As we move into the realm of asking questions and prices related to costs versus ROI. When outsourcing your SEO to a firm or consultant it becomes a bit more difficult to control costs than it does when you hire someone. Do we have an initial ROI on outsourcing our SEO?
Im not going to suggest that you cannot control costs and you cannot get a ROI. It really matters of knowing how to manage campaigns, expectations and your budget that goes along on the internet.
How much should search marketing cost? Every bit of a legitimate question, it is also like asking “How much should a computer cost?” The answer varies a great deal and there are many factors involved in coming to any conclusions. A few things that will be a factor in pricing is the quality of the firm or contractor you’re hiring, their years of (combined) experience, difficulty in the project, expected results, and of course the actual services that will be performed.
What should be included in my campaign? Ultimately it comes down to whatever you agree to. Any firm analyzing your account should have a general idea of what will be needed over the course of the next several months. However in many cases the initial assessment will only represent a piece of the overall campaign needs. While a good site audit can pinpoint the most obvious needs, many won’t be able to be uncovered until the SEO is actually in the site and working through problems.
Will I get the return on my investment? This is the ultimate goal of every marketing campaign, whether it be online or off-line. The sad truth is, not every marketing campaign is successful every time. With SEO the return on investment often doesn’t come for several months, and sometimes as long as a year or more. Competition largely plays a role in this as the more competitive the industry the more SEOs tend to charge. And with greater competition the time frame to “success” is often much longer as well. You should never enter into an SEO agreement without an expectation of success in terms of getting your return on investment, but neither should you have unreasonable expectations in how soon that return will be realized.
What kind of results should I expect? This is something that should be discussed with your SEO before signing your contract. While its near impossible to make predictions on what will happen, you can get an overall sense of what you can expect and when. Most importantly, however, is knowing what kind of results you should look for. Are you looking at rankings, traffic, sales or ROI? If you expect “success” in rankings then you may tend to ignore the increase in sales because rankings are not where you think they should be. The area of expected results should be discussed ahead of time so the SEO knows exactly what you’re looking for.
