How much should SEO cost?

How much should you budget for SEO services?

Website owners and SEO companies find it very hard to answer this question. Because the web is so dynamic, the specific requirements for up-to-date search engine optimization can change rapidly and so a price one day might be totally inappropriate a year or even a month later.

A recent report stated that less than half of all small businesses have any SEO budget at all. Of those that did have a budget most  spent less than $100 a month. Which is why your e-mail inbox is full of spam with promises of “guaranteed first-page results” for $99. The SEO spammers know the market quite well!

Most website owners have little idea about Search Engine Optimisation, what it is or how it works. Like you, they are far too busy running their business to spend time trying to become an expert.

And many think that SEO is just another commodity and have no hesitation in hiring the cheapest. Bad idea!

The number of “cowboys” posing as Search Engine Optimisation professionals and taking on paying clients is disturbing. You sometimes see a question posted on the web like: “I have a new customer that wants their website rank for the keyword “someword” – how do I do that?” (!)

If website owners were just wasting money by hiring incompetent SEO scammers, that would be bad enough but the damage from “cheap SEO” can be catastrophic. It can easily earn your website a Google penalty and  render it invisible on Google and the other search engines. You really don’t want that to happen!