It’s not infrequent that clients come to us with small budgets wanting big results. They are open to doing “whatever it takes” to get the results they want. Everything except increasing the budget.
SEO is as much about the knowledge and skill levels of those practicing it as it is about the time they invest. In fact, when you consider the price of SEO, don’t look at it as buying hours. Look at is as buying knowledge, skill and experience. You can find SEOs that charge $100 an hour or less, but they don’t come with the knowledge or the ability to get great results.
That’s not to say that just because someone charges $300 an hour they are better. Many aren’t any better, they are just over charging. The best are those that have proven they are worth what they charge.
If your SEO is in charge of your social media, on-page optimization, website architecture and content strategy, you can bet that there is a good deal of time that goes into each of those efforts. Not to mention the fact that there is room to scale each of those significantly. When your web marketing investment is limited, the marketing team has to make choices of what to cut and what to keep.
Sometimes they can do a little of everything, but often, more time and effort will be required in one aspect of web marketing to overcome a particular hurdle. Later, they may be able to draw back in that area, but that’s not always the case, especially in the areas of content and social media. These take a good amount of time, and any drawback can often be felt.
That means that not as much time can be invested in other areas that may be critical as well. It’s like picking a favorite child. Web marketers must determine where to spend time. Some things will get shorted if the budget can’t encompass everything.
I like to tell my clients: [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=”@StoneyD”]We start at zero and work toward awesome. Their investment (i.e. budget) determines how quickly we get there.[/inlinetweet]