There is no fixed amount that any enterprise should spend on SEO. However, there is a lower limit, especially if you’re looking to recruit high-level SEO agency to be in charge of a comprehensive online marketing campaign. On average, good SEO services come at a minimum of $2,500-5000 per month, though prices are a bit reduced for small businesses whose main focus is local SEO.
There are SEO agencies that provide a trial package which is very basic and comes with no further commitment. These are cheaper and allow clients the opportunity to test out services provided. This is a good approach, especially for smaller businesses that cannot afford to re-hire new services should they find out they made a wrong decision soon after signing on.
However, it’s not all businesses that can afford to maintain constant SEO services on a monthly retainer. Nonetheless, you cannot afford to sign on with cheap agencies whose techniques contravene guidelines set by Google Webmaster – this is a greater risk.
An option for such companies would be to hire professional SEO agencies to offer one-time services – conduct comprehensive audits and carry out whatever necessary tasks to improve the SEO position of the website. From there, a relatively tech-savvy member of staff can be trained to perform routine maintenance tasks like updating content until the next time.
Alternatively, especially where areas of lack have been identified, SEO professionals can be hired to take care of specific tasks e.g. carrying out link audits, content creation and marketing, social media marketing or keyword research, among others. Otherwise, as a business owner, you won’t have a choice but to learn how to do SEO for yourself.
Defining the goals
Goals are what help you measure the success of your campaign. These are what will be used to measure return on investment. Many people imagine that the only important metric for SEO is showing up in top rankings on SERPs. In truth, ranking is a useful metric, but it shouldn’t be the first or most important.
A better approach is to use real-world statistics – think about what you would use to determine the success of an offline marketing campaign. You would measure increased sales, increase in customer numbers, among others. These same metrics should be the most important for your digital campaign – number of leads and conversions.
For instance, you may determine to increase sales by 10% after three months, or gain 100 new subscribers, among other goals. Where rubber meets the road, you need to choose measurable and reasonable goals, considering that SEO is a slow-but-steady marketing strategy. You won’t see 30% sales increase in four months, or even six. But over the long term, proper SEO will not only return investment made, it will far surpass all initial investments.
