SEO TIPS: The Cost Of SEO

Do you know what the cost of SEO is? That paired with the question of do you know the cost of how much not employing SEO is are a pair of questions that every webmaster needs to ask them self. The reason for that is it reinforces the point that money spent is not money wasted – which oddly enough is what some webmasters think. They don’t stop to consider the financial gains of SEO and instead focus only on what is going out.

The SEO Cost depends on a lot of different things. Knowing what kind of budget you should assign for your website’s SEO requires knowing what SEO is, and determining what you want it to do for you. You’ll also have to consider the cost of who you have doing your SEO for you as not all SEOs are created equally. Once you reach a decision on those points, you have to consider a secondary set of factors.

There are several factors that will come into play when deciding your SEO budget. One of the major deciding factors is the competition level for the keywords relevant to your website.(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 hard.) This boils down to knowing your market and understanding what it is going to take to be competitive.

The general rule of thumb is that the more competition there is, the more money you have to spend. There are cases, however, where the competition is weak and it won’t require as big an outlay of capital to make significant advances. Normally, however, if the services or the products that you are selling belong 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. This is the safest rule of thumb to follow.

Just as SEO is ever changing, you need to be the same way with your budget. Your website’s SEO budget should be more flexible than a rigid budget for other expenses. It’s not only SEO that changes, but the efforts of your competition as well as seasonal conidderations. At times, you may have to take some additional measures to increase the traffic level such as ads for paid traffic, or at other times invest in getting the right type of organic traffic. You have to prioritize your needs and remain flexibile so that you can maximize any opportunities that arise.

Another thing you need to do is pay attention – SEO doesn’t run on autopilot. Know what’s going on with your SEO results and track every change for six to twelve weeks before changing course. One of the biggest mistakes you see is when webmasters jump ship after only a few weeks because they don’t see results fast enough. SEO takes time to work, and constant changing defeats everything you have previously done.

The best way to do this is to watch all of your analytics. You should be constantly keeping track of your website’s presence on the web (via rankings) your traffic, ad clicks and conversions for each level, and do the needful tweaking to keep your profit levels above the mark. This is how you can make informed decisions regarding what is and is not working.