Affordable Small Business SEO - Know What Your Money Buys - page 2

by Tomer Harel, 5/4/2006

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.

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About the author

Tomer Harel is a SEO specialist and founder of Key Scouts, a search engine optimization company providing affordable SEO services and result-driven programs, focusing primarily on the needs of small businesses.

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