Have you received an email telling you how crap your website is? You have for sure and considered the offer perhaps.
You have to know two things. One, they are SEO resellers trying to sell you their SEO services and two, your website is really crap that you have to avail the SEO services they offer.
However, you don’t have to buy from them because the manner by which these firms reach you already sucks. Imagine how crappy their SEO services would.
But that’s a completely different topic that we’ve already talked about
An equally relevant matter to discuss is the SEO services to avail and the reasons to avail them, and for how much.
Reasons you should be paying for SEO services
There is no shortcut to attaining organic traffic. Paid SEO is the shortcut. So, if you want to earn the traffic that lasts and brings business that impacts the bottom-line, you need to do quality SEO.
Know however that certain factors influence the pricing of SEO services. Of course, the simplest way to understand pricing is that services offered by SEO Philippines providers is completely different from that of firms from Los Angeles, London, or Australia.
Factors affecting the prices of SEO services
SEO, which is organic (or unpaid) is not free; it’s not easy either. The campaign will also depend on your needs, of course.
Business circumstances
SEO prices generally vary, and the industry the business belongs to as well as the nature and actual operation affect pricing. For instance, a 1,000-page e-commerce website targeting a hundred keywords will cost more than a blog or personal portfolio.
The bottom-line, however, is investing your marketing budget to SEO must depend on the worth of a page one ranking to your sales and, thus, ROI.
Goals and objectives
Do you want to focus on one highly competitive keyword at a time to rank higher? Or, do you only want to build brand exposure particularly on or through the first page results?
Some small businesses, again, consistent with the first factor noted above, only want to acquire relevant traffic. Pursuing long-tail content is key here, investing in informational, evergreen content in the process.
Commercially-oriented firms definitely want convert-ready traffic. Their primary investment is on landing page optimization.
Anyhow, the goals and performance indicators are identified during the strategy development for the campaign The SEO audit results usually inform the campaign goals.
Apparently, the motivations behind pursuing and paying for SEO services are different. There is always a service to match needs and preferences, and, of course, budget.
Timeframe
If you want to meet the goals sooner, like 3 to 6 months, the costs of SEO services would go up because the efforts would double and more people will be involved.
A time-intensive SEO campaign with aggressive goals needs all the right resources.
Things actually paid for
Speaking of which, you are actually paying for these things.
People
An SEO campaign usually involves a team of specialists who link build to the website and write content to attract more links naturally.
Nonetheless, you are not just paying for the number of people who will work on the campaign. Instead, their technical know-how, expertise, skills, and experience. These things are not always quantifiable, yes, but they are not cheap for sure.
The process alone of knowing what will work on your website requires common sense and best practices. So you have to compensate for this especially that it means more people seeing your brand, products, and services and eventually doing business with you.
Technology
The tools and technologies that the SEO team use are mostly paid. Sure, there are hundreds to thousands of free SEO tools online but they don’t always do the work.
Only a legit SEO company knows the importance of investing in technology and which technologies to invest in from the web services to licensed tools.
Time
As already noted, SEO requires an ample amount of time to do all the tactics identified.
Not to mention the back and forth of messages and approvals that also take several days. This can be controlled, though, by ensuring by both parties that approval should only take 48 hours.
This ensures that the campaign is on the right track, reaching milestones and small wins along the way.
The cost differences among SEO providers
While at it, it would be good to know how SEO costs differ. This time, it depends on the manner of service provision and the type of provider.
Retainer vs. hourly pricing
A monthly retainer involves paying the service fees in advance to assure the client those SEO services will be available to them for a specified period of time. A one-off contract that outlines the retainer agreement may be involved.
In the Philippines, the term retainer is not that popular, although, the providers are familiar with the contract-based agreement.
The usual practice involves paying upfront the entire six months SEO contract (the minimum), two months advance or monthly after signing the contract. [Optimind re-contract the client after 6 months to set new goals and targets.]
Hourly pricing is what it is—charging SEO services based on how many hours it takes to do a particular task.
Some clients pay a certain amount for a particular number of hours. The team (like ours) would do various activities until all the hours are exhausted. And the cycle continues.
Agency vs. freelancer
Agencies are the more expensive option than freelancers. It’s because the agencies are typically staffed with digital marketing specialists, not just SEOs (link builders, content writers, and social media community managers).
It doesn’t mean that freelancers are no good. There are freelance SEOs who invest in seminars and conferences, but they are rare. You need to look hard to find the one who will commit to your account.
Local vs. international
International SEO providers often command a higher price because it involves understanding the global market landscape.
This is the complete opposite of local SEO providers who specialize in a single market such as the Philippines and other sub-markets, of course.
There is one perk of hiring an SEO Philippines provider because it is familiar with the demographics as well as consumption trends and buying patterns.
SEO services to pay for
Consultation
This is the initial face-to-face contact between the SEO company and the potential client.
Clients usually ask questions during the meeting to address their pain points. And the SEO provider pours in years of hard work and experience to provide the company with a roadmap to overcome these pain points.
This is how critical SEO consultation is. Nonetheless, some SEO companies in the Philippines offer a free consultation. Others offer paid consultation but they can surely come up with a list of SEO opportunities and deliver it on a comprehensive report.
Between the two of them, the SEO campaign goals, expectations, and deliverables will be discussed. The parties would agree to the inclusions of the contract.
The signing of the contract may also happen at this moment, more so when the initial exchange of email has already occurred and the proposal has already been discussed with the decision-makers.
Training and seminars
Other than consultation services, SEO providers also basic to advanced SEO training or seminar.
Not all companies require this service. But if you are a firm with an in-house digital marketing strategist or specialist or an IT team whose SEO skills are lacking, it would be wise to pay for this service to upskill.
The SEO provider offers basic training on the one hand and suggests how the team may improve their knowledge and skills on their own. For instance, they may prepare a list of SEO books to buy or SEO experts to follow.
Site audit
Website audits look into the technical and non-technical aspects of the site to better optimize it. All these elements affect the site’s performance and thereby, the SEO performance, ranking and traffic-wise.
A consultation with site audit costs different; the same goes with going straight to the audit. When you pay for this service, the SEO Philippines provider will draft a proposal with the recommendations list and explanations for each recommendation.
The proposal may also include the cost of implementation of each recommendation. Recommendations are prioritized based on which would bring the most impact, so you can pay for those services first.
Competitors analysis
Your website’s ranking potential may depend on how well-optimized your competitors’ websites are. So this is a worthwhile service to pay for also.
The competition is also doing everything it can to capture a bigger market share, and that includes SEO. So there is a need to focus on SEO efforts on the keywords that would potentially rank the website higher than the competition.
On-page recommendations
It is important to have a website that is not just SEO-ready, but also well-optimized. This is possible through on-page SEO. Thus, the service ensures that all the technical optimization requirements are met.
This is one of the services that is worth the investment because tweaking the website—from the title tags to the permalink—may lead to the visibility and findability of the website.
Off-page recommendations
Link building efforts reinforce the on-page optimization efforts. They mostly impact search rankings, so companies should invest in this service also.
The development of off-page optimization strategy and tactics that are geared toward improving the website’s relevance, trustworthiness, and authority as well as their implementation are not without difficulties. The bulk of off-page SEO service costs is devoted to the resource-intensiveness of the process.
Keyword research
Keyword research takes more than pulling out target keywords from various SEO tools.
It starts with understanding the business, its purpose and goals, and even company values that affect how the business operates. In this way, the team may choose which keywords to target based on competition, relevance, and impact.
The sustainability of the site’s SEO performance may depend on the right keywords, especially those that bring more traffic (i.e. long-tail keywords).
Other than that, the keyword research also informs other strategies such as content planning. Through this, the SEO specialists discover trending topics, provide answers to questions, and improve the site’s UX.
Content planning and creation
SEO customers may approach a company to create their editorial plan, create the plan and the content together, or just create the content when there is already an editorial plan. In some instances, a website has the content already and optimizing them is what it needs. As such, the route to this service differs and the costing also.
However, the premise is that, in the digital world where content is regarded as king, the company cannot do without a content strategy. It presents an opportunity to show that the brand its authority within the industry.
Analytics
Conversion tracking is paramount regardless of the conversion goals. Analytics help in this matter. The SEO analytics service is two-fold. The first one is the Google Analytics setup and the second is analyzing conversions and traffic.
The third important aspect is preparing the custom reports that include the results of the analysis.
More than just the installation of the tracking software, the service is vital in letting the client know of the progress of the campaign. Reading and interpreting metrics are the main processes. Mining analytics also offer optimization insights that the specialists may work on.
Pay-per-click
For immediate traffic, paid SEO is the service consider. The costs are high since it involves advertising platform-based bidding.
PPC services not only offer quick optimization. It also leads to a wealth of data that is both trackable and measurable. And since the targeted users are those finding an SEO service, the service directly impacts achieving the business goals.
Local optimization
Local SEO is a specialized service for a brand or company targeting a specific geographic area. Local optimization is different and taps into various Google tools including Google Maps.
If your products and services are localized, you might as well pay for this SEO service because it helps to build online visibility. This leads to more website traffic and eventually, more foot traffic, customers, and sales.
This is especially paramount for business with an online and physical presence. Aligning the efforts for both are covered in the local SEO service.
Reverse optimization
Also known as negative SEO service, reverse optimization works in various ways.
Nevertheless, it is specifically useful if your website receives negative reviews and press online that you wish to bury down the results pages. If Google deindexed your website, you should avail the service as well.
SEO services that are too good to be true
Some SEO Philippines providers even attached guarantees that you cannot always believe to be true.
Page 1 ranking
Guarantees are nice. But if the SEO services provider promises #1 ranking, then that’s probably shady, implementing black hat SEO practices.
Google denounced time and again those providers because there are 200 factors and signals that affect.
No one knows—not even Google—whether your website will be at #1 position or even page 1 of the results pages.
Fast results
Organic SEO takes time, usually up to three months before you should see some significant improvements.
If someone promises you that they can rank your website in 10 days, don’t believe them. They cannot do that.
Very low prices
With the discussion above, you probably know what goes into SEO prices. So when an “SEO expert” approaches you for half a price optimization services, run away. When they initially lowballed you, you might end up paying more for extras introduced along the way.
You know what they say about you get what you pay for. It holds true in SEO. Cheap SEO services almost always mean sub-par website optimization that does not bring both the ranking and traffic you need.
SEO as cure-all
This is perhaps the biggest red flag—when a provider tells you SEO is all you need.
SEO is just one part of digital marketing, which is an umbrella term that covers all marketing initiatives using various digital technologies.
While it does its part in ranking your website and bringing in qualified leads to increase profitability, you probably need more services such as video marketing and social media marketing.
- But, of course, your digital marketing and SEO needs per se will be revealed once a full audit of your website was conducted.
There are instances when content marketing may provide the biggest value to your SEO campaign since these two services traditionally complementary.
In some instances, all your website needs is a little push, such as a redesign to incorporate SEO elements that will bring better user experience (UX).
Call us at +(63) 2 86820173 so we can start building your SEO campaign! The team will conduct a website audit to determine which SEO services you need.
