Have a newly designed website that is optimized to convert visitors to leads and filled with SEO friendly content? Now what do you do? The last thing you want to do is let your website sit there and rot and fade away. Here’s a breakdown to consider when looking at the costs associated with hiring an internet consultant to handle your SEO. The monthly costs may come with a sticker shock, but after a quick analysis you may just find their true value.
Organic Search ROI Calculation Assuming Lifetime Value
| Example: Selling blue widgets | |
| Number of new customers acquired via organic search in a given month | 10 |
| Average net income (profit) per order | $100 |
| Total profits from new organic search customers in a given month | $1,000 |
| Average number of orders per customer over a “lifetime” | 5 |
| Total average lifetime profit | $5,000 |
| Monthly marketing budget (expense) | $2,500 |
| Average lifetime profits from new customers ($5,000) divided by monthly organic marketing spend ($2,500) | ROI = 200% |
As you can see from the chart above that creating longterm clients from SEO easily justifies the monthly cost. This example of course can be done for any local company. Maybe your company has a lower profit per order, but the number of potential clients is greater. The numbers are different but the result is the same. The numbers come out even better if you have a higher profit per order. Consider a lawyer or home renovation client where the profit per order can be in the thousands of dollars.
Organic Search Requires an Ongoing Investment
Organic search isn’t like pay per click or paid newspaper ads etc; one should not expect an organic search campaign to yield immediate results. A well designed organic campaign will involve a combination of content marketing and link-building activities, supplemented by social promotion. These activities take time to research and execute – not to mention the time that passes before Google indexes the work.
The Google Paradox
According to Albert Einstein, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. SEO has proven to be the exception to this rule.
In fact, the EXACT same activities that once thrust a KW phrase to number one in the SERPs can now trigger manual or algorithmic pain. In other words, doing the same thing as in the past, can and will yield very different results. When considering hiring someone to do your SEO ask them about their methods. Don’t get into the nitty gritty details until your eyes haze over. But simply get a feel for what they’re doing. If they’re going to spam your page with tons of backlinks, RUN AWAY. If they focus on backlinks or buying links at all, RUN AWAY. Yes this used to work, in fact Justin McGonigal, one of our internet consultants here at Build Your Online, used to do just that. He had websites ranked #1 on Google for search terms like iPad 3 and iPhone 5 prior to their release. These sites generated thousands of dollars a day and millions of views. However the things he did then, would get your website delisted and penalized into oblivion today.
Developing a SEO Budget
I’m often asked by prospective clients how much money one should budget in order to achieve Goal X in Y period of time. It would be terrific if search marketing was like programming – a straight-up “if this, then that” proposition. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. There are too many outside variables in play.
The rate of achieving a goal is impacted by a number of factors, beyond your control or the marketers’. Things like the number of competitors in a niche, the quality of competing websites, the quality of competitor link profiles, and the strength of competing brands are all wildcards that will have an impact how quickly one gets traction in organic search.
That said, the right budget is one that you can comfortably afford and stick with for at least four to six months. It takes that long to plan, organize, develop, execute, and then accurately evaluate the success of a campaign. Generally speaking, more budget dollars equals more resources, which can expedite meeting established goals and objectives.
Choosing an SEO Firm
There is no shortage of information on how to choose an SEO, here is what to avoid.
Email spammers
Do you really think it’s a good idea to trust some anonymous clown with a disposable Gmail account with your online success? They’ve already broken marketing protocol, if not the law, by sending you an unsolicited email. What makes you think they will conform to Google webmaster guidelines?
Firms that promote and sell “Cheap Backlinks.”
Hiring a company to get cheap backlinks is akin to paying for a Penguin slap or manual penalty. I have yet to find any of these firms doing editorial link-building. Instead, they are engaging in link schemes that are not compliant with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
Firms that promote and sell “Cheap Content.”
Buying and publishing poor quality content is the first step in getting Panda slapped out of the SERPs. If you think good content is expensive, it’s a bargain when compared to the cost of a penalty recovery.
Fiverr
Our inbox is filled daily with horror stories from business owners who are desperate to recover from a penalty caused by shoddy SEO work. Many didn’t know the rules. Others didn’t care, because whatever was being done was working.
In Summary
Of course SEO is still worth it in 2015 and into 2016. If you have been having difficulty in determining what to spend, the calculations above may prove useful in developing a budget. Don’t take the “Cheap SEO” bait. There is no point in paying a “Bargain SEO Firm” to do work that is, more often than not, against Google guidelines and almost certain to trigger a Panda or Penguin hit.
Want honest and efficent SEO firm?
Do you want a company that strives to make you money? We work with you to learn the profit per customer, your target customer, and more. This is all done to understand your budget and come up with a plan for you. We love working with companies that have a great reputation and helping them grow their business by using the internet.