Why Is SEO So Expensive: How To Spot A Bad SEO Company

SEO is expensive, and here are why you should not go for an SEO service that comes cheap. Read below to find out all about the factors that contribute to the SEO cost, why you should not choose a cheap SEO, and how SEO can increase ROI for your business.

What drives up SEO cost?

Listed below are the factors that drive up the cost of SEO.

• The number of pages: If you need to create new pages and optimize them, this will increase your SEO cost. It will ensure that each page on your website ranks high for a keyword phrase.
• Time – The amount of time taken to optimize or create website pages to impact SEO cost-efficiently.
• Link Acquisition – The Google algorithm keeps updating, and it is important to acquire the backlinks that play a vital factor to rank your page for any search engine query. The high-quality link building cost more, but again this is what will let you rank higher.
• The Current Technical State of your website – If your website needs a lot of work to be worthy of ranking, this will impact the SEO costs.
• Current Rankings – Your present organic ranking impacts the SEO cost. If you are very low on rank, then this will affect the SEO cost.
• Geography – The geographical location of your business and the number of local companies it competes will impact your local search engine optimisation cost.
• SEO takes time and lots of resources 

Google assigns a score to each website when someone visits it, and it is done through an algorithm. The website scores high if it performs better. Here are the four main resources that let your website rank higher.

• Keywords – these are important words that potential customers may look upon the search engine to reach your website.
• Domain: The domain name should be easy to remember to get more organic traffic as users will reach out to the website that they remember easily. Users also like websites with an easy name.
• Location: The website location is dependent on the language of the country from where your website originated. This, too, affects ranking. A global company website in multiple languages has more chances of ranking higher.
• Content- Content influences SEO ranking. If the visitor likes the content, then he is more likely to revisit the website.
• Reputable SEO companies don’t take short cuts aka Blackhat tactics. 

The reputed SEO companies are expensive because they do not use any Blackhat tactics to better their SEO ranking. SEO is hard and slow, and it is expensive, time-consuming to do it well. The Blackhat SEO practitioners try to push the results up by looking for shortcuts to trick the search engine into appealing to the algorithm’s working such as acquiring unnatural links, keyword stuffing, and other black hat tactics. This is something that makes no sense to humans. Blackhat tactics may work for some time, but these are not sustainable. It could also get your website penalized.

Why you shouldn’t go for Cheap SEO

Here are the reasons why cheap SEO services could end up doing more harm to your business than good.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. 

If an SEO company sounds too good to be true, then it is recommended to walk away. The cheap SEO companies may not be able to deliver even the basic requirements of SEO to you. They may offer substandard link building that fails to move even a bit. Most cheap SEO companies may be providing a standardized service for all. This does not work if you want your website to rank in search results. The problem with cheap SEO firms is that you cannot hold them accountable. And if you are looking for a long-term SEO strategy, then this again is something that a cheap SEO service cannot provide to you.

How can companies offer a cheap SEO package?

If you are wondering how a company provides cheap search engine optimization packages, then here is what they do. Most of them who are ready to offer their SEO services for unbelievable prices may be using some Blackhat SEO techniques. Here is what it includes:

• They provide Keyword stuffing, which the Google algorithm can easily track and gets your website penalized.
• They build-links through spam websites that may link back to your website. Search engines like Google do not count the backlinks on your website but the quality of these backlinks.
• They hire content mills that offer cheap content that does not meet the content’s quality and is barely readable.
• Some SEO firms may use hidden text to squeeze the keywords into the search engine page without stuffing them into the content’s human copy.
• Many cheap companies have also resorted to creating duplicate content on their website.
• Comment spam where bots go ahead and comment on the blog is another bad practice used by the cheap SEO companies.

Red flags to look out for when choosing an SEO company to work with.

If you notice any of these when you talk to an SEO company to hire, this should raise a red flag.

• Agencies promising a specific ranking to your website
• If the agency is not ready to give you a monthly report
• If there are dummy pages that are used to farm links
• If the company promises a quick increase in ranking
• Agency does not get the content approved before it posts it

Why is SEO worth it?         

Quality SEO services are worth investing in, and here are the reasons why.

SEO is an investment and a way to future-proof your business 

A successful SEO campaign can increase qualified traffic to your website resulting in increase pf leads and, thus, sales. When you invest in SEO, it raises your website ranking on the search engine sending more traffic to your site, increasing your revenue.

SEO helps future proof your business to things like recessions and the recent pandemic and here is why:

• SEO works. Considering the kind of search volume on different search engines, there is no debate that if your company ranks high on the Google search, this will pull more traffic to your website.
• SEO is important for small businesses, too, considering the business has gone mobile. Today no one wants to go home to switch on their computer to access the internet. This makes SEO important because people search for something at exactly the time that they need it.
• ·A high search engine ranking makes your business credible. The organic search result is what most viewers vouch for, and this is the deciding factor whether or not to proceed to make purchases from a particular company.
• Ranking changes fast, and this is why SEO is a must to let you stay ahead in the competition.
• SEO is here to stay. Online shopping will not just stay, but the trend will also grow and evolve, which means SEO is future perfect for your business.

What’s the typical ROI of an effective SEO campaign?

The ROI or return on investment is what every business owner desire from a search marketing agency. A good marketing ROI is around 5:1, something that any effective SEO campaign can let you achieve. Some SEO services can also let your business achieve 10:1 highly exceptional ratio. However, the target ratio depends on the cost structure, which will vary from one industry to another.

The basic formula for ROI from SEO is Earnings from SEO – Cost of SEO ÷ Cost of SEO = ROI.

What you spend on SEO plans and the ROI that you earn will depend on the kind of business you operate, the business size, competition size, and your website’s size.

Why SEO is cheaper than other digital marketing channels such as paid media like Facebook Ads & Google Ads

Most businesses have to deal with multiple marketing strategies whether to market their business through SEO or the various social media channels like Facebook, Google Ads, etc. While it is best to use both here, there are some reasons why SEO turns out to be better and cheaper than the other marketing methods.

• More people search for your business on the google search – The first thing that people do when they need to look for something is switch on their mobile and type the keywords in the Google search engine. This means that if you wish your business to get discovered, you would want to rank well for all the target keywords.
• The search engine knows what people are looking for – There are great tools in the search engine that let you research what people are looking for. This is like the Google Ad words keyword tool. 
• You can buy your way to get the results- You may not be able to make it to the top of the organic search, but you can always get the sponsored links of Google using the google ad words. The paid search listings can help to customize the appearance of your website on the search result.

All these points to one thing. SEO stands ahead of social media marketing because it is more effective and increases your ROI much more than social media marketing services. While there are costs involved, SEO does offer better returns and is thus more cost-efficient than social media.

FAQ’s About SEO

How many hours a month are spent on SEO

SEO is not an automated process. There is no magic button, most of the work involved is manual and time-consuming.

We need to be tech-savvy, creative thinkers, lovers of study, masters of analytics, social smarties, content writers and web developers.

To get the very best result for a client, we also need to study their competition and create strategies to beat them.

For one single client, this is a minimum of 20 hours a month. Less will not get the best results. The results will be okay but not the best.

Why are there still cheap SEO companies then?

Cheap SEO companies may suit some businesses. However, any business who wants long term results and industry domination need to seriously consider how much effort is going into SEO that costs $199 a month?

Whilst a company may feel they are better off saving their money on SEO, the investment is unlikely to capitalise any time soon.

SEO is expensive because it requires a combination of skills to drive results. Rankings are only a small part of the puzzle. If your SEO is super cheap then seriously consider what exactly you are getting for your investment.