Background

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a website in search engine listings. SEO primarily handles what is known as organic search results, also known as the results the search engines present users, excluding paid advertisement.

The main reason people seek high rankings in the organic search results is to increase targeted traffic to their websites. SEO offers a very cost effective alternative to obtain that traffic. Other means such as pay per click advertisement or banner advertising can potentially be expensive, particularly with competitive terms where the cost per click can be several dollars.

Targeting the Right Keywords

As a small business this is particularly important. Traffic for itself is not necessarily the ultimate goal. Targeted traffic is. Selecting common generic search phrases can be a poor marketing strategy for a small business because it can generate a large volume of low-quality inquiries that cost money to handle, yet result in little revenue.

A small business will probably obtain much better results when targeting highly specific keywords that indicate a prospective customer who is ready to buy their product. Moreover, the more specific a keyword is, the lower competition it has, therefore the higher chance to ‘win’ that keyword for a relatively low cost.

Result Driven Approach

Let’s leave all the marketing pitch aside for a moment and really get down to the facts. What really makes an SEO firm affordable? Well, we can start by looking at what is NOT affordable. Paying thousands of dollars upfront certainly does not make sense for a small business, where every dollar spent has to provide a clear return on investment (ROI), especially since the marketing budget is not too high to begin with.

That leads us to next big question – how should we measure the ROI for SEO? SEO has one objective – that is to generate targeted traffic to your website, period. The good news is that traffic can easily be measured. Every web hosting company provides visual server log files that record and analyze the website’s traffic across time. So SEO effectiveness can be easily measured.

Affordable SEO is first and foremost based on a result-driven approach, meaning you should only pay when you see results. Results can be measured in various ways, for instance top page placement in the major search engines or a certain increase (%) in your website traffic. Think of it as placing an ad in a newspaper, it serves exactly the same purpose as SEO – that is generating targeted traffic to your business. So why should it be any different?

If an SEO firm is as good as they claim to be, let them bite their own bullet and guarantee your money back if they fail to deliver top page results within a reasonable time frame (usually 4-6 months). It is only fair.

How Much Should You Pay?

So things are starting to feel right. Your website finally appears on the first page of Google when you type in your search phrases and you are starting to experience a significant increase in your website’s traffic. How much should you pay?

This is a tricky question. My belief is that every keyword has a price tag. It consists of two main factors: keyword popularity and keyword competitiveness. Obviously, you should strive for keywords with the highest popularity (number of searches per day or per month) and the lowest competition (number of web pages competing for the same keyword, knowingly or unknowingly).

Keyword pricing is not a straightforward task. It takes into account multiple data sources that measure popularity and numerous elements to evaluate the competitiveness in the major search engines. At my company, we have developed a mathematical formula that takes all the relevant elements into account and set the right price tag per every chosen keyword. Bottom line, it has to make sense to you, the customer, in terms of ROI. For example, if you pay $300 a month for a specific keyword – you want this keyword to generate revenue higher than $300 a month.

As a small business, this method offers you a modular approach that can be expanded over time. You can start with a single keyword, and pay as low as $100 per month. Then gradually, upon success, add additional keywords to increase your traffic and your income. This way, you decide what is affordable to your business at every point in time.

To conclude: SEO can genuinely take your business to the next level if done right. Keep it simple, make sure you understand what your money buys and make sure you can measure the results before and after.