Seo Budget Options

[khalidh]

What do you think a small business should budget if they are looking to outsource their seo work?


Khalid

[A.N.Onym]

I'd first look closely at conversions, either yourself or with a usability/SEO consultant. It'd ensure that you benefit from any increase in traffic. This should be around $500-$1500, depending on who you ask.

Then, it'd make sense to either research keywords yourself or with a SEO consultant. There are keyword research reports sold, too. If you do this yourself, a week with WordTracker costs $27 (I think). Bought reports start from $100 up to $300, maybe more, depending on your niche (time required to get the keywords).

Each of these shouldn't cost you a lot, but are crucial to your online business.

Afterwards, it'll be a matter of writing the content your customers use (using the words you found) and promoting it. This will require way more work and resources. You'll probably have to write yourself or by hiring a copywriter and get someone to write you a way to market your website.

Good copywriters write articles for $30-50 a piece, some even offer many articles at once for a palatable price.

Advice from a SEO consultant should cost you from $100 to $500 per hour, though there are plenty of articles available online and you can learn how to promote your site on these forums.

Basically, promoting your content revolves on informing others that you have great offer on your website - not just your product, but also articles, tools, useful tips, etc that anyone can use. You'll need to know the blogs, forums and resource sites on your topic and communicate there.

If you come up with an idea for an online tool (such as online calculator of sorts, suitable for your niche), a cool video, audio, images or anything else, you can either do it yourself or get someone proficient do it for you, too. You can promote your site as easily as much useful stuff you have on your website.

If you hang around these forums for a bit, you'll see who you can ask for help.

You can read about small business website on a budget in more detail here.

This post has been edited by A.N.Onym: Aug 10 2007, 02:49 AM

[EGOL]

The amount depends upon how well you want to perform and who your competitors are. There are some SERPs that $2000 per month or $5000 per month will not make you competetive - it would be a total waste of money because you are already severely outgunned.... like a small street gang attacking the entire US Army... and the US Army is just one of your competitors.

At the Battle of Gettysburg, General George Pickett ordered a significant force to cross an open field of 3/4 mile. They were wiped out because the distance that had to be covered was so enormous that their numbers dwindled to almost nothing by the time that they engaged. General James Longstreet, who had the duty of leading the charge, predicted that it would fail.

Suggest you find Longstreet and get his advice.

This post has been edited by EGOL: Aug 10 2007, 07:05 AM

[Respree]

I wish the answer were as black and white, as the question might suggest, but I'll have to defer with "it depends."

Typically, variable costs (expenses that one has discretion over) is a function of revenue. If your revenues were a million dollars, you'd likely have a significantly bigger budget than if your revenues were $100,000 - even though the SEO techniques and concepts applied might be the same.

What level of success does your current SEO plan currently achieve? Well, if you're at the top of the charts right now, you'd probably need less than if you were nowhere to be found, all other things being equal.

How much do you have in the bank? If you had $1 million dollars, you'd probably could probably afford to be more aggressive than if you had a $1 million of debt.

What are your skill sets? Are you already an experienced SEO that can do if yourself, or do you have absolutely no experience in the area. Again, what you will spend in this area could swing wildly, depending on what you can and cannot do yourself.

Yes, I realize that is a lot of questions, all of which, should be considered when creating a budget for your spending.

However, in broad-based terms, a percentage of your revenues is the typical approach. Depending on your tolerance for risk and assessment of the probability of success, the percentage you choose should be reasonable and guided by common sense.

Hope that wasn't too vague an answer, but that's how I see it.

This post has been edited by Respree: Aug 10 2007, 08:07 PM

[Black_Knight]

I can give avery good 'rule of thumb' for businesses that are already familiar with and engaged with PPC through Overture and Adwords - SEO is the 'magical' 13th month. What a company is spending on PPC each month is probably a good starting budget for their entire year of SEO. And yes, they'll find the organic SEO will often yield as much business as their PPC campaigns do on those figures, so giving a twelve times higher ROI.

Where a company has not engaged in any SEM at all, one needs to look at their current marketing spend, and particularly in benchmarking a Cost Per Action (Cost Per Lead, Cost Per Customer or Cost Per Sale). An experienced SEO agency can usually plot the comparative CPA for SEO and then ask how much budget they'd like to switch to the far higher ROI they can offer.

[khalidh]

For me, our marketing spend has always been about 30% of our revenue. Of that 30% we usually allocate about 40% to sem/seo.

The reason I asked the question because of a friend who is starting a software consulting company. He is trying to come up with a number to include in his business plan for annual seo spending. He did not project any real revenue in the first 6-8 months of operations. So in his case, there is no real data to work with.

Any suggestions?

Khalid

[Respree]

My suggestion is to be extremely careful during the first couple of years. Unless you've got a goldmine of an idea and have flawlessly executed a solid strategy, I think few businesses turn a profit during the first year. There are many one time type costs involved with building a infrastructure of a company.

Its difficult to make a good recommendation without details, but generally, you'll want to strike a balance between the dollars needed and liquidity (ability to pay expenses). If you create a first year budget and plan on spending $100,000 with virtually no revenues, that means a $100,000 loss. Where will the $100,000 come from? If you have $100,000 in startup capital, at the end of one year you'll be broke (and in a heap of trouble), assuming you are unable to obtain financing or take on equity partners to fund future operations.

Maybe of the $100,000 annual spend, $20K of that was allocated to marketing. But, what you really think you needed to get the business off the ground is $40K. The bottom line is that you really cannot afford it and will have to make some compromises, prioritizing your spending and determining what types of expenditures will give you the biggest bang for the buck.

There could be a substantial gap betweenwhat one 'should' spend and what one 'can' spend. That's where the balance and compromise comes in.

[Black_Knight]

While Respree's comments are spot-on for business in general I am mindful that you said he was setting up a consulting business. I'm presuming that this is a small, possibly one-man, startup with fairly minimal overheads. Those kind of service businesses can actually become profitable with just one contract sometimes.

I think it all comes down to the Business Plan, Khalidh. What has he projected as his costs, his budgets, and such? Did he create a marketing plan? Of the marketing mix when puttting the business ideas together, how much of the mix of the 4 Ps of marketing is Promotion?

[Jexley]

If your friend is just looking for a number to stick in his business plan, then he should get together about 3-5 quotes from SEO firms and just slap that in there.

If he's looking for serious hard and firm numbers, then he's going to have to do some in-depth research into exactly what he's looking to accomplish. I think the reason that most people's advice on this will seem vague and ambiguous is because the question is, but a simple answer would be to hit some SEO firms for quotes and go from there.

Good luck to him though, I've got a buddy in exactly the same spot and I'm hoping he's the next big thing.

[NameCritic]

Percentages of overall budget or income is the only way to estimate it IMHO.

I work with companies who have $200 per month to spend and companies that have $25,000+ per month to spend.

Obviously the larger the budget, the more an SEO consultant can do for you. The first thing an seo consuultant has to ask you is what your budget is so they can create a plan that uses the budget in the wisest way possible.

So for me, every client is different. Different problems, different level of competition, different budget requirements, etc. Not a one-size-fits-all solution that I can see.

This post has been edited by NameCritic: Aug 21 2007, 03:03 AM