How much money should you be spending on SEO?

The short answer is that it depends. In order to know what kind of budget you should assign for your website’s SEO requires knowing what SEO is first and foremost. Determining what you want it to do for you is the second factor to determining an SEO budget. There are various other factors that will come into play when deciding your SEO budget as well. One of the major deciding factors is going to be what the competition level for the keywords relevant to your website are. For example, if you are in a broad market, trying to rank for ‘shoes’ can be hard. Likewise, if you are in a niche market, trying to rank for designer ankle boots can still be very difficult. If what you are selling belongs to a niche or broad market that is highly competitive then the efforts required to get good online visibility will be relatively higher – and the SEO budget for such websites will be higher. It is a symbiotic relationship that really drives what you will need to spend.

Because ranking can change fairly quickly at times for a number of reasons, a website’s SEO budget should be more flexible than a rigid. At times, you may have to take some additional measures to increase traffic such as ads for paid traffic. At other times, making an investment in getting the right type of organic traffic will be the way you want to spend your money. If you don’t do your SEO yourself, you must figure out what the priorities are when you hire an SEO firm of professionals to help you out. If you are not on the same page, you don’t have the right SEO.

It is imperative that you track your SEO results and as well every change for six to twelve weeks before changing course. There is nothing worse than jumping ship too quickly and having to backtrack. If you fall into the category of webmasters who are just launching a new website, then the initial expenses for SEO can be higher than what would be expected for a site that is up and running. Many webmasters who spend a lot of money on their website design fail to set aside enough to properly cover for their website’s SEO. It’s hard to put a figure for the SEO both in terms of $$ or in terms of % of the over all cost of your website development, but it is always safer to plan high and not be taken by surprise.

The size of your website is going to play a part in how much of your budget will be needed to meet real SEO needs. If your site is only a 5 page website then setting aside 20% of the cost of your site will in all likelihood not meet your SEO needs. If you are running a huge shopping cart site then 20% of the over all cost of your website will be a more than adequate budget in most cases. Don’t fall for the trap that a flat percentage works the same for everyone

Always keep in mind the amount of competition that you are fighting off and the earning potential. Simply having a generous budget for your SEO can help, but only if you spend it wisely and on the right SEO professionals who know what they are doing and can provide real results.  If you identify the right service SEO service provider that offers affordable SEO Services we will be able to save a considerable amount of money as well as see some positive results. In the end, it is as much about spending your money with the right SEO as it is how much you spend.