Why is SEO so expensive?
Because it’s worth it.
Sometime back or a few years back, you could have easily get top ranking for just about any search term you wanted just by using a few simple tricks like keyword stuffing, invisible text and cloaking. Try any of that today and Google will kick you out of its index…
Even with the killer SEO software available in market today, it’s still not that easy to rank on the top. The fact that finding the right tool will make the difference between dominating Google, Yahoo and MSN and just so so results puts pressure on you early in the game. And that’s difficult because not only can using the wrong product be a waste of money and time, it can also damage your site in a way that takes years to undue.
With millions of new domains and web pages getting created everyday, it is almost impossible to get ranked on the top in major search engines, and if anyone could get your page to that spot, then he/she deserves to be paid for their intelligence to get those ranks.
So, no matter how you optimize your site just remember this…you are not competing against the search engines or Websites. You’re competing against the search ranking of individual Web pages. Too many people focus on beating search engines or whole sites, but that’s not your competition. Search engines rank individual web pages; not sites.
Mike Johnston Said,
August 22, 2008 @ 10:50 am
The number one frustration I find is that it’s tough to find a reputable person who handles SEO with professionalism.
Ezhil Said,
August 22, 2008 @ 10:53 am
thats right; you’ll have to check for references before hiring a nice seo guy..
Online Marketing Performance Said,
August 22, 2008 @ 3:46 pm
Back in the 90’s it was web design and development that was littered with unqualified vendors. It seems that SEO and online marketing now hold that charge. It’s incredibly apparent when starting to work with a good company who has budget, but finding them gun shy because of working with a fly-by-night vendor who couldn’t perform in a way that drove ROI.
wongsk Said,
August 23, 2008 @ 2:11 am
i using some online SEO tool and follow the comment inside to
optimize my blog,seem didn’t not get any improvement.
Now i not so concern SEO about it.
cellulartraders Said,
August 23, 2008 @ 8:12 am
Yeah you right seo is very expensive right now coz of a lot of competitors website everyday. and it’s really hard to get top in the rank. but the most important is the traffic. Even if your not it the top of the search engine. You should get more traffic by promoting the site or advertising.
Ultra Review Said,
August 24, 2008 @ 7:51 am
and the irony is that most of the people in the market claiming to be SEO experts are fake!
TR Said,
August 25, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
You are right, it is worth it to have somebody do it!! I’ve been learning how to do it on my own and it has been a lot of time spent!! (I would rather spend money which I can make than my time which can never be replaced!)
Directory Submissions Said,
August 27, 2008 @ 12:08 am
I’d like to add though that hiring an expensive SEO doesn’t mean they’re good…it’ll also pay to do some research on the kind of results they’ve got other clients apart from testing them on their customer service and industry knowledge by emailing / calling them, asking them a few questions and not only observing the response time but the quality of response you get….I’ve seen a lot of people have their pockets burnt because of choosing a lousy and yet very expensive SEO company..
Australian Muscle Cars Said,
August 27, 2008 @ 3:30 am
Thats exactly right. You’d be insane to try and get on top of the serps for the term “make money online”. It just wont happen. Compete for keywords that are still attainable to rank.
Kids GPS Watches Said,
August 27, 2008 @ 9:36 pm
There is a lot to be said for a reputable SEO with good credentials, quality references, and a friendly personality. A lot of people who know what they are talking about can be so jaded by the SEO community because many get very cynical very early because of all the scammers out there.
Umang Don Said,
August 28, 2008 @ 7:57 am
now i am using some free seo tools….
not much improvement…..
iPhone website Said,
August 28, 2008 @ 9:16 am
There are many ways to opimize websites (SEO). Only, some “experts” use the wrong black-hat ways when optimizing their websites..
old domains Said,
August 28, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
SEO became so expensive because in some keywords there is a huge fight. In Poland for word “positioning” there is a real fight for life and death
I heard that You have to spend at least 2500$ monthly on paid backlinks to get to first top 10 + around 100 000 backlinks. Even for simple words written by 5000 people daily You have to get few thousands backlinks and around 100 article to get into top 10 and this cost a lot of work or a lot of money.
Ice Said,
August 28, 2008 @ 10:44 pm
Yep, SEO so hard so it cost… it`s really hard to understanding all thing it consist of…
__
http://5nizza.wordpress.com
Tom Said,
August 29, 2008 @ 2:35 am
Definitely hard to know what is a good SEO company or individual. There’s simply too many out there and a ton of competition. If the company shows you a successful sample website with good rankings they may just have been lucky and have many poorly ranked clients that they won’t tell you about.
Chris Said,
August 29, 2008 @ 6:46 am
That’s exactly right, and the more you pay the more time we spend working to give your site a boost. We’re past the days of just adding meta keywords. It blows my mind that people balk at the cost of SEO yet spend two or three times that amount on pay per click.
organic chemistry Said,
August 31, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
We have a small site with only some revenue. How do I know that what I invest in SEO will pay off for me?
Tech Blog Said,
September 1, 2008 @ 4:42 am
I mean its So easy and simple in theory but Practicing SEo on my website and I get to know that its very hard Job, you need a professional for this…
skyhook Said,
September 1, 2008 @ 8:17 pm
I find it hard to know who to invest in SEO, a lot of the company look like of sketchy.
pay-per-view Said,
September 2, 2008 @ 2:57 am
SEO is exspensive I believe because nobody really knows what they are doing, including the SEO experts, how could they know when Google is always shifting their system around?
Austin Real Estate Said,
September 2, 2008 @ 10:18 pm
I just do my best at keeping up on the forums, writing, posting, and doing social marketing. I do ok on many terms, but I can’t seem to rank well for the high demand terms in my area. I suppose I will need to hire someone if I want to rank well for the ultra competitive terms. Not sure I need to though. I guess I’m more of going for the long tail terms.
Joe
Science Fiction Books Said,
September 3, 2008 @ 6:37 am
How do you define expensive? Really its about the value placed on SEO, if its gets your website to page one for a very competative term how much is that placement worth in terms of potential sales?
When compared to Adwords, good SEO for natural results will help the website long term rather than spending X amount on addwords with no lasting benefit
The percieved cost can be high due to poor perception of the industry and the intagability of the service itself.
Arizona SEO Expert Said,
September 3, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
Search Engine Optimization is expensive for several reasons. The field is highly competitive and the skilled professionals with experience are few. Expectations are also very skewed by some customers. They think that it’s the magic bullet. It isn’t it’s a major component but there is no quick fix in online marketing.
Misa Said,
September 3, 2008 @ 7:30 pm
No one knows how to rank in SE in an instant, Even so called expert SEO, That why SEO is very hard, I trial and error process.
Powerful Marketing Resources blog Said,
September 4, 2008 @ 11:54 am
Hi! My name is Wendy J. Roan. Owner of the Powerful-Marketing-Resources blog. I appreciate everything you had to say about SEO and the SEO expert’s weight in gold (not verbatim).
But, my favorite part of your message was the last paragraph where you state that we are not fighting the search engines but rather the rank of the other website pages. I think people need to understand the importance of your final sentence there: “Search engines rank individual web pages; not sites.”
Very nice, informative blog. Thank you for sharing!
Marketing Ideas Said,
September 4, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
Although SEO is expensive the results it can bring are fantastic. You only have to look at companies such as BlogStorm.co.uk who offer SEO to clients on a performance-only basis, taking a commission of all sales that they bring in. There aren’t many companies who would survive trying to do this with other types of marketing services.
SEO can offer incredibly high returns on investment but the problem is making sure that you choose the right company.
A dust collecting fool Said,
September 5, 2008 @ 11:54 am
You get what you pay for.Getting a website to a number one spot is hard work and it’s something we do not have control of.
NJ Web Design Said,
September 6, 2008 @ 10:30 am
Excellent advice - rank for pages, not for entire websites. The days of using SEO to target home page/domains are over; target niche markets with you individual pages and long tail keywords.
oaken Said,
September 6, 2008 @ 3:38 pm
SEO need hard work and big cost… but if you rank on 10 google, you will get big return of you cost
Goku Said,
September 8, 2008 @ 1:39 am
Hard and time consuming jobs usually are expensive. That’s the way working goes.
One who wants big money should know that it doesn’t come without investing.
Online Doctors Consultation Said,
September 8, 2008 @ 2:45 am
yes seo has become expensive because of increase in competion for the websites
juzten Said,
September 8, 2008 @ 7:27 am
I have a blog and started it about 3-4 months ago, I have never used any SEO programs that I had to pay for, I have done all the work myself and went to a pr2. There are 2 or 3 programs that I would like to use for SEO that cost money but I can do without.
juzten
Daily Free Software
Kansas City Search Engine Optimization Said,
September 8, 2008 @ 6:32 pm
Really, it comes down the value. It may seem like it is expensive, but once it starts to pay off, you will see how much it helps. There are businesses (like mine) that rely completely upon SERPs rankings. It is very time intensive, and is not something that everyone can do!
TextLinks Said,
September 9, 2008 @ 9:46 pm
One good reason is Time …Seo needs time so it is very expensive
Many seo consultants spends lot of time and they update there knowledge and they wil work …So they are spending much time to get good ranking for ur site so its quite expensive …
SEO Training Said,
September 10, 2008 @ 12:49 pm
Nice post. the worrying thing is that because search engine alghorthyms are changing so quickly, some people STILL think that hidden text and keyword stuffing will get them good rankings.
To run a competitive website, you really need a full-time SEO specialist in order to succeed.
Bryan Said,
September 10, 2008 @ 2:12 pm
SEO is expensive if you pay someone else. I worry about building quality content first and then worry about the SEO part later. Sure, it may take awhile until income rolls in, but you should be able to rank high unless you are targeting something big like payday loans or something.
Owen Warren Said,
September 10, 2008 @ 4:25 pm
I’ve found that WebCEO is a good program for folks who are interested in SEO . It has a trial version, but is worth the cost of the full version if you work with a large number of websites.
It helps keep track of the keywords and rankings, which is always nice. Plus it has a bunch of extra features as well.
Computer Training Said,
September 11, 2008 @ 1:36 am
SEO is expensive also due to the fact that it requires a lot of time and effort to complete.
It takes quite amount of time to build good quality links
Australia IFBB Grand Prix Said,
September 11, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
Good point about ranking the page not the site - I’ve honestly been thinking in site terms so taking note of that may assist me further.
I do think quality content goes along way - I have seen ppl bemoaning their SEO skills, when actually the site itself seems rather sucky.
Video Conferencing Software Said,
September 12, 2008 @ 2:57 am
You’re definitely right! SEO deserves to be expensive! With all the efforts and time that will be earn just to bring different keywords up is really tough. There are tons of site that is being release everyday, meaning the competittion is getting tougher and harder.
Camden Said,
September 12, 2008 @ 3:15 am
People claiming SEO is too expensive don’t see the most important fact: It’s not about being #1 for a certain keyword with your main sites URL as a trophy, it’s about targetted visitors and the resulting sales/business with them. We had a local car dealer who asked why he should spend even more on SEO than on his website design, he didn’t understand that the design guy sells him zero cars and a few more sales as a result of SEO would easily pay our bill…
Mikel Said,
September 12, 2008 @ 4:02 am
If the SEO work done will produce an increased amount of relevant traffic that will convert at the current conversion rate its all a matter of math.
FreeWorld Community Said,
September 13, 2008 @ 2:06 am
SEO is the cradle of Online Civilization, and the last frontier in the quest for online domination. However, the ambiguity here is that this quest is never complete. SEO is an ongoing venture to constantly rank high on search results in order to survive online.
Why it is so expensive? No it is not!!! SEO can be achieved by someone without paying a dime. There are now various free advise and tools available to make your website as SE friendly as a professional paid SEO expert would do.
There is no need to part away your hard earned money to optimize your website, just take some initiative to do some searching around and you will see the value of your own SEO techniques.
Jobs for 14 Year Olds Said,
September 13, 2008 @ 7:44 pm
It is expensive because the information that a good SEO “guru” has to offer is so valuable. A company with a website on the first page of Google can make much more money then a comparable company that is located further down in search engine rankings.
Henry king Said,
September 14, 2008 @ 3:33 am
Nice blog! I have applied the same tools and I really found them workable. This is very true that SEO services are really expensive but I am thankful to you for the above simple tips.
B&B in Nenagh Said,
September 15, 2008 @ 7:24 am
There are so many cowboys in the SEO business that it is giving the good guys a bad name. It can be easy to spot these cowboys when they advertise promises on their websites like “rank no1 in google for your chosen keyword” How can someone make a promise like that!
Rajeev Edmonds Said,
September 15, 2008 @ 8:15 am
Pressure is from both sides. Algorithms are now refined, policies are updated, and on the other hand web has exploded in the last decade and competition is more fierce.
EZ Money Said,
September 15, 2008 @ 11:46 am
SEO consultants are really expensive and unless you can gain that extra $4K or $3K per month to pay for their services, forget it. You can do well without an SEO consultant. I know many blogs and websites that are doing very well without a SEO consultant. They are doing $20K per month.
spanuva Said,
September 16, 2008 @ 2:05 am
Nice post, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often considered the more technical part of Web marketing. This is true because SEO does help in the promotion of sites and at the same time it requires some technical knowledge – at least familiarity with basic HTML. SEO is sometimes also called SEO copyrighting because most of the techniques that are used to promote sites in search engines deal with text. Generally, SEO can be defined as the activity of optimizing Web pages or whole sites in order to make them more search engine-friendly, thus getting higher positions in search results.
Nathalie Said,
September 16, 2008 @ 6:21 pm
Always check the references before hiring anyone, especially on freelance sites. Its FULL of scamers.
Lenen Said,
September 18, 2008 @ 3:45 am
Many of my customers find search engine optimisation services quite expensive. From the client’s point of view the results are intangible (besides rankings and ROI) and the process is lengthy.
SEO Said,
September 18, 2008 @ 9:34 am
Interesting post, its a shame about all the ignorant comments though.
Any business service including SEO is can be expensive, it depends how you define “expensive” - it does’nt matter how much the service costs if you recieve a good ROI.
@ Computer Training - im glad someone here can actualy write a worthwhile and well informed comment
Pet Care Said,
September 18, 2008 @ 6:22 pm
Search engine optimization is expensive because the internet business is the fastest moving business in the world. SEO is the most effective form of advertising with high return on investment. Customer also is seeking the SEO products and services actively.
Troy Said,
September 19, 2008 @ 5:43 pm
It has been my experience that business people who are getting their first web site often have no idea how hard it is going to be to rank well. I can tell them what they need to do, but initially they ignore it, and later wonder why they are not ranking. Eventually they realize that their initial attitude was absurd - they expected to get something for nothing. Free advertising from the search engines. Once they realize this, they are willing to pay.
google chrome Said,
September 20, 2008 @ 11:34 am
I’ve been making sites since 1995 and never really paid too much attention to SEO. No serious sites but they did make me a few pennies. But around June 2008 I just started getting serious about SEO and all aspects. It keeps on changing so the SEO’er has to adapt or get banned from Google. It’s like a game of cat and mouse. Since you rarely get instant gratification, it can be challenging. Thanks for the post.
First Time SEO Said,
September 22, 2008 @ 8:55 am
I have been searching for an good seo or sem with a good reputation. It feels like I have been looking forever. There is always an immediate red flag. I need to find an SEO ASAP. If anyone can help or refer someone it would be a major help.
I have found one person who seems to have good credentials and experience. If there is anyone with SEO history who would be willing to let me know if this could be a good SEO.. NEED HELP.
http://www.webmarketingnow.com/tips/meta-tags-meta-expires.html
Thanks A TON everyone!
Web Design Company USA Said,
September 24, 2008 @ 12:11 am
Its true that SEO needs many aspects to be counted and accounted for. Moreover, its not a “you-blink-&-you-reach-the-top-10search engine results” for your targeted keyword. SEO needs time to deliver results and you need to consistently work on it, even when apparent results are not reflected, especially during the early days. All these make SEO a costly affair, but rightly so.
Market Segmentation Said,
September 24, 2008 @ 10:15 am
There is just so much involved in SEO. I recently tweaked by blog by assuring that every post linked to another one. My search engine traffic tripled in less than a week.
Think of the traffic I was losing from this one oversight. It’s like the commercial
“Makes me wonder what else I don’t know.”
Warmly,
Linda P. Morton
Ice Rabia Said,
September 25, 2008 @ 1:11 am
This is really a great contest. But I know a newbie like me won’t stand a chance with more experienced people on the field. Just want to say good luck to all of you joining and break a leg…
Internet Marketing Said,
September 25, 2008 @ 9:52 am
I think that when compared with other forms of advertising, Internet business via SEO is actual inexpensive. Consider how much your business spends on television, radio, newspaper, magazine ads. If you were to breach these costs down on a account basis, SEO would apparently amount the atomic and still bear bigger results.
Money Saving Tips Said,
September 27, 2008 @ 5:55 am
A lot of people in small business spend a few thousand dollars on a website and wonder why no one can find it….mention SEO and they give you that cross eyed look.
When it comes to SEO and the work experienced SEO’s do, you have to remember, you’re not paying for their time…you’re paying for what they KNOW.
Captivating Capiz Said,
September 29, 2008 @ 2:09 am
SEO requires a great time and hard work so its expensive. thanks for sharing
SEO SERPs Said,
September 29, 2008 @ 9:10 am
It’s expensive finding someone who performs SEO professionally, aka not blog spamming guestbooks. It is a LOT of work, and the best methods of SEO are not widely known.
Roger Hamilton Said,
October 2, 2008 @ 8:21 am
This article helps me to know more about SEO. Very informative and interesting . I hope to see more articles about SEO.
Alex Greer Said,
October 3, 2008 @ 2:06 am
Too much “SEO”` s are scammer`s. Double check portfolio and ask for clients contacts to get real feedback.
Pay-Per-View Said,
October 4, 2008 @ 1:29 pm
Yes this is true allot of SEO companies are a scam, they will do a 301 perm redirect to a page with a rank of say 7/10 when Google crawls that it will throw a page rank 7/10 onto their page then they sell backlinks from that page which would be good besides for the swapped over Page rank 7/10 is false and the system still sees it as a 0/10. Nice scam many people have fell into, The other thing to look at is the page rank of the SEO site, if they are not at the top of the google search don’t rush into anything without some investigation, if they are advertising on Google via AdWords campaign then they can’t even get their own site to the top so don’t trust them at all.
No Credit Auto Loan Said,
October 7, 2008 @ 5:33 am
The article has a great insight. I greatly enjoyed looking through the topic and found it very informative one for people like me.
I Would like to know more on these topics.
It is a terrific eye-opener.
Car Leasing Said,
October 10, 2008 @ 8:25 am
This is all very true, same with PR, PR is for the individual page, not the site, I think too many people loose site of these facts.
It Job Hunt Said,
October 10, 2008 @ 2:48 pm
Not sure it’s worth it. Most of the SEO ‘Experts’ I found were blackhats one way or the other. They just didn’t want to admit it. Can’t say I trust them.
I’ll just stick to what google sais: “content is king” and a little bit of SEO advice to that: ” and linking is queen”. The rest is just seo spam imho.
busby seo test Said,
October 11, 2008 @ 9:26 pm
how’d you know that it ranks individual pages and not the whole site as a whole? coz when you search something in google, more often than not it is a website and not just a webpage.
Orange County SEO Expert Said,
October 15, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
It’s refreshing to hear a another clear voice in the industry. As a fellow SEO, my ultimate goal is to provide consumers with the information needed to choose the rigth SEO company, regardless if its our company or not.
Cardiff SEO Said,
October 15, 2008 @ 5:30 pm
Marketing has gone online and the competitivess has gone off to online and the costs with it. SEO is getting expensive with the shift of competition and money from offline marketing.
South Florida Bus Dealer Said,
October 16, 2008 @ 10:48 am
How do you find someone who knows what they are doing and going to get good results? Also what is the average pay? Thanks for the great post!
Orange County SEO Expert Said,
October 16, 2008 @ 10:59 pm
South Florida Bus Dealer,
My advice is to find a company that will impress you by the month without a need for a long term commitment. While SEO itself is a long term process, any SEO service should be able to show you results and progress each month, if they’re good at what they do. Expect to spend at least a few hundred dollars a month for SEO. You’re paying for someone’s time at the end of the day.
There are many quality SEO sites linked on this blog, but check out ours too by clicking the name on this post.
French Property For Sale Said,
October 19, 2008 @ 8:58 am
There is a key to getting SEO right but outsourcing makes it difficult to control. If you give them the true picture (i.e. what really works) they often then ignore your task and try and sell the newfound skill to others. It’s frustrating but you nearly always end up doing it yourself like me
dating Said,
October 20, 2008 @ 5:19 pm
Eventually they realize that their initial attitude was absurd - they expected to get something for nothing. Free advertising from the search engines. Once they realize this, they are willing to pay.
search engine optimisation Said,
October 21, 2008 @ 9:52 am
You are right. Its very tough to get one website on first page of google and really it need good efforts and some techniques ..not black hat seo.
Wedding Cakes Said,
October 21, 2008 @ 7:42 pm
With the amount of companies promising 1st position ranking (which is nonsense 99% of the time) it can be very confusing and disappointing to most people, resulting in wasted money. This damages the reputation of the good SEO companies (and there are some out there)as well as the concept of SEO. I have used a company recently which said they were CONFIDENT in being able to get me top 10 placement on Google. This refreshing honesty is what got them my custom and they actually delivered.
So, if you find a real SEO company and not cowboys, an SEO campaign for your site can be great value.
Jon
Colon Leaf Said,
October 21, 2008 @ 8:49 pm
Its very hard to get a site to rank #1 for certain keywords. But if you find the right person or company that can get you there, you need to hold on to them and treat them very well
custom essays Said,
October 25, 2008 @ 5:05 am
This damages the reputation of the good SEO companies (and there are some out there)as well as the concept of SEO. I have used a company recently which said they were CONFIDENT in being able to get me top 10 placement on Google.
Mark Said,
October 25, 2008 @ 10:15 am
SEO is expensive if you look at the time aspect of it. But, once you get a formula that works, it is easy to reproduce and get solid results.
Internomie Said,
October 25, 2008 @ 10:37 pm
SEO is expensive because is makes you tons of money!
forex trading Said,
October 28, 2008 @ 12:09 am
It seems that SEO and online marketing now hold that charge. It’s incredibly apparent when starting to work with a good company who has budget, but finding them gun shy because of working with a fly-by-night vendor who couldn’t perform in a way that drove return on investment.
currency trading
Roger Hamilton Said,
October 28, 2008 @ 8:44 am
Perhaps it’s expensive because of the extensive time needed to produce good and statisfying results.
Blog SEO Tips Said,
October 30, 2008 @ 5:15 am
Well it doent Have to be expensive. Doing minor changes can really boost your SERPs performance in less competative fields.
baby names Said,
October 30, 2008 @ 8:42 am
It’s incredibly apparent when starting to work with a good company who has budget, but finding them gun shy because of working with a fly-by-night vendor who couldn’t perform in a way that drove return on investment.