Billions of people use Google and search for everything from the hottest hairstyles to how to grow their business.
If you want to get in front of these people, you need to be in the number one spot for relevant search queries. You may be considering SEO management to help you keep up with your SEO plans.
One of the most important things you have to keep track of with your SEO is your SEO budget. If you don’t put enough money into your SEO plans, they are going to fizzle out.
Put too much money into a failing strategy and you’re throwing your money out the window. Continue reading this article to learn more about SEO and how to get the best results.
What Is SEO?
Before we get into how much money you should spend on SEO, let’s make sure you have a full understanding of what SEO is. Many people have read or heard the term SEO but don’t have enough understanding of what it is and how it works.
When you understand what SEO is, it makes it easier to understand what you’re paying for and why you should put your money toward SEO efforts.
SEO stands for search engine optimization and is when your website shows up in the “free” or “organic” results in Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines.
In other words, you’re working to not have to pay for clicks to your website.
SEO can get very complicated and there’s always something else to learn to get the edge on your competition but the basic principles always stay the same. Google and other search engines want to serve the best results to their users so those users keep coming back.
You don’t want to try to game the system. What’s even better? You don’t need to game the system.
A true SEO company will help you put a strategy together to create the best content, market that content and make sure that your resource is the best resource for people searching for that keyword term and other closely relevant keyword terms.
How to Get the Best SEO Results
Besides for serving great content, you do need to know some technical things to make sure your site performs well and there is no duplicate content showing to the search engines. If you aren’t a technical person, you should hire someone that knows how to make sure your website is performing at its best and you’re not dealing with duplicate content issues.
There have been many updates such as the Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, and other animal-themed algorithm updates. If you’ve found yourself on the wrong side of these updates, you don’t have to start from scratch. In most cases, you can recover from a Google dropkick by disavowing sketchy links and clearing up duplicate content issues. You can keep track of keyword rankings on a budget by using https://zenserp.com.
How Long Does It Take to See Results with SEO Management?
Yes, it does sound like there is a lot of work for your SEO management company and that’s true. There are many things to think about but don’t let that overwhelm you. Start where you can with the budget you have and start chipping away at the tasks.
What Goals Should You Set for Your SEO Campaigns?
One of the best ways to determine how much money you should be spending on SEO is what goals you have for your SEO efforts. You need to know what your measure of success is for your campaign.
Ranking for keywords isn’t enough anymore. There have to be other goals in place to ensure your SEO efforts are on point.
Some of the things you should consider when you’re setting goals for SEO are how many sessions come from organic traffic, the increase of conversions, and the increase in revenue.
To get people to opt into your email list or to buy your products and services, you need to have people visiting your website. You can track your sessions and website visitors to make sure you’re website is going in the right direction.
Once you have a good amount of sessions showing in your analytics, you can start to see how this traffic converts and then watch to see how those conversions are affecting your company’s revenue.
When you have website views from the right people, you’ll start seeing conversions which will then result in the revenue increase. Focus on getting your target market to your site and the other things will fall in place as long as your website is designed to drive opt-ins and sales.
How Much Does It Cost to Pay Someone for SEO?
You’re ready to put some money behind your SEO efforts and you’re thinking about hiring someone. If different companies have given you quotes, you might find there is a wide range of rates for the same service.
An SEO agency with years of experience might charge up to $275 an hour for SEO work. Make sure the company you’re considering hiring can back up why you should pay them the rates they’re asking.
If an agency or individual doesn’t have much experience or proof that they can get your company results, you should pass on them.
When you see spam posts about magic links that will help you get to the first page of Google in 30 days, these results are short-lived (if they even work at all). You’ll find that search engine algorithms are smarter than ever and getting penalized isn’t worth short-term results.
Vet your SEO management company well, since a bad SEO job can do the opposite of what you paid them to do.
Determine an Overall Digital Marketing Budget
Before you set a budget for SEO, you should have an overall digital marketing budget in place.
There are other important things you have to keep in mind like social media marketing, email marketing, paid search marketing, affiliate marketing, influencer marketing, display ads, and more.
If you only have $1,000 a month to spend on your whole digital marketing strategy, you’re going to have to decide how heavily you’re going to bet on your SEO strategies for the results you want.
You should keep in mind that SEO is a great way to get people to your website and it can be one of the most targeted means of hot leads — BUT it can take some time to get going.
As your website’s authority starts to gain traction, it will be easier for your blog posts and website pages to rank but in the beginning search engines don’t trust you. You have to create trust with the search engines and with potential customers as well.
One of the easiest ways to set your SEO budget is to give a percentage of your digital marketing budget to SEO and don’t go over it.
How to Get the Best Results With Your SEO Strategy
When you’re working on your own SEO management or if you’ve hired a company like seoexplode.com, you need to make sure your strategy is going to get your company results. Even if you’re ranking in the search engines, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to get leads and sales.
Consider Budgeting for PPC
If you don’t want to waste time on keywords that don’t convert to leads and sales, you should consider using some of your SEO budget for PPC. When you bid on keywords, you can see almost immediately if they are going to be good keywords to go after for your business.
If you get a lot of clicks for a given keyword but no one is opting into your email list or buying your product or service, that might not be a good place to put your SEO efforts or money.
Targeting a highly competitive keyword can be pricey when you’re working on SEO. You have to create the content, market it, and build backlinks to get the attention and juice you need. All of these things cost money and take time.
If your PPC efforts show a keyword is or isn’t good for targeting, you can save thousands of dollars in resources and time.
Learn About Business, Marketing and More
Now that you know more about SEO management and how to get the most out of your SEO strategies, why stop learning there? We have articles on business, marketing and more that can help you as you’re growing your business. Browse our site, find your favorite section, drop a bookmark and come back soon for more great reads.
