Choosing an SEO Firm by Price
As a company that determines its success from the success we achieve for our clients, we think its important that reputable, ethical, and professional search marketers do everything in their power to provide enough education to save as many organizations as possible from falling prey to the unscrupulous practices of scam companies.
We also think its important to do the inverse, educate the public about legitimate SEO in a way that not only helps keep them from being scammed, but helps them choose the best SEO company to help them reach their organizational goals. One of the best ways to separate the SEO companies that can deliver from those that can't is to look at their prices.
One of the biggest warning signs that an SEO company can't deliver what they promise is that there prices for SEO are too low. Ask yourself "What are they charging and does it seem reasonable?" It's important to understand the difference between "reasonable" and what you would like the price to be. Think about the keywords you are wanting your company to rank for and ask them to provide you with a list that shows the approximate number of searches for those keywords each month. The higher the search volume, typically the higher the competition and the price. If the price seems too good to be true, then it probably is!
Test: put your keywords into a Google search and see how many results are returned. The illustration below shows you where to look:
That means that there are about 231,000 web pages that would like to be on page 1 for the keyword search "orlando personal injury lawyer". So when you see ads like these ...
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Just ask yourself "out of those 231,000 results that represent several thousand attorneys, is it likely that more than ten of them would pay $99.95 a year to be on page one for a search that generates thousands of visitors each month? Especially considering that each case is on average worth several thousand dollars?" Since you know that there is only room for 10 results on page 1, If you answer yes then you know that this is at best an SEO company that can't deliver for that price, and at worst, is a scam. They failed the price test. Time to move on.
Another great test for evaluating the value of SEO prices is what happens when you stop paying. A good SEO firm will give you a price for the initial work to be done and then typically a separate price for monthly maintenance. That maintenance usually includes your monthly analytics report that gives you a variety of information about the success of your online marketing efforts and well as areas of improvement, and a certain amount of ongoing link building. Depending on your market and the competition the importance of the ongoing monthly link building can range from minimal to critical. In many markets, after the initial work to get you your desired ranking, including the development of the needed number of backlinks, you typically can maintain that position with the standard organic growth that you would expect to see (Example: other businesses naturally linking to you without being asked...) from your site and only the occasional assistance of the SEO company. In other markets where your competition is always increasing and you have multiple competitors vying for that top 5-page 1 position, without ongoing link building efforts you would quickly find yourself falling in the rankings. But the important part is this, if you are not wanting to pay an ongoing monthly fee will the SEO company take away the backlinks they previously acquired for you?
Some companies do this, it is against the Google guidelines, and is what we call the Pay-Per-Click version of SEO. One of the biggest advantages of Organic SEO is that it truly is an investment, because it continues to pay dividends long after the service is rendered. With true organic SEO, the search marketing firm should increase your rankings by developing your site, its content, and relationship to the rest of the online world in a way that enriches the internet, is congruent with the guidelines established by the search engines, and provides many direct and indirect benefits for the lifetime of your site. While an ongoing monthly link campaign, even if its just a small one, is always a good idea, your decision to not utilize that service shouldn't cause you to lose the backlinks that were gained as part of the original SEO campaign.
How do these companies do this? Instead of doing the work of making the technical modifications to your site, developing linkable content, and developing the online relationships and resources for your site to acquire links that not only allow you to achieve better rankings but also enrich the experience of your site's visitors, they take a shortcut. They build out their own series of sites, make agreements with a multitude of other sites and networks, link them together in a way that is difficult for Google and the other search engines to figure out what they are doing, and then for a monthly fee give you a enough links on enough of these sites to allow you to achieve the rankings you are paying them for. Until you stop paying them. Then, they take away all of the backlinks, your site drops out of site again, and you gained nothing lasting or substantial from their service. Be aware, some of the largest SEO companies out there use this business model, and by having a slick and well trained sales staff, they manage to sign up several hundred new clients a week. So what is a good price for SEO and what should it include?
A Good SEO Program for A Good Price
Below are a few suggestions for using price and value to help determine the SEO company that's right for you and your organization:
If there fees for SEO are substantially lower than other online marketing firms, ask why. If it's more than a 75% difference, like the $99 and $149 examples listed above, then the service is almost always a fraud. However, if it's a smaller company that only deals with a handful of clients, that can often justify as much as a 50% lower price over larger organizations. On average North American Multimedia's prices are approximately 60% of what our larger competitors charge. We can do this, because unlike them, we don't maintain a sales office, large advertising budget, the infrastructure involved with accounting and hr for larger companies, or the expenses involved in trying to rapidly grow a company. That's simply not our business model because dealing in that type of volume and infrastructure would take away what we enjoy and what makes us different, the level of attention, focus, and detail we give to every client and every campaign. The best fit for most mid-sized companies is passing on the large SEO marketing corporations who are passing on their high overhead and expansion plans to you in higher costs and fees, and finding a small firm that will give you more attention, often a superior product, and a much better price point.
Know what you are getting for your SEO dollars. Ask questions and make sure you'll own the copyright to any content that is developed in conjunction with your SEO campaign, that all links that are acquired are yours to keep regardless of your participation in services which involve additional ongoing monthly fees, and that you receive analytic reporting to show the positive impact the SEO campaign has had on your site's traffic.
Because SEO prices vary so dramatically based on the competition for different keyword phrases, it is difficult to quote actual numbers. What is a great price for certain keyword searches for a business in New York, may be outrageous for the same type of business in Orlando. However by using these guidelines, you can help determine which SEO company is charging a fair price, whose are inflated, and how too low of a price is perhaps the biggest danger sign of all. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. We are also happy to offer you a free online marketing consultation and initial evaluation of your website.
