Understanding the Many, Many Variables
First
off you have to understand the marketplace dynamics which affect SEO
success and pricing. How competitive is your industry? How competitive
are the areas you serve?
For
example, an SEO website tune-up for a chiropractor in a small suburban
town might shoot the site to the top of local rankings, while the same
tune-up for an identical practice in a major metropolis might only
improve rankings slightly.
Furthermore,
the value of improving rankings can vary dramatically from business to
business and the amount of available traffic in a particular market.
For some local businesses, being on the first page of Google results
leads to a dramatic increase in leads and revenue while others only a
marginal difference.
Next
comes considering the starting position of a business’ complete digital
presence. How large is the website? Is the site structure well for SEO?
How much keyword-rich content does the site hold? How many technical
SEO issues does the site have? How many links and referring domains are
pointing to the website? Is the business listed accurately on local
listing sites? The list goes on.
For
example, it is not uncommon for an outdated and slow website to rank
higher than a technically-perfect newer website because the older site
has a robust and hard-earned back-link profile. No site’s SEO is
perfect. The entirety of the digital presence has to be taken into
account and then you can develop a strategy that addresses important
weaknesses.
Common Pricing Models
Back
in late 2011, SEO powerhouse MOZ conducted a survey of over 600
agencies in order to understand variations in SEO services pricing
models. While this survey is now seven years old and MOZ admits the
survey isn’t perfectly scientific, it does provide a solid general
understanding of how most agencies price this type of work.
Some
key takeaways from the survey:
·
Project-based pricing is by far the most popular model.
Around 70% of the agencies surveyed said it’s their most commonly used
scheme with projects falling into the four price ranges: $1,001-$1,500,
$1,501-$2,500, $2501-$5,000 and $5,001-$7,500.
·
Monthly retainer pricing models, specifically the monthly
rate, vary radically from agency to agency. The two most common were
$251-$500/month and $2,501-$5,000/month.
·
Most agencies offer project-based, retainer-based and
hourly based pricing models in order to fit the diverse needs and
budget of clients. It is a competitive marketplace and it seems
agencies are very willing to adjust their systems to retain clients.
Main Street ROI’s SEO Pricing Model
Over
the years working with hundreds of SEO clients, we’ve learned how to
expertly tailor our SEO services to the unique variables of each
client, and we tailor our plans to our clients' budgets.
We
determine a scope of work by breaking down factors such as:
·
How big is the website? How many pages need optimization?
·
How much content development is needed, particularly if
the site is obviously lacking important pages?
·
How many technical issues need to be fixed?
·
If it's a local business, are there multiple locations
requiring business profile listing setup or edits?
·
How many backlinks does the website have? If there are not
many, we'll allocate more budget to focus on building a stronger link
foundation.
·
How strong is the competition?
·
Are there aspects of the work that our client can handle
on their end?
The
standard service we recommend is $1,000/month. In month 1, we focus on
conducting an SEO audit, optimizing the top 20 priority pages, and
beginning to address technical issues. Then, in future months, we shift
our focus to content development and link-building.
For
businesses with multiple locations, we recommend a larger budget (for
example, an additional $250 per month per location) in order to build
citations for each location and build out location-specific content.
So, if a business has 4 locations, our standard recommendation would be
the $1000 standard fee plus 3 x $250 for the 3 locations, for a total
of $1,750 per month.
For
larger websites, we'll often quote a higher initial fee in order to
optimize more pages, faster. For a project where we'll optimize 20
pages in the first month, we would quote a $1,000 month 1 fee. If we're
going to optimize 50 pages in the first month, we'd quote $2,000 for
month 1, and for a 100 pages, we'd quote $3,000 for the first month.
At
the same time, a major factor in pricing our SEO services is the
client's budget. We understand that most small businesses have SEO
budgets in the hundreds of dollars versus thousands. That's why we also
provide "Starter SEO" services at reduced fees below $1,000
per month.
At
reduced fees, we have fewer hours to invest in the work, so we execute
our strategy at a reduced speed and with a reduced scope of work. In
practice, this means it may take us an additional month to complete the
initial optimization of some priority pages, and we'll develop less content
per month and build fewer links per month on an ongoing basis.
However,
in our experience, SEO is one of the best marketing investments you can
make -- and the faster you begin, the sooner you can start reaping the
rewards. So, even if you only have a limited budget to start, it's
always better to get started rather than putting it off.
Conclusion
A
successful SEO strategy involves evaluating many variables and forging
a path forward within the client's budget. ‘How much does SEO cost?’
will always be a tricky question, but it's important to recognize that
-- with the right strategy -- progress can be made at nearly every
price point.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment