How much does SEO cost?
April 6th, 2010 by
In this business, just like any business really, one of the greatest compliments we can receive is a referral. We love referrals and we were delighted when one of our clients referred a fellow colleague over to us. The potential new client had a practice in a very competitive and fairly large market. When she inquired about our SEO cost, she was a bit surprised to hear that our proposed monthly fees were more than what our existing client had been paying – $300 more. No, no, we were certainly not trying to pull a fast one on her or take advantage that we had been highly recommended as being “worth the money”. We explained that what set her monthly fees apart from her friend, our client, was her location. We do offer different level of services at different pricing points, but one of our lower pricing points would not impact her website’s ranking as we collectively desired.
To further explain, take a look at this map. Let’s just say our client was located in one of the orange-circled cities and her friend in a green-circled city. Naturally, the competition is much greater in a larger city where you generally have more of everything – more gas stations, more restaurants, more options. You also have to consider the characteristics of the targeted market in the particular city. Sure, San Diego and St. Louis may appear to have a similar sized population, but I get the feeling there are probably a greater number of plastic surgeons in the So Cal area than there are St. Louis Plastic Surgeons, just as there are Taco Trucks.
Simply put, we could not put the same level of effort on her website that we had been placing on our established client’s, who is in a smaller market, and have the same fantastic results. More effort would be required.
Do keep in mind that while location is a huge factor in our pricing, there are several other important factors to be considered such as how long a website has been established, how much content is currently on it, images, etc.
On the topic of competition and SEO cost, we recently stumbled upon a proposal sent to one of our clients by a competing SEO company. When comparing a similar package that we offer at $1200 per month, our competitor was offering it at $2100….hmmmmm…speaking of economical search engine optimization…did I mention we love referrals 😉 ?
Thanks to stevelyon for the image!
