Search-Engine Optimization (SEO)
What is SEO anyways? If you have delved into the marketing world, you may have come across this term. If you were not in this world until recently, (first off, welcome. What a cool place!) this might be the first time you have ever heard of it!
SEO is crazy important to any business! I should clarify.. Any business with a website, but if you do not have a website, then you should definitely start there.. (Check out our web team!)
SEO is the most organic and clean form of digital marketing. This is all of the background stuff that helps Google (and other search engines) to put your business at the top of the results page. In other words, if you are a plumber in North Dakota, when someone searches for “plumbers in North Dakota,” having solid SEO will help them to find you and your website before they find another plumber.
SEO pricing has a few variables that will affect the price that I will detail here.
SEO Pricing Factors: Localized or Multi-location
First is the number of locations that you have for your business. You will want to consider localized SEO packages on a per-location basis, or, if you have tons of locations, you might want to look at a national SEO package.
Second is the location itself. Real estate follows this as well with the biggest tell of value being “Location! Location! Location!” right? Same thing here – let me explain.
Let’s say that I live in the small town of Buford, Wyoming. One night, I am hungry for a top-notch burger. If I search the web for “burgers in Buford, Wyoming,” very few results pop up, most of which are actually much further away in another, larger city. What I am getting at here is, if you decided to open a burger joint in Buford, Wyoming, it would be pretty easy to get your name at the top of the search list, because you might be the only one there! The competition is almost nonexistent.
When I search for “burgers in NYC,” the results could not be more different. On this search I get a nearly endless list of places I could get a burger from within that one city. Competition is a little more fierce.
What I am getting at here, is that it takes a lot more work and strategizing to get at the top of a Google search for a location like NYC than it does for a smaller spot like Buford, Wyoming. In other words, you should expect to pay a higher price for good SEO service in a location with more competition.
SEO Pricing Factors: National
That pretty much sums up why your business location matters for SEO pricing. But what if you are not just in one or a few spots? What if your business has locations all over the country?
If this is the case for you, first of all, congratulations!! That is so incredible!! From an SEO perspective, this presents a more difficult challenge. Instead of trying to win over local searches on the internet, you will be trying to win over the entire country. That’s not to say that it’s impossible.. But it does take an entirely different approach, strategy and overall process.
National SEO requires additional work and additional talent, so it will increase your cost if you are hoping to have good SEO on a national level.
SEO Pricing: How much will this actually cost?
Right, right.. You came to this to see how much SEO is going to cost you. Can I get to the point already? Of course! I do hope that you have learned a thing or two about SEO, though, and what might cause the below price range to increase or decrease.
So, here it is.
For quality SEO services, you should be expecting to fall somewhere in the range of $300 – $450 per month per location as a base price for any location, and that will increase or decrease depending on the actual place, or places, of business, the competition in the location, or the nature of the SEO needed.
Should I do SEO myself?
SEO can be very technical and challenging to learn. I would definitely recommend using an expert as it will save you a whole lot of time and will probably end up saving you money in the long term because the results will most likely be better, and you won’t have to pay for other expensive tools.
However, it is 100 percent possible to learn and do SEO on your own. If you’re interested in saving some money up front and would like to take that route, we recommend that you check out this incredible guide to all things SEO from MOZ. It is a pretty lengthy read, but it will teach you the things that you need to know!
Another thing you will need to DIY your SEO would be some kind of SEO tool like Semrush or Ahrefs. These tools will help guide your SEO and help you to ensure that you’re hitting all of the points that you need to.
That should be all that you need to become your own SEO master!
Again, we recommend that you use the expertise of an SEO provider. They already know what they are doing, and they already have these tools purchased, so you don’t need to buy and manage yet another software account, but it is completely up to you!
If you are interested in SEO services for your company, we would be more than happy to chat with you!
You can check out our website for more information here. Or you can reach out directly to our team here. Looking forward to meeting with you!
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