Well, when it is about search engine optimization, it is not always as well understood as any other digital marketing aspects. Most of the business organizations would choose to hire SEO experts. This is absolutely fine. However, what is not okay is choosing to get cheap SEO services.
Yes, we understand that as a business owner you would obviously want to look for areas to reduce expenditure. The question is, do you want to do it by damaging your business? Due to lack of understanding, a lot of companies think cheap SEO packages will offer them the same benefits.
However, that is not true at all. We know a lot of business owners think like that. But we can assure you that this blog will completely change the way you think about SEO services. It is important to remember that short term gains will not do you any good if you want to run your business for a long time.
To avoid long-term losses, you have to opt for high-quality SEO service providers. There are some things that you should never bring on the cost-cutting tables. High-quality SEO services are one of them.
What do you get in a cheap SEO service?
First of all, remember that cheap SEO service packages will cost you way too much. Why? Cheap SEO includes blackhat SEO tactics. Now, let us explain in layman’s terms what are aspects included in black hat SEO tactics.
Black hat SEO tactics will include keyword stuffing within the content, use of unnecessary and irrelevant keywords, buying backlinks instead of earning them, keyword spamming, and redirects that yield high ranks.
All of these are black hat SEO services that come in cheap. The companies that offer these services will claim to bring a huge number of visitors to your website and also get your website at the top of the Google search engine results page (SERP). First of all, the companies that make such claims are fraud one because no one can guarantee the number position in Google SERP.
Secondly, even if that happens by a miracle, then too, it will not be sustainable. The reason being, the search engine algorithms, and crawlers are capable of identifying the spams and they will take down your website in a very short time.
A good SEO service provider will keep up with industry standards. They will make sure that their client can continue to reap the benefits of SEO. This is not a one time process. A cheap SEO service will get you up and running for one time but they will not be there to assist you once you face any obstacles.
What differentiates good SEO and bad/cheap SEO?
First of all, when you are choosing an SEO company, get references, and check their reviews. However, be careful about the review because a lot of companies have manipulated their online reviews. Consider the review sources.
Secondly, check the online ranking of the company. Most of the SEO organizations do not rank locally. Sometimes they can rank for a single keyword phrase. Cheap SEO companies that cannot rank themselves will not be able to get your job done. They cannot get multiple rankings for you.
Thirdly, if a company tells you that their work is quick, easy and it will not involve any change in the website, then it is not the right company. The reason is, SEO is as good as the website and every website has some room for improvement.
Lastly, if a company offers you a package of one-size-fits-all, then you should never choose that organization. Every website has different SEO requirements. Yes, it is true that sometimes there can be similar requirements between two websites of the same industry, but that doesn’t mean every website should have the same package.
What are the signs of a good SEO agency?
A good SEO agency will not promise you any miracles. It is all about hard with knowledge and a bit of smartness. A proper SEO service that genuinely improves your website rankings, will take time (at least 3 months), experience, testing, and creativity. There will be incremental improvements. Also, the return on investment will seem to be gradual initially, but the value of those returns will increase over time.
Another important aspect of a good SEO agency is, even if you don’t have a high budget, the agency will know how to put your money to best use. They will come up with better SEO plans that are tailored to meet your needs. You will start to see gradual results in a short time.
As we mentioned about the black hat SEO strategies earlier, all these are done by someone who has less knowledge and experience about SEO. Remember that SEO is one of the most important aspects of a website. Since cheap SEO mostly involves all the black hat SEO strategies, it will get your website either blacklisted or penalized.
A bad SEO doesn’t follow the guidelines of the search engines. It is even worse than having no SEO at all. Now let us have a look at the SEO salary stats provided by Glassdoor.
A breakdown of SEO work and salary balance
The average SEO salary for 1-3 years is $55,000, for 4-6 years of experience is $64,000, for 7-9 years is $76, 000, for 10-15 years is $85,000. The basic SEO effort for a simple site requires 10 hours per month.
For the sites of low competition niche, can require even less than 10 hours in a month. If you want to continue receiving the ROI of 3 times you get now, then you have to continue with the 10 hours of SEO work every month.
If you don’t you might get away with a few months but eventually, your results will start degrading. Now, if you are paying someone $500 in a month, you are paying them for their time.
If the minimum livable wages are $30,000 in a year, then an SEO professional will need at least 10 projects of $500 in a month including the taxes and infrastructure costs, SEO subscription tools costs, overhead computer costs, and more, to reach his annual salary of $30,000.
Now, this brings the cost to $15 an hour with 10 projects and 100 hours to work in a month. So you see, if someone is good at SEO, you will not get them below $15 per hour. Obviously, you would not want someone who is not good at his work.
Some final words
It is important to remember that SEO strategies evolve along with the content of a website. Without any content, there will be no scope of SEO. This is why both content and SEO should move in sync because the content is the key to building long-term and sustainable SEO performance.
Good quality content is a primary differentiator between good and bad SEO. Therefore, when you are choosing an SEO service providing company, you have to make sure that they offer good quality content writing services and digital marketing services as well.
