How Much Should You Spend on SEO?1641996

Ask a true SEO or Analyst how much you should spend and they usually ask one of two questions. “How fast do you want to see results?” “How much money do you want to make?” Most small business owners invest enough money to get ranked for 1-10 positions and feel they have invested their money wisely. In fact, a good Web design company florida who has worked with a company for 5 years + should have that company ranked for a thousand keywords, assuming they were given an adequate budget. To understand how much you should spend you need to answer the following questions.

1. What is my objective? If your business has a limited budget then you are not going to rank beside ebay. But you probably do not need to do this. All you need to invest is enough money to keep the national companies from stealing local consumers. 2. What is your break even each month? If you invest $1000 in online marketing, how many products do you need to sell to earn back that $1000? There needs to be a realistic balance. 3. Are your expectations realistic? There is no difference between internet advertising and print advertising. The advertising cycle takes 6 months. But in the SEO world it is amazing how many people expect to be on page #1 of Google, while investing less than $1000, within a few days. They don’t realize that their competition may spend $1000 per keyword, or have invested in SEO for several months. Small businesses also fail to realize that the moment you have position #1 you have 10+ other SEO firms fighting to knock you back down, and trying to explain to their clients why they are no longer ranking high enough to attract shoppers. 4. Do you understand SEO? It is easy to be taken advantage of if you only look at the numbers. Any SEO can drive 10 000 people to your website. But it takes a marketing team with years of experience to find 1000 shoppers who are ready to make a purchase. Remember, ‘if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.’ There are many scams, and many business owners begging internet marketing companies to get their domain name ‘unbanned’ or with stories of spending $5000 - $10 000 on a website and not actually owning or being able to migrate the company. 5. You are the Power behind Your Sales An SEO company does not answer the phone. They do not handle your customer service, sales, or returns. They never talk to your customer. They only handle one aspect of your muti channel shopping experience. They bring consumers to your business via phone, walk ins, website, and mobile device. Once the consumer contacts you, it is your job to make the sale.

Once you have these 5 questions answered it is easier to determine what your budget should be. • Do you want professionals who can do the job, well, and consistently? • Do you want traffic or do you want sales? • Do you want a long term relationship with people who are industry professionals? You cannot get this for a few dollars a month. The average Reputation Marketing can take 50 – 100 hours a month. This does not include the writers, analysts, management, or the equipment and software needed to do the job. When you look at SEO this way, asking $3000 to $5000 is a real deal, less than half of what it would cost to have a professional run an in-house campaign.