It is one of the most interesting questions in marketing: How much does SEO cost? Unlike most digital marketing services that rely on budgets, SEO is a much more hands on approach, which does not allow a Toms River SEO company to tie an SEO budget to a specific spend level.
The result of which means an SEO company can pretty much charge whatever they want and that leads to SEO getting a bad reputation for both cost and practice. It can lead some SEO agencies to add a lot of fluff to campaigns to charge more money, while it can lead other agencies to try to undercut real SEO companies with ultra low prices that can never produce real results.
When it comes to answering the question" how much doesSEO cost", you should consider a few things.
Size of the Site
The size of the site will be one of the first determining factors in regards to the cost of an SEO campaign. The larger the site, the more that needs to be optimized, thus increasing the price of the campaign. This is true to a point, but you also should not be paying by the page for SEO. Generally, an SEO company will have buckets for how much a campaign will cost based on the size of the site ( maybe a set price for sites with 15 page or less, another for sites with 16-30 pages, etc.). If you start paying for SEO per page, you are probably not dealing with a professional digital marketing agency.
Competitiveness of the Industry
Not all SEO campaigns are equal and for certain industries, it can be a lot more challenging to produce results. So, for lawyers, hospitals, insurance agents, etc. SEO campaigns will generally be more expensive. This is because it is a much more crowded search landscape for these niches that say a landscaper. The more businesses doing SEO, the more work it takes to rank. The more work it takes to rank, the more you are likely going to pay.
Location of the Business
Very similar to competitiveness, the location of a business matters. If you are trying to rank in New York City, it is going to be more difficult than trying to rank in Brick, NJ. The more populated an area is, the more businesses there are that are likely competing for keywords. This makes it more difficult to rank and thus will create a more expensive campaign.
Complexity of the Campaign
If you are considering doing SEO, you should do some research into the usual tactics used. This will help you determine if you are overpaying or paying for something you don't need. There are different SEO silos, with some of the most popular being:
Technical SEO
On-page SEO
Local SEO
Content Creation
Link Building
If you are not located in a high population area and are in a low competitive industry, you should be getting little to no SEO in some of these areas, including link building and technical SEO. These are both more advanced techniques that are critical in more competitive industries.
So, you're probably wondering why in an article that is titled "What is the cost of SEO" you haven't seen any costs yet. Well, here it is and for many SEO agencies, this is difficult to admit or come to terms with.
For the vast majority of SEO campaigns, you should never pay more than $1,200 per month. The exception to this is the case of being in a competitive industry and a high population area or trying to run a national or regional SEO campaign. In these cases, you can spend anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 depending on how big your search radius is.
You should also be wary of any SEO company that comes in with a campaign for less than $500, unless it is a very targeted local campaign. Generally speaking, SEO should take at least 10 or 15 hours of work per month and any company with campaigns less than $500 will either be using non-skilled workers or not truly working on the campaign.
Again, though, for small business owners, you should be wary of any SEO company that tries to sell you on an SEO campaign that costs more than $1,200 per month. In the case where an SEO agency does bring you a budget over $1,200 per month, I would suggest seeing if it is possible to run a PPC campaign in conjunction with SEO to lower the price. This will not only help you manage your budget, but can also greater enhance your results.
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