Inside SEO with Mr SEO

How much are your services?

Jul 09

This question I hear on a daily basis. Why? Well, people want to know how much SEO will cost for my company to optimize their site, which is the question they should be asking. However, it seems people expect an off the cuff response with a price and time frame for a universally applicable solution. I have no idea how much it will cost without first taking a look at your site. People seem to get angry that I don’t have an answer. They have a magical number in their head they are looking to spend. It could be $99.99 or 10,000. They expect me to come in under their budget. Would they feel better if I said “Oh, my services? $500″. “WOW, really? Awesome!” Wouldn’t you feel weird if someone offered you a service without first determining if you even needed it?

People are still looking for an easy and fast solution to getting their SEO done. I know I have said this in other articles and in my podcast, but apparently, it bears repeating. If an SEO company offers:

Guaranteed rankings…

Search Engine Submissions…

A quote without looking at your site…

Figures on what it would cost to do SEO for a year (unless it is a brand new site)….

…run the other way.

There is no way that I, as an SEO, can tell you how well your site will do over a course of a year. You can expect a new site to take at least 9 months before it ranks for even marginally competitive terms. There’s nothing wrong with contracting for a year if both parties agree there is plenty to be done and one is willing to pay for it, but many websites don’t require a lot of work over an extended timeframe. I usually tell clients with unknown factors that we should do 3 months, re-evaluate the situation and continue from there.

Every SEO does things differently, which is understandable.. but telling you that you need to be locked in for a year is rarely necessary. What if you are not satisfied after a few months? While a firm may not solve all your problems in 3 to 6 months, they should be able to show you progress in certain areas. That’s what benchmarks are for.

The fact of the matter is, SEO isn’t cheap. In this business, a cheap price equals cheap work that rarely produces results. What do you do? Ask around and get a few opinions, decide what’s possible within your budget and keep realistic expectations. In most cases, if it sounds like something too good to be true, it probably is. You can’t build a website and expect to adequately market it for $50 a week. It just doesn’t happen. Likewise, the issues surrounding your need for generating traffic are going to be somewhat unique. No “one size fits all” solution is going to do the trick.

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