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| Determining the Value of Your
SEO Service |
| Posted: 02-05-2006 | |
| Author: Stoney deGeyter |
Every once in a while I review
our SEO pricing models to ensure that we remain competitive.
Pricing search engine optimization has always been a real
sticking point for me because there is no one-size-fits-all
pricing metric. As I began our most recent review of our
pricing something really started to become quite obvious;
search engine optimization is requiring more and more
research and analysis than it ever did before.
After doing SEO for several years (since 1998) I recently
put all of our regular SEO duties into a spreadsheet and
noting the amount of time spent on each activity on a
one-time basis, monthly basis, and a per-page basis (both
one-time and monthly). This format allows me to quite
easily see the man-hours and costs involved in each distinct
duty that we perform over the course of an SEO campaign.
It also allows me to see the changes that occur in our
SEO processes.
A year ago, the bulk of our optimization occurred in the
set-up phase, with the monthly optimization consisting
of a few hours of link building, rankings monitoring and
on-page tweaking. Now, the set-up is just a mere fraction
of the hours that go into each optimization campaign.
The continual analysis performed on each account every
month does not exceed that of the set-up, but add a couple
months worth of optimization together and it does. Expand
that to a six or twelve month campaign and the man hours
of research and analysis performed far exceeds the initial
set-up process. And believe me; we do a considerable amount
of research up front!
Differing Pricing between SEO Companies
SEO providers come in all shapes and sizes. We often have
potential clients come to us price shopping. They are
not comparing our services with our competitors, but they
are comparing our pricing with our competitors. In that
battle we lose almost every time, and the reason for that
is because there is always an "SEO" company that will
work for less. With SEO, however, you usually get what
you pay for. If you want a cheap service, you'll get cheap
results.
"But isn't SEO all about top rankings?
If firm X can provide top rankings for less, shouldn't
I go with them?" This is standard fare from bargain shoppers,
but the basic questions to ask yourself is this: do you
want top rankings or do you want more business? Most SEO
companies are in the business of achieving top rankings
and everything else is not their problem. Even still,
it is rare to find inexpensive SEOs that can achieve top
rankings for competitive, high ROI terms, maintain those
top rankings through constant algorithm changes, and continue
to beat out your competition which are optimizing for
the same keyword phrases.
If you're paying someone only a few hundred or even just
a few thousand dollars each year to work on your site,
how many man-hours do you really think they are giving
you each month? When your site gets dropped or rankings
mysteriously crash, how much time do they spend trying
to find potential issues and problems? Even the best sites--and
those optimized by the best SEOs in the world--can suddenly
disappear from the search engines. Sometimes it’s a temporary
issue, sometimes it’s because of something the client
did, and sometimes it’s due to other external factors.
Whatever the reason, the SEO needs to thoroughly investigate
so the issue can be corrected.
Continuous Optimization Services
Recently we've changed our overall outlook on the month-to-month
SEO services we provide. This is largely due to the number
of clients that come to us each month after having been
penalized by one or more engines because of previous SEO
work performed which ran afoul of the search engines.
Rarely do these cases allow for a quick fix which puts
them back into the top positions overnight. With the suspected
Google sandbox, over-optimization penalties and aging
delays, many of these sites must go through a rather lengthy
period before they are placed back in the index and allowed
to perform well in the search results, long after penalization
issues have been resolved.
We look at what we provide similar to having an investigator
on retainer. Our job, each month, is to continue to seek
out potential problems that may now, or in the future,
be keeping our client's sites from performing as best
as they can possibly be. If our clients are not in the
first page for all their targeted ROI phrases, then our
job is to find out why. And then if they are not in the
top 5, our job is to analyze what it takes to get them
there. And if they are not in the top 3 then we need to
see what the competition has going for them that our client
doesn't. And if they are not in the top spot, our job
is to find and eliminate all potential external barriers,
no matter how small. And all of this must be done while
maintaining the integrity, usability, and performance
of the client's site.
Sometimes all this is as simple as finding a duplicate
URL somewhere that we didn't know about and other times
after months of research we find that a client links out
to sites that link out to other sites using spammy techniques.
These types of things have to be under constant analysis,
even if a site performs well. Heading off problems before
they occur is a big part of the SEO game, and plays heavily
into pricing.
Pricing is a big deal for the average business owner and
it should be. However, pricing alone should not be the
deciding factor in which SEO provider you choose. Find
out what services you'll be getting. If you get the impression
that the SEO is done after a few hours of up front work,
you may not be getting enough investigation for potential
or existent, yet unknown, problems. This can cost you
later on.
On the other hand, just because someone charges huge fees
does not mean they'll do you well either. This is a symptom
of many very large SEO companies. Do your homework and
find the company that will treat you as their only client.
If you get that kind of service, you will undoubtedly
reap a very significant return on your investment.
This article is free for republishing
Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/ |
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