Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing

How much should I be paying for SEO services?

Pricing for SEO services vary a great deal, making it difficult to know what you are getting for your money. However, you can gert a better idea of the value by requesting a long term roadmap that will show you exactly the type and amount of work that will be done over the course of several months.

Furthermore, the experience levels of the SEO’s that will be working for you will come into play. Basic SEO is relatively easy to grasp and implement. That type of SEO is cheap, and will supply you with meager results. However, for results that will provide a more substantial boost to your business requires more complex SEO in order to rank for the high-traffic (and therefore highly competitive) keyword phrases.

This requires the work of well-trained experts that have a constant thumb on the pulse of the SEO world, as well as have the technology necessary to constantly analyze the search engines and watch for changes in algorithms. All of these things cost money, and will therefore drive up the costs of SEO.

A few things to ask of an SEO company are:

• How experienced is the SEO(s) that will be working on my site?
• Can you show me case studies of other companies you’ve done work for that were in a similar situation as I am know?
• What kind of results can I expect, and when can I expect to see the results?

You’ll also want to try and avoid paying upfront, opting instead for a monthly subscription. This will not only spread out the costs, but it will also allow you to terminate a relationship with a company that is failing to meet expectations, preventing you from losing any more money than you need to. many agencies require large upfront fees ensuring that they get paid regardless of the value they provide for you. A subscription based model forces a company to provide you with results month to month or risk losing your business.

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I think my employees see me as a buddy rather than a boss. Is that a bad thing?

Being a buddy not a boss with your employees is not a good idea. It inhibits you from making tough decisions and exercising your legitimate authority to get things done. Sooner or later you will find yourself in the position of having to make a decision that your employees do not like or need to provide them with some tough feedback on the quality of their work. If your relationship with them is that of a buddy you may find yourself backing off because you know they will not like it. That is not to say that you can’t be friendly and pleasant in your interactions with your employees – in fact you should be, however you should create some distance between you and your employees which so that you can take managerial action when you need to. A way of changing the nature of your relationship with them is to change your interactions with them. Keep some distance between you both at work and socially. Treat people fairly and consistently but make sure that they know what you expect of them. Become a leader! In the long run your employees with thank for it because everyone appreciates good leadership.

Related Topics: Boardroom, Entrepreneurial, Human Resources    No Comments