SEO (search engine optimization) has become much more than just altering meta tags.  (Remember those days?!) SEO services has grown to become an integral part of business development.  Let me show you how.

Let’s say you’re a divorce attorney.  You build a site talking about who you are and your services for divorce, child custody, adoption, etc.

Your webmaster begins the SEO process and markets the website for it’s existing content.  If the SEO webmaster is good, he/she will research the trends in your industry.  A few months into the marketing your webmaster informs you that there appears to be a spike in “online divorce papers”.  What your webmaster is telling you is…

1) there are people looking for “online divorce papers”
2) since you’re in the “divorce” business, you should look into offering “online divorce papers”

I know, it sounds simple.  Almost elementary.  But it is a service provided by SEO firms that is ignored 98% of the time.  How do I come up with 98%?  Well, in the 10 years that I’ve been providing search engine optimization, I have had less than 5 clients change their business to include the new trend.  That’s FIVE businesses out of hundreds (over 800 at last count).  It’s probably more than 98% but you get the idea.

Why do businesses ignore this?  I honestly don’t know.  If you do, let me know.

But use SEO to help shape the path your business takes.  You and your customers will both benefit from it greatly!

Comparing SEO (Search Engine Optimization) rates with ROI (Return On Investment) is something that many business website owners fail to do.  With the average price of $20,000-$30,000 yearly investment, search engine optimization rates can be somewhat of a sticker shock, especially for small and home based businesses.

There are seo companies, like Eckweb Designs, Inc. that cater to small and home based businesses, yearly rates average $7000.00 – much more doable for smaller companies.

At any rate, how do you decide which rates you can afford?  Well, like any advertising campaign, you need a budget.  You need to know what monies can be spent and you need to have an “idea” of what can be gained.  So, let’s see if we can break it down.

The first thing you have to know is the profit margin that you make from each client or sale.  I know, you may think this is so basic, but I speak with MANY small business owners and I’m telling you, the majority have no idea what their profit margin is!

There are many formulas that you can find on the Internet that can help you do this.  But I want to focus on the costs you would spend with SEO vs. the Return on Investment you would get.

So, let’s say you have figured out that each client brings in a profit of $50.00 (as an example).  So, the next question is how many clients would you need to offset the SEO rates from your SEO firm?  Or the cost of an inhouse SEO webmaster?

Of course, this depends on what you spend on SEO and as you probably already know, the rates for SEO services are all over the place.  But, the average is $20,000 per year, so we’ll go with that.  This then means that your SEO campaign would have to bring in a minimum of 400 clients in order to offset the $20,000 fee.  That would be an average of 33 new clients each month.  Is that feasible?  Can your business handle 400 more clients?  Are there 400 more clients in your area?  Looking for your service and / or product? Only you can answer these questions.

At Eckweb, our average is $7000.00 / year – so an SEO campaign with us would have to bring in a minimum of 140 new clients to offset the seo cost.  That would be an average of 11 new clients each month.  Again, is that feasible?  Can your business handle 140 more clients?  Are there 140 more clients in your area?  Looking for your service and/or product?

So, when you’re looking at SEO rates consider your ROI – what do you need to do to make up the costs for this marketing campaign?  How feasible is it that you will recover these costs?  The answers to these questions can help you greatly to avoid costly mistakes.

Comparing SEO Rates with ROI by Esther C Kane is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at estherckane.com.
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