If you are running an online business website, at some point or other, you probably have come across this question: “how much should I spend on SEO?” or “how much do I spend on SEO?”
Well it’s a tough question, but I’ll try to answer it anyway!
The question “Should I spend for SEO or not?” begs for another question and that is “What is your major goal of your site?”
So, if you are running a real online business where you are thinking of supplementing your current income, or even, transform it into a “real source of income,” then I think you need to be open on “investing in search engine optimization (SEO).” Period!
SEO often turns out to be the foundation of online marketing and continues to be one of the major sources of regular traffic.
Not only will you need to invest money, but sometimes you will also need to invest considerable amount of time too and there’s a reason for that.
There’s a wide spread misconception across the Internet about starting online business! —
There’s a lot of build a site and see traffic mentality going on among website owners. In other words, most people think if you just set up a site/blog and leave it just like that, viola … you have money making machine overnight.
While it’s true that doing business online is cheaper and easier and even quicker than doing business offline (you don’t have to set up a physical stores and face other issues while running a brick and mortar business), but by no means it is a sure thing.
That means you still have to put effort to make it a success!
No, don’t get me wrong. I am NOT saying starting an online business isn’t worthy, or profitable, or you shouldn’t. I am just pointing out that if you want to grow your business and make it profitable, you need to treat it seriously too.
With that said, yes, you will have to spend both your time as well as your hard earned money into generating traffic. Because without traffic, you don’t have money, right?
So now you know whether you should spend CASH for SEO or not, another question pops up, i.e. “how much should you spend on SEO?”
Well, you will need to spend some numbers in order to:
-
Figure out how many visitors it takes in order to make a sale.
-
Plus, you may want to know how much a sale is worth to you and then fine-tune your SEO budget accordingly.
If you are using PPC as part of your SEO campaign (most website owners waste TONS of money on PPC that fails to convert) then spend wisely, otherwise, it can suck you dry!
For organic traffic, though, you may find SEO services costing you everything from $19.99 for “mass submission service” (avoid them as you’ll likely lose your $19.99) to thousands of dollars each month worst, you get your website penalised by the search engines like Google.
Likewise, most small- and medium-sized enterprises (SEMs) usually spend around $300 – $800 per month. Sometimes, the numbers may also go a little bit higher, probably $500 to $1500 per month.
So if you’re spending somewhere between that range, then you should expect to get a quality SEO services from SEO consultants.
Often do I get surprised to hear people getting irritated or even hesitant to spend for quality SEO services.
Business owners don’t hesitate to pay for their doctor bills, or a mechanic bill, or even hire an expensive web designer, but when it comes to marketing their business seriously, they resent to pay for SEO.
If you have both the SEO know-how and ample amount of time, then by all means, please don’t pay any SEO consultant for their search engine optimization services.
Instead, we encourage for you to do it yourself (DIY).
However, if you cannot dedicate few hours a day or don’t have knowledge of proper and current SEO tactics, it is highly encourage that you should budget spending for SEO services.
Remember, driving traffic to your online business site is the key factor to make it become profitable and certainly not an area where you want to go cheap.
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!