Archive for February, 2011

Can Your Small Business Afford SEO?

It is easy to say that SEO is crucial for any website today, particularly those of SMEs, or small to medium enterprises. It’s far less easy to spend the $500 to $1000 (per hour!) that some SEO firms charge for their services. The issue isn’t whether the fees are exorbitant – SEO is, after all, a time-consuming, complex process that does take effort, time, concentration, and, yes, money. The issue is whether it is out of your reach. You may not think you can fit SEO into your budget, but can you afford to go without?

According to studies, SEO budgets increased some 15 percent in 2010 from the previous year, and this trend is continuing into 2011. SEO can be pricy, but you also have to factor in the added value of professional optimization, as well as the time that is freed up for those who had been trying to handle the task themselves. Investing even a small amount of time and money in a targeted SEO campaign can pay off in terms of your ROI.

SEO is more complicated than using Google Adwords to find keywords you think will work and putting them into your content. This is why self-service SEO is often risky. There are so many ranking factors and shifting rules and regulations that it is entirely possible to inadvertently use “black hat” techniques. You may not be doing it intentionally or with ill-intent but you can still face penalties from Google and other search engines. This may end up chewing up more of your budget than hiring and SEO firm or consultant.

Time is money for any business, and SEO can be a hog. The process itself is time-consuming, as mentioned, but results are also not instantaneous. You will want to target more important SEO tasks to complete first and be aware that results in rankings could be weeks or months away. With that in mind, can you afford to put off professional SEO help?

A common misconception is that an SEO campaign must be extensive, all-inclusive, and, of course, expensive! This can be true; a well-run, well-executed campaign will obviously yield more favorable results. But doing nothing is not the only other option. You can target strategies that are affordable now and will help provide a good ROI. Something is certainly better than nothing – as long as that “something” is a well-constructed strategy.

Your company may not be able to afford a full-fledged professional SEO campaign, but in the fiercely competitive economy, you cannot really afford to make no optimization efforts. Start small if you have to, and build on your success one step at a time.

Posted by admin on February 22nd, 2011 | Email | Print |