easier then achieving. You may also have the opportunity to then branch off into more longtail keywords or niche keywords with less competition to achieve a ranking for.
Get a Website That Ranks Above Your Competitors
6. Geography
Where your business is geographically and how many other local businesses it competes with has an impact on how much SEO costs. How many locations you have can also affect the price. If your business has multiple locations, you will have more pages to cite, one for each location, which means more work on optimizing your Local SEO. To put it simply, the more locations you have, the more pages you have to work on promoting, which costs more money.
If you are in a highly competitive business, that’s going to create even more work in terms of ranking locally because you’re going to have to get more creative to beat out your competitors. Your content will have to outshine anything your competitors come up with and work hard to get more links to your page to make your business more relevant over the competition.
Ranking highly on Google is very important in today’s web-based world, but it doesn’t just happen magically. It takes research and expertise to implement correctly. How much SEO costs depends on the amount of work there is to do and the marketing goals and objectives of your business.
According to a recent study, only 37% of small business owners using an SEO services agency considered themselves to be tech-savvy in understanding the ins and outs of SEO. It does take time, dedication, and understanding. Finding a reputable SEO services company is something that is worth its weight in conversions because they do the work for you.
We know what we’re doing. Get SEO services you can trust, with the results you need.
With that said, investing in SEO is a smart business move, especially since 97% of all consumers find local services through website search engines. And the higher up you rank in Google, the more likely your business will be in business for the foreseeable future.