Happy President’s day! To celebrate, we wrote our next post :)… If you’ve ever called around, in our city or any city, getting quotes for search engine optimization services, you’ll notice several things. First you’ll realize that competition is fierce as there are tons of businesses offering search optimization services. Second, once you start contacting these people and getting estimates for their cost of services, you will see that prices range wildly. This actually is not really all that surprising with all the SEO Denver has to offer.
Some agencies will charge upwards of $10,000 per month. Granted this will probably include up-sells, like Google Ads or Youtube marketing, but wow, it is a lot. You will find other “companies” that charge a flat fee of maybe $100. We put companies in quotes because these are usually an individual that is looking to make a quick buck from people who don’t really understand what search engine optimization entails and a liable to getting swindled.
Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions
A good way to keep yourself from paying too much for optimization services is to have a thorough vetting process. Part of this process should include a list of questions to ask. These should include what you are paying for, what exactly they will be doing for you, how you will track their progress and how it works if you don’t want to work with them anymore.
It may be hard for you to ask direct questions like this, but it is important and completely worth it. A true professional will not mind being asked these questions. If they get upset when you ask these questions of fumble when answering, that is a bad sign.
It varies because not all services are created equal
Ultimately, not all agencies are created equal, so why should the prices they charge be equal? Some people will provide better attention to you while others will not answer the phone as often. If that is important to you it may be worth paying more for that. Or maybe you are most concerned about results so can forgive them if you don’t get along with them that well.
We would recommend not doing a yearly contract in case you aren’t happy with the services or results. This allows you to switch providers and compare and contrast who is best. You can always go back to your first provider if the second or third ones are not as good. Keep in mind though that results aren’t instantaneous.
Ask for a cost benefit analysis and do it yourself
Using a few free tools, you can get an idea of how much money there is to be made by being on the first page of Google, particularly the number one spot. If you are a lawyer there is a lot of money to be made there. If you are a handyman, it may not be worth it to pay for search services. To calculate it, you need to know the conversion rate of new leads and how much an average client is worth to you.
Once you have an idea of how much money can make by being number one or in the top three, you can decide how much you can afford to pay for services. It won’t necessarily be an easy decision. Maybe you can afford one provider and not the other, but maybe the one you can’t afford will actually get you to number one and they one you can afford can’t and you’ll end up losing money. This is why it is be good to ask for client samples as part of the vetting process.
