How to know if that SEO provider is legit
My clients often ask me about SEO. Here is a couple quick tips to help you know what is real and what isn’t.
If you own a business - You’re probably getting hundreds of unsolicited emails about SEO. In this article I’m going to share a couple quick thoughts on the matter and, hopefully, it helps you to tell the difference between the legitimate companies and those that might not really know what they are doing.
Let’s start with a brief description of what SEO is.
What is SEO and why it’s important to your business?
SEO is a term that is frequently used when discussing websites. However, not everyone understands what it means, and even fewer people know what is involved in an SEO campaign.
Let’s Define SEO
S.E.O. is simply the acronym for Search Engine Optimization. Roughly speaking - it is the act of optimizing your website to be the best possible answer to any specific customer submitted query that might relate to your website.
For Example: If you own an auto shop that sells used Chevy trucks in Seattle, the keyphrase “used Chevy trucks in Seattle”, might be a good place to start. If you were to optimize your website really well, you might eventually see that people searching for “used Chevy trucks in Seattle”, see you as the top result on the page.
well…. that is the dream! And why is it important?
It is fairly well documented that click through rate in search listings drops off significantly beyond the first page of search results. Roughly speaking, only about 30% of people ever go beyond the first page of search results when looking for something online.
What does this mean?
Well - if your website doesn’t show up on the first page of search results for “used Chevy trucks in Seattle”, you might not be found by people looking for used Chevy trucks IN Seattle.
OK - So SEO IS important - but why does it seem like the pricing for SEO services is really arbitrary?
let’s find out!
Why do SEO prices vary so much from company to company?
SEO is one of those things that can sometimes be difficult to define because it is really just about the act of optimizing your website to be the best possible result for a given query. That being said, there are a number of different tasks involved in the optimization process, and, not all companies perform all tasks.
A search Engine Optimization campaign consists of two primary areas of focus, Onpage SEO and Offpage SEO. That being said, each area of focus can also be broken down into a variety of tasks.
Let’s start with ONPAGE SEO:
Onpage SEO has to do with your website structure and content.
Is your website built well?
is it easy to use?
Is it ADA compliant?
does the website load fast?
Is the content you are sharing providing unique, in depth, and easy to understand value to your customers?
This is a pretty strong simplification of Onpage SEO however, it gives you an idea of what is involved.
Offpage SEO covers things that are not neccesarily directly a part of your website. Some Offpage SEO tactics would involve;
Link building. Link building is a process of getting quality inbound links to your website. Recent studies show that backlinks are one of the most important element when it comes to offpage SEO.
Content marketing: Content marketing influences both on page and off page SEO. Not only are you developing content for your own website, you are looking to create content that can be posted offpage to drive outside traffic back to your page.
Social media marketing. Over 93% of internet users engage in social media. Even though social shares don’t impact SEO ranking, it does expand your reach and grow your audience. Social Media is also the number one way for a business to interact directly with it’s client base.
Guest posting Is one of the most effective ways to grow your audience and expand your backlinks
Podcasts / Video marketing: As we have discussed elsewhere on this site, video marketing and podcasting are highly in demand right now, and for good reason.
As you can see, there are a lot of different pieces to conducting a successful SEO campaign and, to be honest, not all of the agencies perform all of the services as part of their “SEO” campaign. That coupled with overseas company offering and you are looking at everything from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars each month.
What Should SEO cost?
This is a tough question to answer. Using another ridiculous analogy I will try and set the expectation a little better.
Imagine you were looking to buy a house for your family and someone said they had a huge luxury mansion for sale for just a few thousand dollars? would you buy it? Probably not - As a reasonable adult you should have thousands of alarms going off in your head, and you would be right to be suspicious. A proper SEO campaign should involve all of the aforementioned services and all of those services take time to develop. It’s not something that can be done properly for a few hundred dollars. I haven’t even mentioned that there is a thing called BLACK HAT SEO tactics that can look good initially but can also destroy your brand and even get you blacklisted from search in the long run.
What’s the Takeaway?
Seo has a lot of moving parts and it takes a lot of hard work to set those parts in motion and keep them working together in your favor.
I would expect a reasonable fee to be around 10-12K dollars for a minimum of a 6 month campaign.
I’m a small business and I don’t think I can afford SEO….What do I do?
While 1500-2000 dollars a month can seem like a fairly steep investment for a small business, here is why you should consider the investment.
Increased visibility: An effective SEO campaign can help your small business rank higher in search engine results pages, making it easier for potential customers to find your website. As we mentioned before, less than 70% of all searches conducted, ever go beyond the first page. First page ranking can dramatically increase your overall conversion rate.
Cost-effective: Even though it might seem like a lot of money, SEO is still one of the most cost-effective forms of online marketing. The value of an organic page one result extends far beyond that of paid ad campaign.
Targeted traffic: SEO allows you to target specific keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business. This allows you to attract the kind of visitors that are actively searching for the products and/or services that you offer.
Long-term benefits: Unlike paid advertising, the benefits of SEO are long-lasting. Once you achieved a high ranking for your website, you will continue to attract targeted traffic for as long as you maintain your SEO efforts. The good news is that that the level of effort required to maintain your ranking is usually not as difficult as it was getting to page one in the first place.
Increased credibility and trust: A well-optimized website helps to build credibility and trust with your target audience. High search engine rankings and a well-designed website tend to enhance the perception of your business as a reputable and trustworthy source of information and products.
One reason many of our clients decide to pull the trigger is because they understand what the growth potential would mean to their bottom line. Obviously there is no such thing as a typical result, however, many of our clients saw enough growth in the first quarter to realize that they wanted to either add to (or extend) their contracts with us. As the result of better Search Engine Page Ranking (SERP), they were experiencing a greater engagement and higher conversion rate.
Additional tips to avoiding bad actors in the world of SEO
This is just a quick overview so I will try to keep it brief.
One of the first red flags I see on a daily basis is the lack of a DOMAIN BASED EMAIL.
It surpises me the number of people that try to run their company from a gmail account. A domain based email creates a sense of trust and professionalisim.
The reason so many spammers use free email services is because they know that if you block that email, they can just create a new one.
When someone is sending you an email from a *domain based email, they are going to be much more careful because if their email is registered as a spam email, it can damage the domain name itself.
*IMPORTANT - this does not mean all domain based emails are legitimate. Email headers can be forged in order to make the mail look like it originated from somewhere other than where it initially came from.
Guaranteed page one results are a major red flag
If any agency or person offering to help you with SEO utters the phrase “Guaranteed page one results”, turn and run. There is no such thing as a guaranteed page placement when discussing SEO as a strategy. The only way to guarantee a listing shows up on page one is with a pay per click campaign. However, with pay per click, once the money is gone…and so is that 1st page listing.
Google changes algorythims thousands of times a year. If someone could guarantee you an organic page one result then Google would no longer be a “search” engine. It would instead be a listing of the wealthiest companies in the market. If I had the ability to guarantee you an organic page one listing with that type of certainty, my fees would be calculated in the millions of dollars each month.
A final pet peeve having to do with SEO…
The last thing that really urks me is when someone introduces themselves with a statement like “ We noticed you are not showing on page one for the most popular keywords!”
Why would that bother me? It bothers me because they haven’t talked to me about my short term/long term business goals. Therefore, they don’t know anything about what type of strategies I might have in play, and they definitely don’t know what keywords I might be currently focusing on.
These people use this tactic to create concern with a business owner as a means of suggesting they are losing business opportunities. It is a gimmic. ALSO - I have gotten these emails when I owned the top three results for the keywords they said I wasn’t ranking for. This is just another scare tactic.
In summation, SEO can be expensive, but it can also be free.
OK, I covered a lot and I hope what I have said gives you some food for thought when considering your next SEO provider. If you are going to work with someone on SEO, chances are that you will be locked into a contract for several months and you want to make sure that the person you are signing up with, knows what they are doing. Don’t be afraid to ask them for case studies and, or referrals from people they have worked with in the past. Never assume they must know what they are doing because they have a fancy presence. Myself included… Ask to see data that supports their claims.
Lastly, if you simply can’t afford to dive into an SEO campaign, the best thing you can do for yourself is
Add a blog to your website and post at least once a month. When posting remember that quality is better than quantity. Google will see the extra content and it should increase your reach and potentially improve engagement.
When creating a blog, make sure that link to other pages on your website…. EXAMPLE - This link goes to a page on my site called web design. If someone landed on this blog and wants to learn more about web design, I am instantly directing them to a page where I offer a free consultation.
Make sure your website uses Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, and Google My Business (AKA: GMB). Google My business helps with local search and it is a lot easier to get to the top of search in Google maps than it is to achieve a number one Organic result.
Use social media to connect with your audience and create posts that direct them to your website.
What I am trying to say is that SEO has a lot of parts. Offering SEO services for a few hundred dollars is missing the big picture. If a few hundred dollars is all you need to be on page one - Then you can do it yourself for free.
