Sunday, November 3, 2013

How to Put a Price on an SEO Campaign?

One of the big mysteries of web development is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and an even bigger mystery is how much does it cost. It has become fairly common knowledge for anybody who owns a website now that SEO is essential when gaining traffic that is directly related to your website's content using targeted keywords or keyphrases.However, it is not common knowledge knowing how much SEO costs.The cost of SEO can vary depending on the size and stature of the company you are using. It also depends on the nature of the website being optimised and what keyphrases you want to rank for.There are many different techniques used in SEO, some of them are good and some of them are bad. Unfortunately not all the SEO Companies practice the right methods and are taking advantage of their clients lack of knowledge. Using the wrong SEO company could have an adverse affect on your websites rankings due to techniques being used that Google and other search engines frown upon. Those techniques may give you short-term results but in the long-term they will negatively effect your rankings and may even get your site totally blacklisted.So, what price do we put on SEO? There is no true answer to that due to all the variables that need to be considered. The only way you can truly know how much SEO costs is figure out how much it's worth to you to improve you rankings and what you're willing to spend to get one of the top search engine positions.The cost of SEO will vary depending on what us search engine optimisers call authority. Every website has a level of authority and this is what the search engines use to rank them. The authority your site depends on many variables which are out of your hands and the optimisers. It's the optimisers job to give your site more authority in the eyes of the search engines which is where it become hard to put a cost on it. Every website is different much like a human beings fingerprints. Unfortunately there is no set SEO procedure that can magically boost your rankings. Each SEO campaign should be tailor made to suit the website, the content, the target market and the user.What to consider when creating an SEO budgetBelow are a number of factors that need to be considered when putting together an SEO budget. If your website has the following elements its likely you can improve your rankings quicker.The Age of Your Website - The age of a website can effect how a website is ranked. Websites that have been around for many years are perceived by Google and other search engines to have more authority. Older websites are likely to have more inbound backlinks generated over time which again adds to the authority.The Number of Pages on Your Website - Websites with more pages generally rank higher than smaller sites. The more pages you have the more content there is. The more content there is on a specific subject will gain your site more authority. The search engines will read all the content and scan the pages for keywords and links. All the pages will link to other content on the site which is a big tick in the eyes of Google.What Keywords you Want to Rank For - This is a very important factor that most people tend to overlook. When determining the cost of SEO you need to look at how competitive the keyword is. The more competitive the keyword is the harder it is to rank for it and the harder the keyword is to rank for the more the SEO campaign will cost. I often use this sample but ill reiterate it again... If I want to rank for "SEO" its going to be very hard as there are so many people out there also trying to rank for it and its a keyword where people know what they are doing when it come to SEO so that will make it even harder. But, if I target a more specific keyword like "Central Coast Organic SEO" there is going to be a lot less competition going for that term and the content is more targeted so it will be a much easier term to rank for.How Fast do you need to get Results - If you need quick results SEO is probably not the best avenue to pursue. Your online marketing campaign may be better suited to a Pay Per Click Campaign. However, if you need quick results more work will need to be put in initially to insure your website has a solid foundation and your content is being presented to Google as clearly as possible. Getting fast results means undertaking detailed research and creating specific content based on that research. That said, a quick fix SEO campaign is never a good way to go about it and longterm SEO is always more beneficial in securing longterm results.Conclusion So all in all, SEO is very hard to put a set price on. There are too many variables that must be considered to have an out-of-the-box solution. Quality SEO needs to be carefully thought out and a customised solution developed based on the unique requirements of the website. For more SEO information and to get in touch with SEO Specialists visit BigClick.com.au and they will be able to come up with a longterm SEO plan.