Have You Done Your Research?

If you’ve done your research, you know that pricing for search engine optimization services varies wildly from company to company.

Link-building campaigns range from around $500 or so to over $15,000. Keyword research can cost you between $300 and $4000. Just getting someone to look at your site, review it for search engine optimization problems and deliver you a quality report on their findings can cost from $500 to over $10,000.

That’s the problem with this field, really. What’s a fair price for the customer and what’s a fair price for the company doing the work?

I’m A Small Business Owner Too

Many quality Internet service companies are run by a single person. Often, that single person is in the business due to a love of the field and, sometimes, for the challenge.

That’s SEOmaha, in a nutshell.

I have a day job and a family. I’m not in the search engine optimization business to make a lot of money, although it would be nice to pay off the mortgage a little early. I’m in the SEO business because the field is challenging and because I love seeing my efforts pay off and make a difference.

Large SEO companies invest a lot of money into staff, salespeople, offices, advertising and cappuccino machines. All those costs need to be charged to their clients, who are almost never charged based on the actual cost of a project, but instead on how much money the SEO company believes that can be wrung out of them.

Large corporations looking for SEO services aren’t likely to be knocking on my door. They have millions of dollars to pour into marketing, advertising and search engine optimization. They hire directors and actors to produce catchy videos that they hope will go viral. They have no problem spending $90,000 to have a guy in a suit and tie tell them what to do to bring a million visitors to their website next week.

Small businesses in Omaha that are looking for a leg up on the competition, however, probably do have a problem spending that kind of money. They don’t want a million visitors to their website. They want to rank well for what they sell.

How Much Will SEOmaha Charge For Search Engine Optimization?

Quite frankly, I’ll work within your budget, but here are some general price guidelines for what we do:

  • Website review, keyword research and consultation - between $100 - $300

I evaluate your website and the websites of your major competitors. I research keywords pertinent to your website, determining which keywords you should focus your efforts on and which keywords you should ignore. Your website is evaluated for mistakes relating to search engine optimization, both on-site and off-site. I look for mistakes your competitors have made, both on their websites and with their SEO, and develop a strategy to capitalize on those mistakes. A report is written, explaining my findings and suggestions. Pricing depends on the size and complexity of your website, as well as how competitive a field you’re in.

You can take this report to your own web designer and have him do the work, or you can hire me.

  • Pay-per-click consulting - varies depending on time spent and location, but around $350

Using the keywords either you or I provide, I sit down with you and walk you through the process of creating your own pay-per-click campaigns on Google and Yahoo. I don’t leave until you’re comfortable with the entire process.

  • Link building services - $500 and up, additional month-to-month fee optional

Your link building needs will usually depend on the competition, and how entrenched their websites are in the search engine responses for their keywords. You can provide your own keywords or use my own keyword research. I will develop relevant incoming links to your website that will help raise your rankings for the keywords we’re working on.

For the original set fee, you will get a lot of incoming links from a variety of sources. The links I develop will usually be indexed by the search engines and start affecting your rankings within a few weeks. If you would like continued link-building, my services can be retained for a 6-month period. After you pay my retainer fee, I will continue to work on your website’s behalf, building links, following your website’s progress in the search engines and giving you monthly reports.

  • Website to Blog Transformation - varies, but a minimum expenditure of $1800 should be expected
  • Business Blog Website Creation - depending on your needs, this varies, but $700 - $1000 is a good starting point

There are many reasons why a blog can be better for your business than a static website:

  1. Blogs are easy to update yourself, saving you the cost of paying someone to do it for you
  2. Search engines love blogs because of their continually-updated content
  3. Your customers can interact with you, increasing loyalty to your brand and helping spread the word about your business

I will work with you to transform your current website into a blog. I can either develop something very close to your current design or have our designer come up with a completely new design. I will install and set up the blog for you, moving your current content over to the new blog and optimizing everything for search engine purposes. I will set up tracking software in your name so that you can keep track of your website visitors.

The initial expenditure includes one month of consultancy, during which I’ll answer any questions you may have, as well as edit any and all entries you write on your blog for search engine optimization purposes.

You can also choose our Quick and Easy Blog Setup if you’re on a tight budget and just want to have a good-looking, easy-to-update website and can handle the writing and so on yourself.