As internet becomes more and more popular to consumers, more businesses are realizing the need to grow their customer base through new mediums such as search engines. In order to do that they need to perform good seo on their websites to rank on search engines. With that said, because seo is quite technical, business owners usually end up seeking for seo service providers. So the common question is, how much should I pay for seo services? What are the seo pricing standards?
Determine a budget first
Set a budget for seo services. Seo should only be part of your marketing campaigns so your business should never rely fully on just search engine optimization. You should split your online marketing campaigns into at least 3 sections - paid advertising, social media, and search engine optimization.
In addition, you should never put in all of your seo budget into just one seo service provider. This is because seo takes time to see results, and not many companies can deliver results. Even if they do now, there's no guarantee that they will always be effective in the future. Also, each seo company is usually good in specific vertical. Some may be effective for insurance related businesses, some may be effective for dental related businesses, and etc.
How much should you put into search engine optimization for your business? We would say about 30% of your overall marketing budget. 50% in paid advertising, and 20% in social media marketing. Paid advertising, if done properly, will bring in instant results. Seo will result in long term and steady results. Social media is also catching up with search engine giants like Google in terms of internet usage. That's the reasoning behind these budgeting percentages.
How to justify cost of seo
How much should you pay for seo services and what is the pricing standard for effective seo services are the most common questions to business owners. The truth is, there is no set answer to both of these questions. This is because the value and cost will be different for every business.
The logic behind this is quite simple. Say for 100 targeted visitors to your website you are able to covert 5 of them into paying customers. And the net revenue from those 5 customers is $1,000. Therefore, the value of 100 targeted visitors is worth $1,000 to your business.
So if ranking for a targeted keyword will bring you 100 visitors, then you wouldn't spend more than $1,000 for seo services to rank for that particular keyword, right? The service cost needs to be less than $1,000 in order for you to have a positive ROI marketing campaign.
Seo pricing is tied with your overall marketing campaign
With the example above, let's say if for the same 100 targeted visitors, business #2 is able to convert 15 people into paying customers, yielding $3,000 in profit. (Assuming the same products) therefore, business #2 will be able to spend up to $3,000 for seo services to rank for the specific keyword. So, if you are running a seo business, would you sell your service for $1,000 or for $3,000? The answer is quite obvious.
Now if more and more seo service providers are able to charge clients for $3,000 a month, then the industry seo pricing for that particular keyword would be $3,000 a month. So at the end, if you can't sell and generate revenue that is more than the cost of industry standard pricing for seo services for the keyword, then you need to improve your sales process.
In conclusion, seo pricing is evaluated based on how much return you can get from the visitors you will be able to get from paying for seo services. And the return you can get depends on your overall marketing strategies including, but not limited to, the price on products or services, web design, sales process, and customer service.
