Learn the Cost of SEO Before You Hire
Respected professionals command high pay for their expertise; it's
the just return for the years they've spent learning their profession,
mastering often esoteric knowledge. Nobody disputes that doctors,
lawyers, and those in many other fields should be well paid. Yet
clients trying to hire an SEO often think they can pay discount
prices...and then face sticker shock when they discover the truth.
Why?
One recent thread in the SEO Chat forums brings this point home.
The poster hoped to get assistance with an off-page optimization
campaign. With four sites, he hoped to get someone to spend one
hour per site building links; he hadn't had much success with Elance,
because most candidates sent a “standard proposal for a fully-blown
SEO campaign, which isn't what we want.” At least the poster seemed
to have a clue, acknowledging that “perhaps I'm being a little unrealistic
about anyone being able to do anything meaningful in 1 hour.”
What would you expect to pay a lawyer for an hour of his time?
And how much do you think he could accomplish? For a decent SEO,
a consultation fee of $100 an hour would not be unreasonable, but
it takes longer than an hour to build a campaign, off-page or otherwise.
As SEO Chat moderator Visio pointed out, one hour “should be the
start of initial analysis, however link building is an ongoing process...
very little can be achieved [in an hour's work] that will have lasting
effects.”
An SEO's expert knowledge provides one reason for the costs associated
with hiring him or her. And “cost” is the key word here -- not just
to you, but to the SEO. As respected SEO Chat forum member fathom
pointed out, quality links “may cost $0 in cash but hours in research
and more hours in copywriting that someone needs to pay for... and
if this isn't you paying... then who?”
These costs, by the way, are ongoing; SEO isn't something you can
do once and then never think about again. That's especially true
for building quality links. The original poster didn't name a price
or reveal a budget, but what would have been reasonable? For off-page
optimization for four web sites, if you give the job to a good,
experienced SEO, you can expect to pay at least $4,000 a month.
But for that amount of money you'll not only get their time, you'll
get their expertise, their advice, regular reports, a written contract
that spells it all out in black and white, and everything you would
expect from a true professional!
Read
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