The investment required for SEO or Search Engine Optimization appears to, for many businesses, to be astronomically high. This is especially so for businesses who previously had SEO done by one man operations, or who had previously gone with low cost solutions and who are now dealing with more complete offerings from somewhat larger marketing groups. But why is this the case?
SEO is first and foremost, an exercise in which the time commitment is very high to do it correctly and failing to do it correctly can be a substantial financial waste. Unfortunately there are many service providers who will complete a single free SEO course and believe that they are now ready to handle selling the service to other businesses. This has led in recent years to many businesses investing in SEO, using the wrong company, seeing no results and deciding it is no longer useful.
In this article I want to help you understand exactly why SEO requires a significant investment and why it shouldn’t be done on the cheap.
Without SEO, Your Car Is Driving With A Flat Tire
In this analogy, we will look at your business as a car. The engine of your business is the service or product that your provide for customers. The body of the car and its paint job is the branding of your business, the way it looks, the way it describes itself and the voice of your business.
Then you have the tyres of your car. You could have the world’s greatest engine, a beautiful car body, but without four tires – your car will be unable to do it’s job.
The 5Tales perspective is that the four tyres of your business are all about generating new clients or making sales in one way or another. What many businesses look for when it comes to this audience growth, is a cookie cutter solution that will work straight out of the box. Well, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Instead you have plenty of options to choose from, and it is about deciding what is right for your business.
That said, although there is no such thing as the perfect combination, there is one growth channel that any business with a website has to employ – SEO. Regardless of what tyres – what growth channels – you choose for your car, SEO will be one. Not investing in good SEO will be driving your car with a flat tyre – you will get somewhere, but it won’t be quick and it won’t be easy.
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What Actually Drives Up The Cost?
SEO, when done properly is expensive. BUT that is only if it is looked at as an expense you pay instead of an investment you make. SEO is a long-term growth strategy and if done properly lasts far longer than any paid advertising campaign. The cost is not (or should not be) just a fee you pay for only as long as you wish to rank. Instead it should be done so that if you decide to move on from your marketing firm, the results of their work remain.
Consequently, these long term growth focused marketing firms end up footing the bill of your results at the very start of your relationship with them. Meaning that many end up footing the bill for:
- Getting content for your site
- Optimizing your website
- Building links to the site
- Managing citations for local businesses
- Implementing schema
- and many more tasks
Not only do the tasks require funding, but if you want the job done right to ensure the long term digital health of your business, then you need experts.
As with any skill in business, learning the ins-and-outs of SEO takes time. Usually that time investment was also a monetary investment, therefore to get those with the right knowledge on your side – you have to pay a premium. As with many services, SEO is offered at many price ranges, but at the end of the day – you pay for what you get.
Consequently it cannot be cheap if it is to be done right as the number of tasks it takes and amount of time it takes to complete those tasks, is not something to be skimmed on.
Why Is It Then That I Am Offered Cheap SEO?
Cheap SEO packages are almost never the right choice. The famous line is, ”If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is” and nothing could be more true to that when it comes to SEO. Packages which are low cost but offer the world usually are being outsourced to white label SEO services in the Philippines, India, Romania and numerous other countries. Some of these services are ok and do a decent job, however, many are relying only on ‘black hat strategies’.
Black hat strategies are short term success, for long term headache type deals which rarely end well for companies in the long term. Whereas if you pay the price tag and invest in your SEO properly, the odds of the work being taken seriously and done effectively, skyrockets.
So Is It Worth It For My Business
The answer to this question comes down to, “Do your customers try and find you or your products online?” I will give you the answer… YES! There are 3.5 billion searches every day on Google alone and if not a single one is searching for anything related to your service, product or business, then you probably aren’t doing something people value very much. The businesses who don’t need SEO are few and far between.
So Yes, you should be paying for Search Engine Optimization, and Yes, you should treat it as an investment in your business. If you believe that people need or want what you have, then SEO will help you be the place they go to fulfil their need or want.
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