HOW MUCH SEO HELP??? HOW LITTLE SEO HELP??

by Amy Munice, Global B2B Communications (www.globalb2bcommunications.com)

What is a “reasonable” price tag for professional search engine optimization consultant services?

Needs for search engine optimization consultant help do vary– for a number of reasons—and here are some tips on how to gauge your company’s required budgets for expert and up-to-date SEO expert services…

• A budget that matches the importance of your company’s website to your company’s success as a whole.
For example– Picture a high-tech company that has a very limited potential market in the hundreds order of magnitude, with an especially long and highly detailed RFP process, and where every one of the possible prospects in the world already knows what the high-tech company has to offer.

Then picture a B2C company with diverse and broad market segments to whom they compete in price-driven sales of products considered to be commodities, and where e-commerce cuts the cost-of-sales significantly.
The former would be well-served by online marketing budgets allocated to worldwide publication of highly technical white papers, articles and blogs–with website optimization being a relatively minor concern.
The latter would be well-served by putting the lion’s share of their marketing dollars towards website optimization efforts and pay per click advertising campaigns—perhaps even skipping traditional PR routes altogether since price-driven sales scenarios do not make a good match for traditional PR (—there’s no there there for a good story…)

• Calibrated to how much time your targeted market segments tend to spend online.
Selling software? Online marketing is your lifeblood. Every dollar you spend to hire expert search engine marketing firm services is a dollar well spent.
Selling aftermarket automotive parts to garages? A shifting landscape.
Selling tools to cabinet makers? An example of one of the many markets that TODAY spends very little time at a computer– ***BUT SOON, IF NOT ALREADY, MAY BE ONE OF THE BEST TARGETS FOR MOBILE DEVICE MARKETING.

You know your market. How much time do the decision makers you seek or the influence makers who are part of the sales scenario spend online?

• Conventional Wisdom—Take it or Leave It– At least 20% of an online marketing budget should be devoted to search engine optimization.
Once you determine all of this, there is then the gigantic issue of how to sort out the SEO consultants who know what is what and are up-to-date from those MANY who are recycling yesterday’s SEO porridge. A topic for another day…or two…
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