I think it’s funny when people call me up and ask “How much does SEO cost?” I always want to respond by saying “How much does a car cost?” or “How much does a house cost?” because like in any business it comes down to the quality of the product or service that drives the cost.
PPC marketers know that the cost can greatly range for a client, depending if they want keywords that cost $2 a click or $20 a click!
Why Can’t You Give Me A Set Amount?
No two seo clients are alike so we always have to do some research to get to know their website and market before offering a price for the service. Some things we have to find out are:
- Where are they currently ranking on the search engines for their main keywords ?
- How many competitors are competing?
- How strong is the competition?
What Increases The Cost Of SEO?
- Extensive keyword research
- Fixing problems (301 re-directs, 404 errors, duplicate content issues)
- Number of pages to optimize
- Creating content
- Strong Competition
What This Question Really Means?
I’ve found that people whose leading question is “How much does SEO cost” don’t understand the time, effort, and cost that is involved in a SEO strategy. These clients are usually looking for a cheap quick SEO plan to rank #1 on Google. What usually happens is these clients go and find a black hat seo who uses spammy tactics to get them ranking well for a week or two and then are penalized and buried in the search engines.
Whats Your Answer?
I know that a lot of SEO firms offer SEO packages to all of there clients, but I like to do some research and understand the market before making an offer. What approach do you take in this situation?
I’ll Be Back
Tomorrows the last day of this weeks SEO FAQ’s we get as SEO’s. If you have questions or answers that you think would help contribute to all the SEO readers please leave them in the comments below. You can also follow @ben_beck on Twitter with the tag #seofaq.