How long does it take to see results from SEO??

How long does it take to see results from SEO??

How long does it take to see results from SEO??

Introduction

SEO is an essential component of any web business. It plays a part in your marketing strategy, but you can’t rely on it alone. To see the best results from your SEO efforts, you must be patient and consistent—especially with content creation and link building.

Organic search engine optimization

Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process, not a product. It’s not magic. It’s not a one-time thing; it takes time and effort to see results from SEO.

While you might hear people talking about how fast their business has grown since doing some search marketing campaign, this isn’t necessarily true for every company out there—and even if it were true for yours, it wouldn’t mean anything without looking at what was done with those campaigns first!

The first three months of your SEO campaign

How long does it take to see SEO results

The first three months of your SEO campaign are the most challenging part. You’ll have to write content, do keyword research, build links to your site, and create a content strategy to attract new visitors.

In this section:

  • What happens in the first three months?
  • Tips for getting started with SEO

Six to 12 months into your SEO campaign

You will see more traffic six to 12 months into your SEO campaign. You’ll also start to see more conversions and links. This means people find your site through search engines and click on it or buy something from it!

You’ll also start seeing organic rankings (the top positions) in search engines like Google or Bing—but this is only the beginning of what’s possible with SEO. If you can keep up with these changes over time, they can help you reach a wider audience than ever!

traffic against time graph to show SEO results

After six months of working on your website, you should start seeing positive results from your SEO efforts.

After six months of working on your website, you should start seeing positive results from your SEO efforts. You’ll be able to rank for some keywords and get targeted traffic. This will help you drive more conversions, which leads to a higher ROI.

A site-wide audit will take time.

SEO is a long-term investment, and it requires you to be patient. You won’t see results overnight or even in the first month of implementing your SEO strategy. It can take anywhere from one month to six months for your website content to appear organically on search engines like Google and Bing. That said, several factors affect how quickly you’ll see results:

  • How much competition there is for your keywords
  • How well optimized your site is overall

After one year of working on your website, you’re likely ranking for a handful of keywords, driving more targeted traffic to your website, and starting to see conversions.

After one year of working on your website, you’re likely to be ranking for a handful of keywords and driving more targeted traffic to your website.

You’ll start seeing results from your SEO efforts: You’ll be able to see the impact that SEO has had on your rankings and traffic, which will help you determine what needs improvement or what’s going well. This can include determining whether or not it’s time for an update or revamp of the site itself (more on this later).

Pay attention to SEO

On-page SEO is the content of your website, such as keywords and phrases you want to rank for, as well as any links to relevant pages. Off-page SEO refers to creating backlinks from other websites that point back directly at yours (and vice versa). Both are important because they can help improve how people discover you online—and if someone visits one of your pages on their own accord rather than being directed there by a search engine algorithm update, that’s good!

You’ll have different goals depending on what type of business model you’re running: some businesses may need more organic traffic while others might be looking for paid ads or sponsorships; but regardless of whether it’s organic or paid traffic that brings in new leads or customers, all businesses should be continually trying out new strategies, so they stay ahead of the curve when it comes down those inevitable changes in Google rankings caused by algorithmic updates over time.”

Be patient

child patiently stacking blocks

You must be in it for the long haul to get the most out of your SEO strategy. It’s not uncommon for businesses to see results after only a few months of work—but that’s the exception rather than the rule.

Depending on your time and what kind of business you run, it could take anywhere from two years or more before your website starts getting traction with its Google rankings and visitors start returning. This may seem like an eternity away, but don’t worry; keep working on improving your site, so it’ll be worth waiting for when those magic times come around!

Conclusion

Now that you know what to expect from SEO, let’s talk about how long it will take for your campaign to start generating results. The first three months of your SEO campaign are crucial and can make or break your success with organic search engine optimization (SEO). After six months of working on your website, you should start seeing positive results from your SEO efforts. If you want more advanced techniques and strategies, consider hiring a professional company like our friendly White Hat Digital Marketing LLC team! We offer services such as website design and development, social media management, content marketing techniques, and more so that we can help grow your brand into the future today!

In today’s competitive marketplace, where consumers spend less time researching products online than ever 

  • Businesses must get creative to capture market share through digital marketing strategies such as search engine optimization (SEO). While there are many ways to go about this task, including paid ads 
  • Blog posts about competitors’ products or services etc., these tactics do not always yield desired results due to their limited reach within search engines like Google’s algorithm updates. That’s why it’s essential for any business owner looking forward to growing their brand by optimizing their website through a program like white hat digital marketing LLC should hire someone who knows how exactly works best with today’s technology today.”
Best SEO strategy for increased traffic

Best SEO strategy for increased traffic

Best SEO strategy for increased traffic

Introduction

SEO has become integral to any marketing strategy in the last few years. It is a great way to boost traffic to the website and increase its visibility on the internet.

There are numerous SEO techniques, but no single best SEO strategy will guarantee increased traffic to your website. The most effective tactics depend on your site’s specific goals and objectives and your competition. Nevertheless, a few general tips can help increase web traffic.

A good SEO strategy is constantly changing with the changes in Google’s algorithm. It also needs to sync with the changing online landscape and its trends.

SEO experts need to keep up-to-date with the latest developments in search engine optimization, analytics, link building, and other digital marketing strategies.

 On-Page Optimization

The best way to increase the traffic to the website (increasing search engine ranking) is to optimize pages on the site. You have to do various things such as use keywords in the title tag, meta description, H1 tags, etc. Also, ensure relevant content on each page, making it easier for users to find what they’re looking for. Use internal links to connect related pages to create a bigger web of information.

Off-page optimization

Off-page optimization involves using external sites to help out your own site. Link building is the process of getting other websites to link back to yours. There are many techniques to get others to link to your site.

Link building

Link building is an important part of SEO. This means getting links from other websites that link to your site. It’s also called backlinking since you are trying to get someone else’s website to link back to yours.

It can be done in several ways, but here are some techniques that have worked well for me:

  • Write guest posts on blogs or websites where they talk about what you do (or don’t do!)
  • Get emails from people who want to hear more about what your business does (this will help them remember how awesome it was)

 Keyword Research

keyword research is the foundation of any good SEO strategy. If you know how to use keywords effectively, you can develop content that drives more people to your website. The first step is to identify the primary and secondary keywords for the page.

Your primary keyword is the main focus of your content. You only need to choose one main keyword for each page. It should relate to your page focus, brand identity, products, and services.

Your secondary keywords support the primary topic. You may have several of them. They are usually more detailed than the main keyword and represent the sub-topics you cover in the article. Try to include them naturally in your content, but don’t force them if they don’t fit.

Keep your content fresh and updated.

Try to write and publish as often as possible, but not at the cost of quality! The more quality content you have on your website or blog, the more opportunities you create for organic traffic to come your way.

Create content around topics that will always be of interest to your audience. These evergreen posts will accumulate traffic and links over time, especially if you refresh them regularly.

Content marketing

Content marketing is a strategy that uses content to attract and retain customers. It’s a long-term strategy, but any business can use it.

Content marketing has been around for decades, but it’s only recently become mainstream in the SEO world. Why? Because this type of marketing works! It attracts more visitors than traditional advertising campaigns because people want information about your product or service before they buy it (or even visit your website).

Content marketing also costs less than traditional advertising methods because you don’t need to pay someone else to create great content—you already have everything laid out on paper: interesting facts about your product/service; how-to guides; lists of useful links; etcetera.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is free advertising and an excellent tool for any business. Using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, you can advertise your business to millions of people. These sites work both online and offline.

Content marketing as an SEO strategy for increased traffic

Email Marketing

Email marketing campaigns are powerful tools that allow businesses to maintain contact with their customers, prospects, and potential clients. You’ll keep your customers engaged, interested, and updated if you send emails regularly.

Online Reputation Management

Most people don’t know how harmful negative reviews can be to a company’s reputation. An online reputation management service checks those negative comments and posts positive ones, protecting the company’s image and leading to higher sales.

Pay Per Click Advertising

PPC ads refer to advertisements shown at the top of search engines. Businesses pay Google and Bing when their ad shows up first when someone searches for specific terms. PPC ads are highly targeted to individuals searching for a product or service.

Technical SEO

Check the site for broken links: If a page has a broken link, it will be impossible for Google to crawl the site and index it. The crawler cannot find the content because of that link. Broken links may also be due to 404 errors or other technical issues like server downtime or slow loading times of pages.

Check for duplicate content: Duplicate content on your website is an issue because it makes your site look less credible in search results and reduces traffic from search engines. It also leads to duplicate content penalties (which can lead to further losses in rankings) if these search engines also detect it.

Conclusion

It is important to remember that SEO is a long-term strategy and requires constant attention. Many changes in the market can affect your rankings, so it’s best if you keep an eye on them. However, as long as you remain focused and maintain a steady course of action, you will have no trouble reaching your goals with SEO!

Which of the following are considered black hat SEO techniques

Which of the following are considered black hat SEO techniques

Which of the following are considered black hat SEO techniques

It might feel like a risky game if you’re just starting with black hat SEO. Black hat SEO is a term that describes devious or unethical practices used to improve a website’s search engine rankings. It contrasts with white hat SEO, which encompasses techniques approved and recommended by search engines.

Guide to Black Hat SEO Techniques

It’s no secret that search engine optimization (SEO) can be a challenging and frustrating process. Many best practices remain fairly constant when it comes to effectively optimizing your website. There are also constantly evolving tactics that marketers can employ to give their site an edge in search results. 

These methods are not only deceptive and malicious but also push the boundaries of generally accepted ethical SEO practices.

 Any time you dip below the surface and explore some trickier SEO aspects, you risk negative repercussions. Such repercussions could include having your site penalized by Google or outright banned from their index.

Keywords and content

The number one rule of black hat SEO is to create quality content. A successful content marketing strategy will create content that resonates with your audience. 

It doesn’t matter how many backlinks you have if none of your content is relevant to your audience.

Identify a few keywords for which you’d like to rank and then focus on creating engaging and on-topic content.

 Don’t try to stuff every article full of keywords. And don’t try to push content that you know your audience will find unhelpful or offensive. 

It is important to remember that Google constantly evolves. If you try to bend the rules too far, you may lose the battle entirely. Google has become remarkably adept at recognizing over-optimized content. Your site may face penalties if Google detects this.

Content Spinning

Keyword stuffing is a tried and true Black Hat SEO technique that has been around for a long time. If you want to rank for a very competitive keyword like “New York City real estate,” you might not naturally have the authority to rank for that keyword. 

If you are over-optimizing your content and/or are not progressing towards ranking for that keyword, you might want to consider content spinning.

This is a particularly sneaky form of keyword stuffing. Essentially, you copy and paste your original article and swap out certain keywords with synonyms that are more likely to generate interest. Be careful because Google is also getting better at detecting spun content.

Black Hat SEO With Paid Links

Paid links have been a considerable part of the Black Hat SEO landscape for a very long time. It comes down to paying a website owner to link to your site from theirs.

Google is aware of this tactic but can’t figure out how to shut it down completely.

 For a long time, the most effective way to get a site banned from Google’s index was to offer a link in exchange for a backlink. 

This technique is still prevalent today, but many folks have found ways to adapt the tactic to avoid the attention of Google’s algorithms. If you use this method, be careful to buy links that are “no-follow” or “no-link” backlinks to avoid penalties. Unfortunately, even if you follow every rule associated with this method of Black Hat SEO, there is always a chance that Google could ban your site.

Excessive Internal Linking

Internal linking is a common SEO practice that many marketers go overboard. There is nothing wrong with linking to helpful pages on your own website. However, when you start linking to every page on your site, it begins to look suspicious. The best way to avoid this is to link to your most important pages and use your judgment when linking to less important ones. 

For example, it won’t make sense to write a piece about dogs and link it to a page about cat breeds. If you have an entire section or category dedicated to cats, but you only link to that one page, it still looks a bit fishy. 

On the other hand, you’d be wise to link to as many pages as you can relate to dogs, cats, and every other subject you write about.

Freemium Strategy

The Freemium strategy has recently made a big splash in online marketing. Essentially, you create a “lite” version of your product and make it available for free in exchange for an email address. 

Once you have that email address, you can market your premium services to that person, and since you spent no money on acquiring that address, you are making free money. 

This is a prevalent strategy among online marketers but particularly annoying to Google. The problem is that many marketers eventually transition their free users to a paid version, which is something that should be reserved for subscribers. 

You can avoid this problem by not transitioning free users to a paid version of your product or by transitioning all free users but avoiding sending them emails. This is risky, as you will only hurt your marketing efforts without gaining much return.

HTML Marketing Mix Strategies

HTML marketing mix strategy is a relatively new Black Hat SEO technique but one that has made a splash in the marketing world. It combines different marketing strategies often frowned upon, like guest posting and article spinning.

 It is important to note that this technique is not considered Black Hat SEO because it is regarded as an overall marketing strategy. Still, it can be used with other Black Hat SEO techniques to increase its effectiveness. 

This strategy aims to develop articles on various topics and spin them almost identical. You then distribute these articles across various websites in exchange for a backlink. This, of course, is a very shady tactic, but it can be effective if done correctly.

Dynamic Content Insertion

Dynamic content insertion is another extremely frowned-upon Black Hat SEO technique, but one that can be very effective. The idea behind this strategy is that you create one article and use an article spinner to come up with thousands of variations of that article. 

You then distribute these articles to various websites and request that they insert their unique article directly before or after your article. This will have the effect of having your article appear on thousands of different websites with your own name attached, without you having to write a single piece of content.

 This is a very shady and completely unethical Black Hat SEO technique. If you want to rank for anything on Google, avoid this method like the plague and don’t use any of the other mentioned Black Hat SEO techniques.

Constant Content Is King

This simple but effective Black Hat SEO tactic will allow you to rank for a wide range of keywords. The idea behind this strategy is to create several articles but only publish one of them on your website.

 You can then use the other articles as “pre-written content” for other websites and only publish them once you have received a backlink. It is a very shady way to leverage your authority and rank for a wide range of keywords, but it is one method that has proven to be very effective. 

two men typing content for SEO

This is one of the riskiest and most controversial Black Hat SEO techniques, so be careful not to push the boundaries too far.

SEO Can Help You Know Your Audience

Creating content that resonates with your audience is great. But it can become even more effective if you understand what your audience wants. Many strategies and techniques will allow you to rank for a large number of keywords. However, they won’t help you get accurate, tangible results. 

You can use SEO to help you learn more about your audience. This knowledge will help you create content that truly resonates with your readers. 

Many websites offer free keyword research tools, articles, and guides to help you learn more about SEO. It may seem like a lot of information, but it will ultimately help you create better content for your audience.

Use Rich Media Marketing Strategies

The best way to ensure that your content truly resonates with your audience is to use rich media marketing strategies like video and podcasts. These types of media are beneficial because they allow you to connect with your audience more personally while also providing you with the ability to provide more information in a shorter amount of time. 

For example, you may want to create a podcast about a specific topic, like SEO. You can then use that podcast to promote other content, like articles, blog posts, and other resources.

Conclusion

Black hat SEO tactics pose a real risk to any website that uses them as a way to rank on the SERPs.

And while they’re nowhere near as commonly used as they once were, there are still SEOs who go down this route or lead businesses to believe it’s being marketed ethically when in reality, the techniques being used are clear violations of Google’s guidelines.

We advise you to be aware of the risk posed to your website if you use these tactics.

How to write SEO-friendly alt text for your images

How to write SEO-friendly alt text for your images

How to write SEO-friendly alt text for your images

What is alt text, and why is it important for SEO?

‘Alt text’ or ‘alternative text,’ a short text intended to describe an image or any other picture on a website to make it searchable and SEO friendly.

Every day more than 1 billion searches are done on Google Images. Today, image searches represent about 38% of all searches in search engines. That’s why optimizing your images is crucial; one step in doing so is to write SEO-friendly image alt texts.  

The screenshot above shows the first search engine results page (SERP) that Google produces for the search term “best backpacks.” Notice how, in addition to the “Images” tab at the top, Google pulls in a substantial pack of clickable images to the beginning of the main results page — before any organic text results are visible.

Well-written alt text is important to your website’s accessibility and search engine optimization (SEO).

Accessibility

  • It’s read by screen readers in place of images, allowing your image content to be accessed by people who are blind or have a visual impairment.
  • It can be helpful to people with specific sensory processing and learning disabilities.
  • It’s displayed in place of the image in browsers if the image file hasn’t loaded or when the user has chosen not to view images.

SEO

Using alt text on your images can make for a better user experience, but it may also help earn you both explicit and implicit SEO benefits.

While search engine image recognition technology has vastly improved over the years, search crawlers still can’t “see” the images on a website page as we can, so it’s not wise to leave the interpretation solely in their hands. If they don’t understand or get it wrong, it’s possible you could either rank for unintended keywords or miss out on ranking altogether.

Image Traffic

One of the most important things image alt text can do for you is turn your images into hyperlinked search results that appear either in Google Images or as image packs. Image packs are special results displayed as a horizontal row of image links that can appear in any organic position, including the #1 spot on a SERP.

How do I write good alt text?

Describe the image as precisely as possible.

Alt text is, first and foremost, designed to provide text explanations of images for users who cannot see them.

An excellent point to note: generic doesn’t pay off when it comes to product descriptions. The devil is in the detail. You need to pay attention to the way you describe your products.

 If an image truly doesn’t convey any meaning or value and is just for design purposes, it should live within the CSS, not HTML.

Keep it (relatively) short.

 It’s advisable to keep alt text at around 125 characters or less. It was previously advised that popular screen readers cut alt text off after about 125 characters. 

<img src="alt-text.jpg" alt="This is a very long alt text, which isn't user friendly, and will most likely be cut off by screen readers" />

While no longer a hard and fast rule, it is still a good guide for content creators and SEOs when writing alt text for complex images requiring longer descriptions.

Use your keywords. 

Alt text provides you another opportunity to include your target keyword on a page and thus another opportunity to signal to search engines that your page is highly relevant to a particular search query. 

While your first priority should be describing and providing context to the image if it makes sense to do so, include your keyword in the alt text of at least one image on the page.

Avoid keyword stuffing. 

Google won’t dock you points for poorly written alt text, but you’ll be in trouble if you use your alt text as an opportunity to stuff as many relevant keywords as you can think of into it. 

Focus on writing descriptive alt text that provides context to the image and if possible, includes your target keyword, and leave it at that.

Don’t include “image of,” “picture of,” etc., in your alt text. It’s already assumed your alt text refers to an image, so there’s no need to specify it.

Review for spelling errors.

Misspelled words in image alt text could hurt the user experience or confuse search engines crawling your site. You should review alt text like you would any other content on the page.

Don’t add alt text to ‘decorative’ images.

You should add alt text to most images on a webpage for the sake of SEO, UX, and accessibility — however, there are exceptions. Images that are purely decorative or are described in text nearby, for example, should have an empty alt attribute. Check out this decision tree for a more detailed breakdown of when to add alt text and when to not.

Use best practices for complex images.

 Describe maps, charts, diagrams, and any other complex images using accessibility best practices. While browsers handle the longdesc=”” attribute differently, they are available to screen reader users. 

Examples of SEO-friendly alt text

Let’s take a look at a couple of examples of alt text in action:

Keyword vs. Detail

Bad: in this image, a man is working on his computer, typing, or doing research. He’s frustrated by the look of it- perhaps he can’t find what he’s looking for

The alt text above makes it hard for Google to understand how the image might relate to the content on your webpage. There are no precise, descriptive keywords, and the text is too long. 

Good: Man working on Google with his hands in his hair

Detail vs. Specificity

ahref’s keyword tool for SEO keyword research

Bad: Keyword explorer tool

The alt text above isn’t too bad as it provides details of the picture but a better alt text would contain more information about the tool. 

Good: ahref’s keyword tool for SEO keyword research

Context

More often than not, your images will have clear context to help you write alt the context of your within-page content. Text, but that might not always be the case. Some images might be ambiguous. 

For images of this nature, it is up to you to write the alt text based on 

Some images are also pretty self-explanatory and do not need any alt descriptions.

Adding Alt Text to Images in WordPress 

Adding alt text to images is super easy using the WordPress block editor.

Alt text addition guide for WordPress

To get started, scroll to the post or page you’re editing and click on your image, so it gets marked with the blue frame. Then, go to the Image Settings in the right column of your post editor and type in the alt text in the Alt Text (alternative text) field. 

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that alt text plays a crucial role in an online world consumed by the importance of keywords. If you want to make the most of your alt text, keep these tips in mind and remember that the online world is constantly evolving.

We hope this post helped you understand how to write alt text for images for SEO. Remember that the more images you optimize with alt texts, the better your chances of ranking them in image search. You’ll also improve the overall user experience and keep visitors glued to your content.

How much does it cost for SEO services?

How much does it cost for SEO services?

How much does it cost for SEO services?

Seeking SEO services

SEO is one of a company’s most valuable tools to stand out and thrive online. However, mastering search engine optimization yourself can be easier said than done. Search engine optimization has become a critical component of digital marketing.  However, some small enterprises still overlook it, with just half of them including it in their budget.

Multiple elements are involved in any optimization effort, from building backlinks to targeting specific keywords. With algorithms and trends changing, it’s hard for any business leader to stay ahead of the curve.

In this article, we’ll tackle the question of How much it costs to hire an SEO company or SEO services and the best practices when hiring one. 

Seeking the standard cost of SEO services can be frustrating because the honest answer here is, “It depends.” Pricing can range anywhere across the board from $25 per hour to $10,000+ per month. No one can budget for an SEO project based on that kind of range. 

SEO costing estimates

Woman calculating SEO services cost

According to WebFX, most SEO projects cost between $400 to $10,000, depending on the service. These projects can range from working with an hourly consultant to hiring an agency for monthly SEO.

Stages: What determines SEO pricing 

Size of the website

The size of your website is one of the essential factors in an SEO quote. A 10-15 page website will produce more work than an e-commerce company with hundreds of pages. This may appear unethical to charge based on the firm size.

For instance, Company that has a 15-page website will typically be on the lower end of the $400-$10,000 spectrum, while an e-commerce store with 50,000+ products should plan on a larger budget for SEO.

Company objectives

Some websites require basic structural work, while others have a results-oriented purpose requiring more resources. Suppose a company X has a $1,000,000 revenue and improves it by 10%. That’s an extra $100,000 for them. So, you will estimate the SEO rates accordingly.

Line of work

Certain industries are more competitive than others, and their keywords are also more competitive. So they require more effort and time, increasing the SEO costs.

Level of service

Each company sets its service standards, which can be time, project, or result-dependent.

Common SEO services

Background research

The first part of your SEO strategy is to think about who you want to target. Your content must be relevant, useful to your audience, and easy for new visitors to discover via search engines.

Getting to know your audience is crucial, so the background research phase should include gathering feedback to find out what your users want from your site. You’ll also need to conduct industry research, to spot current trends and get ahead of the game.

This process will give you an insight into the kind of content your audience is looking for and what form they prefer to consume the content in. In part, you can do the analysis yourself. But SEOs do this, too, along with other elements of the strategy.

Content Marketing 

The essence of SEO is content marketing. The content of your website can be tweaked to increase SEO. Content marketing uses relevant content to encourage customers to take a specific action.

Drawing new eyeballs to your page after optimization encourages people to take action. It is the most cost-effective SEO technique. Many SEO businesses create content and distribute it to industry-relevant websites to gain backlinks to your website.

Keyword and competitor research

Keyword research involves thinking about how potential customers might search for your business. It is vital to identify direct competitors and check which keywords drive traffic to their sites.

Free keyword research tools could get the job done, but it is advisable to outsource SEO services for more comprehensive, in-depth research.

Woman doing research on computer
SEO services may include research, marketing, or technical SEO

Technical Search Engine Optimization

Technical difficulties are frequently detected during an initial SEO assessment, including a full-service package. Meta descriptions, title tags, alt tags, page speed, page experience, website architecture, schema markup, and other factors are all considered.

Each landing page should be as relevant as possible to at least 1-3 keywords from one group. There should not be pages optimized for the same keywords, as this causes keyword cannibalization.

Resource management

Resource management can sound daunting because of Google’s 200+ ranking factors, but the process can be simplified by focussing on the three main factors.

1. Information Architecture

SEO services for your information architecture should be geared toward the following: 

  • Be crawlable & accessible to Search Engines.
  • Follow Google Webmaster Guidelines for SEO best practices.
  • Be optimized for a high-quality user experience (paying careful attention to Core Web Vitals).
  • Render cleanly on mobile, tablet & desktop devices.

2. Content

Your site’s content should conform to best practices with an emphasis on:

  • Being unique and offering value.
  • Matching search queries.
  • Satisfying user intent.
  • Being of high quality.
  • Satisfying the fresh content Algorithm.

3. Backlinks

Link-building is when you get other websites to link to your site, driving referral traffic and telling Google that your site is worthy of citation (so you’ll earn a higher ranking). You can do this via great content, influencer reviews, and partner links.

  • Must be natural. Avoid popular link schemes like PBNs and paid guest posts. Instead, focus on building real links that boost positioning in the SERPs.
  • Quality is key: A lower number of High trust/High Authority/Relevant links can outperform a large quantity of lower quality links.

SEO Pricing Models

Before hiring someone, it helps to know how you’d like to work with them. Here are some of the most common options based on Upwork’s data.

Hourly basis

The contract for SEO services can be hourly. Most clients pay on an hourly basis when they want to bind the projects on an immediate basis. Because sometimes, the deadlines are fixed in advance, and the projects get delayed due to uncertainties. The average SEO cost per hour ranges between 80-100 USD.

Project basis

When you decide in advance to complete the SEO project and find an SEO partner to complete the whole project, the average SEO cost per project ranges between 5,000-30,000 USD.

Result basis

In this arrangement, you hire an SEO firm to produce a specific result in terms of ranking.

You don’t have to pay anything until the target is met because some SEO tasks are more straightforward while others are a little complex.

Monthly basis 

You can hire a team monthly when you have good relations with an SEO company, which could be due to past positive experiences. The average SEO cost per month ranges between 750-5000 USD.

Set goals: Manage the measurable

Before establishing a budget, define specific goals for a campaign. Your goals should include measurable results, a specified timeframe, and an actual measurement for success.

The general consensus is that the most important metrics directly impact the bottom line. Organic sessions, goal conversions, and revenue fall into that category.

Setting achievable goals for your SEO will help you plan and budget better

Goal setting could include improving organic sessions by X%, increasing conversions by Y per month, and/or increasing revenues by Z%. When setting goals, remember that:

“…in most cases, SEOs need four months to a year to help your business first implement improvements and then see potential benefit.”

Google

A campaign with actionable goals makes it easy to develop a budget with which you can seek SEO services.

The Takeaway

SEO services and companies can be expensive, and many smaller websites may find this financially taxing. Because of this, it is easy for start-up companies with a low budget to fall prey to “affordable” SEO service advertisements that guarantee crazy results that sound too good to be true.

Here is our SEO pricing guide to help you find a great SEO plan.

  • Avoid agencies advertising ‘cheap’ SEO rates, like $100 or less
  • Pass on SEO plans that guarantee results, like page one rankings
  • Request deliverables alongside pricing to see what you’re paying for
  • Look for companies that customize their solutions to your goals and industry
  • Search for agencies that measure SEO performance and its ROI so you can see the impact of your investment.

You are now equipped with the basic guide to finding a suitable SEO service provider that suits your budget constraints. That said, you can confidently go out into the overwhelming waters of finding a legitimate SEO that will work with your needs.