How much does SEO cost? How can you get more for your money?

If you want to succeed with your website, you have to decide how much you will spend on search engine optimization. As SEO is crucial to survive the fierce online competition, the question is not if you should invest in SEO but how much you invest. SEO can be very expensive. How can you get more for your money?

How much do SEO companies charge?

1. Hourly consulting: 

the average SEO agency (or individual) charges between $100 and $300 per hour (all amounts in US$).

2. Fixed prices: 

businesses that are new to SEO often buy services at fixed prices. This can be a website content audit (usually $500-$7,500), link profile audits ($500-$7,500) or SEO copywriting ($0.10-$0.50 per word).

3. Monthly retainer: 

the most popular pricing model is a monthly payment. On average, SEO agencies and individuals charge $750-5,000 per month. Depending on how much you pay, you can expect different services: regular analytics reports, on-site optimization, link building, keyword research, etc.

Some offshore companies offer 'SEO' services for much lower prices ($100-$500/month). In general, you can be sure that these services use spam techniques to 'promote' your website and that these services will backfire on you.

If an SEO service is too cheap, it's likely that they use risky methods. That's a lesson that many businesses had to learn in the past.

How to get more for your money

Many things that SEO agencies do for you can be automated with the right tools. For example, our web-based SEO tool SEOprofiler can do the following for you:

·  Regular website audits: the website audit tool in SEOprofiler automatically checks the content of your web pages and it shows you all the errors that should be corrected.

·  Regular link profiler audits: the link profiler tool in SEOprofiler shows you the backlink structure of your website. It also shows the backlinks that could have a negative influence on the rankings of your web pages.

·  Regular analytics reports: use the scheduler in SEOprofiler to automatically get website analytics reports by email. You can also view your reports online and you get access to all important key metrics.

·  On-site optimization: the Top 10 Optimizer tool in SEOprofiler analyzes the content of your web pages.

·  Regular position checks: the ranking monitor in SEOprofiler checks the position of your web pages on Google, Bing and Yahoo. You can specify the exact city from which the rankings should be checked. The ranking monitor informs you about dramatic ranking changes, it shows easy ranking opportunities, and much more.

Search engine optimization takes time. SEO is a long-term investment. You will get the best results if you regularly work on your web pages. If you haven't done it yet, try SEOprofiler now:

Basic Ways on How to Evaluate Keywords For Search Engine Optimization

In search engine optimization (SEO) and the pursuit of getting a good chunk of the market, keywords play an important role. Properly selected keywords define the direction of an online campaign. And the company and the organization that can efficiently target the right keywords searched by the target market are the ones that survive in the highly competitive internet market. This is the reason why major companies have expanded their advertising efforts online in order to tap what the consumers are looking for. But getting the best and the most efficient keywords is not an easy task; there is a science in selecting the most appropriate keywords and not all keywords and phrases are best used and utilized in an internet marketing campaign. If you are at this stage of planning, it's best that you should be aware of the best ways on how to evaluate the relevancy and the possible effective of the short-listed keywords. Listed below are some suggestions on how to evaluate keywords at least in the context of search engine optimization.

Do an internal assessment

Are the shortlisted keywords relevant and related to the actual content and focus of the website? Or will the consumers and internet users find exactly what they are looking for in the website after they have clicked on the provide link? If you say yes to two basic questions, then you are on the right track and you have targeted generally the right keywords for your campaign. 

Do a check of the keywords in search engines

If a check with the search engines reveals that there are associated advertisements to the keywords that you have selected, then it means that the keywords are highly valued in the industry and online. And you are on the right track as well in identifying keywords that can deliver financially. 

Another good strategy to use is to purchase a small campaign at Google. You can choose specific keywords for your campaign and link these keywords to the most relevant page in your website. Now what you should do is to monitor the kind of traffic that the specific page is getting. The data that have been gathered should be used and tabulated in order to come up with estimates as to how effective the keywords are. For example, if for the past day the webpage received 1,000 impressions or clicks, and of that number 100 actually visited the site, and 1 internet user have converted to sales say $10. Then this means that every visitor attracted to the keyword selected is valued at around $.01. And in order to compare the value of the keywords, test another keyword by using the actual process and theoretically compute for the amount per visitor. The one with the higher valuation is of course the better keyword for the campaign online. 

These are basic and rough suggestions on how to value the keywords on hand. There are other advanced ways too, and these are often used by big businesses that truly put all time and effort on search engine optimization and keyword research. And most of the time, these advanced ways on how to test the value of keywords will come with online tools and software thus can be costly. But the results are helpful of course to the marketers willing to realize the value of their keywords.