Let me guess, you’re scouring the internet trying to price compare SEO Agencies and you’re coming up with no public pricing lists. Or, you’ve received some quotes and you’re wondering to yourself, “Why is SEO so expensive?” I hear what you’re saying, I really do. So let me break it down for you. And then I’ll explain how we’re a little different.
SEO is so expensive because…
It takes hours and hours of work to get ranked. Here’s just an inkling of what goes into it:
TECHNICAL AUDIT. Do you know if your website is indexed in Google? Do you have all your tracking properties set up correctly? Is your robots.txt letting websites crawl appropriate pages? You might not know that. But we do! We’ve had the training. We can tell you what’s up with your website and if the search engines are crawling and indexing all the appropriate pages.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS. Most SEO’s will review the websites of at least 3 of your competitors, analyze their keywords, and their advertising efforts, and view them through the lens of, “How can we beat these guys at their own game?” As you can imagine, collecting and analyzing that information takes time.
KEYWORD RESEARCH. Yes. We know you want to rank for Best Falafel on the Planet, but guess what? If you’re a brand new business, we should probably stay in your local area. We SEO’s do a type of triage when we consider keyword research. We look at the competition, we look at keywords you can rank for right now, and we make short- and long-term plans. Don’t worry. We’ve got you, boo!
PAGE TITLES AND META DESCRIPTIONS. This is where things get interesting. If you have a website with a few pages, this isn’t as time-consuming as, say, an Ecommerce website with 10,000 products. We not only have to craft Page Titles and Meta Descriptions that encapsulate your keywords and meet minimum word counts, AND make sure they meet your brand guidelines, but we also have to (in most cases) add them to the backend of your website. One time a Halloween Costume company came to me for an SEO Quote. They had 20,000 pages. I let them know that at a minimum it was going to be a 5-figure quote. I didn’t hear back from them.
ON-PAGE COPY. Once we establish your keywords, we not only write Page Titles and Meta Descriptions, but we also have to finesse your on-page copy. We add headers, bullets, keywords, and link out to other pages on your website…I mean, it’s a whole thing. And if you have a lot of pages, again, this can get very time-consuming.
CONTENT. Many SEO companies are going to suggest you create new content for your website with key search terms that they think will resonate with your audience. So, for example, let’s write an article about why you’re the best Falafel place in West Lafayette, IN. A lot of businesses will write these for you and have you approve them. Some will suggest topics and let you write them to cut the cost down (but they’ll “SEO” them for you!). They aren’t suggesting this for fun. It’s because content gets the people to your site. And you want all the people to visit your website, yeah?
SEO is so expensive because you can get a great return on your investment.
That’s right. ROI is where it’s at! If you get people to your website organically, you’re getting potential customers in those “I want to buy” and “I want to try” moments. Good SEOs will help you capture those people. And those people will buy from you. I’ve worked with a client for the past few months whose competitors are Amazon, Wayfair, and other major furniture companies. We had to work together to discover the best way to tackle this issue, but within 3 months the strategy was clicking. As of this moment, we’ve increased leads pre-pandemic to post-pandemic by 35%. And we’re just getting started.
Can SEO be less expensive?
Yes. We work with you in a few different ways to help make SEO less expensive. The thing is, that it’s going to take work on your part to help with the SEO strategy. And maybe that’s a good thing if you’re really interested in learning a little bit more about how your website works and how the changes you make affect search. But we can also do it all for you if that’s what you need. Just schedule a consultation and let’s chat about your budget, timing, and business needs.
Do you have any questions about why SEO is so expensive? I’m happy to answer them. Contact me or leave a comment on this post.