SEO Prices:
Factors that determine how much you will pay for search engine optimization

When done right, search engine optimization (SEO) can be one of the most valuable marketing campaigns for a business. Many times SEO campaigns have produced better results than magazine, newspaper and Yellow Pages ads, as well as other forms of advertising. SEO costs can sometimes seem substantial at first, but in the long run properly executed SEO campaigns will definitely pay for themselves time and time again.

So how much can an SEO services cost? The prices will vary, from hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on a number of factors, such as the following:

1. Size of your website
   Larger web sites generally cost more to optimize because there is more work involved. Larger sites are more likely to produce better results because the larger the web site, the more content it has, the more "weight" it has - the better it tends to rank. If you take a look at any of the most competitive keywords, such as "spa", "yoga", "finance", "tourism" (without quotation marks), you'll find that the top ten results are all large web sites with hundreds of pages. It's very difficult for a small, 10-20 page web site to compete against these giants, because they have more "weight". Sure, there are other factors that determine their rankings, but size is definitely one of them.
   
   On the other hand, if you have a very small web site, for example, 5 pages - you won't necessarily pay the lowest price for SEO. Small web sites have very little weight and therefore will probably require additional marketing efforts to compensate for the lack of "weight" and to ensure good rankings.
   
   A larger web site can also be optimized for a greater number of keywords. Generally, one page can be optimized for 1 or 2 keyword strings, so the more pages your site has, the more keywords it can support.
   
   
2. State of your web site
   The state of the web site is everything from how old a web site is, to whether it's listed in search engines, to what kind of PageRank the pages have.
   
   If your web site is new, then it may be more challenging to get it to rank well in search engines. Google, in particular, is applying something that is commonly referred to as the "Sandbox Filter" to new web sites, which prevent them from ranking well in the beginning for a few months.
   
   Web Site with high PR rankings for the home and other pages are easier to get ranked well, whereas web sites with no PR whatsoever will probably require more work.
   
   And, of course, web sites that have been penalized by or even expelled from search engines would be very difficult, if at all possible, to get ranked well.
   
   
3. Construction and design
   Whether the construction of the website is SEO friendly or not plays a role in how much work will be required and, therefore, what the price will be. The more changes are needed to the design and consutrction, the higher the cost. For example, if all you have on your site for navigation is Java Script menus, then they will need to be changed to search engine friendly text links that can be formatted with CSS for the same look. Another example would be using frames to construct your web pages. Frames are an old way of building pages and are not search engine friendly, so the site will essentially need to be reconstructed without the frames.
   
   
4. How many pages within the site you want to optimize
   Your website may have a large number of pages, but you may not want to optimize all of them. Usually, the more pages you want to optimize, the higher the price.
   
   
5. Number of keywords
   Generally, the greater the number of keywords for which you want your site to rank well, the higher the costs of SEO. However, it's important to consider the competitivness of the keywords as well. For example, if you want your web site to rank in the top 10 of Google for the term "spa", which is a very competitive term, is going to cost a very large amount of money, much more than it would cost to rank the same web site for 10 less competitive terms, such as "day spa Vancouver", "Vancouver spa", "Vancouver day spa", "spa in Vancouver", etc.
   
   
6. Keyword research that needs to be done
   How much keyword research needs to be done will play a role in the price you'll pay for search engine optimization. Do you have a prepared list of keywords all ready to go or do you want your SEO specialists to research all the possible keywords for you? Keyword research means looking at what your competitors are using and running speciliazed software to determine keyword popularity. Such software determines, for example, which keywords are being searched for the most.
   
   
7. Research of competitors
   Competing web sites need to be analyzed to determine if your website has a reasonable shot at beating them. The more competitive the field, the more research into the competitors will need to be done.
   
   
8. How competitive the keywords are
   If your chosen keywords are very competitive, it will take a lot more work to achieve target rankings. The more competitive the keywords are, the more expensive the optimization campaign will be.
   
   
9. Linking campaign
   Most of the time, linking campaigns are included in our SEO packages, but not always. During a linking campaign, we will manually search for good quality web sites on your behalf and ask them to link to your web site. If they choose to offer you a link, it will not be because we paid them, but because they think that your website is of good quality and it may be of interest to their visitors.
   
   In our preliminary research, we will determine how many links are currently pointing to your web site and the quality of those links. The more links we need to find for your web site, the higher the SEO costs will be.
   
   
10. Will more content need to be added?
    If you want your web site to rank well for a large number of keywords, you may need to add more content and/or more pages to your web site. You can add the content yourself, which will only cost you your time, or you can get someone to do it for you. At Ront Communications, we are happy to offer copywriting services as part of our Internet marketing campaigns. We can help you write content that will specifically target your chosen keywords, while being useful to your visitors. And we always offer recommendations for new content as part of our SEO packages.
    
    
11. How many web sites need to be optimized
    If you have more than one web site that needs to be optimized, the costs of SEO will obviously go up. However, if you have a number of websites, there is potential for a 'volume discount'.
    
    
12. How fast you want the service to be done
    If you have very tight deadlines, this may raise the cost of your SEO project. However, please note that SEO specialists can get their work done on your site quickly, but you can't speed up how long it takes search engines to index and rank your web site. Generally, it takes 4-6 weeks, and even longer in some cases, after SEO is completed for you to start seeing results.
    
    
13. Whether you want something done in one-shot or as an ongoing contract
    Ongoing contracts will generally cost you more in the long run than one-time optimization. Of course, the value you will receive from an ongoing contract is much greater. For example, with an ongoing contract, the SEO campaign can be adjusted, depending on how search engines and customers respond. With a one-shot campaign - once it's done, it's done. You will need to hire someone again if you want to make changes.
    
    
14. Whether you require a guarantee or not
    Please note that no SEO company or specialist can ever guarantee any placement in search engines. The best we can do with some projects is tell you that unless your target rankings are achieved (which would be outlined in your contract), you won't have to pay. And that's our guanrantee: you don't pay until you get results. When we offer this guarantee, it means that we are very confident that we can successfully execute your SEO campaign and get the promised results. If you want this kind of a guarantee, you will need to pay more for it.
    
    
15. Whether you want progress and ranking reports along the way
    If you require progress reports and ranking reports, that may bring your costs up, expecially if you want those reports to be very detailed and frequent.
    
    
16. How much consultation time do you require?
    The more consultation time you require, the higher the SEO costs.
    
    
17. Restrictions that you place on the web site
    Sometimes business people place restrictions on what can or cannot be done to their web sites. We are not talking about unethical practices here (keyword stuffing, cloaking, hidden text, etc.) - which we at Ront Communications never do - but things like adding more content to the home page and changing navigation menues.
    
    Some clients feel very strongly that they want to have very little text on their home page for the purposes of design. This is a difficult restriction for us to work with, because content is what makes target rankings possible. And the home page is the most important page in the entire web site. So if we are not able to add more content to the home page, then we have to find other ways to compensate for this restriction and still achieve the target rankings. In other words, we can work around such a restriction, but it will take more work and, therefore, will cost more.
    
    
18. Whether SEO is ethical or not
    Ront Communications only offers ethical search engine optimization services. We never do anything that contradicts search engines' terms of service or guidelines.
    
    Non-ethical SEO may produce better results more quickly in the short-term. It may even cost less. However, sooner or later, search engines discover all unethical search engine optimization practices and penlize your web sites that employe them, if not expel them altogether. And if that happens, good luck getting indexed again.
    
    Ethical optimization may cost more, but it will give you much better results in the long run.
    
    
19. Visitor tracking services
    Visitor tracking services are a great and necessary tool for any Internet marketing. Good visitor, or statistics, tracking systems will give you useful and detailed information, such as the number of visitors to your web site, what country they are coming from, what keywords they are using in their queries, which search engines they are using, what pages they are viewing and how long the spend on the site, etc. Without having this useful information, Internet marketing specialists are operating blindly, not knowing how effective their efforts are, and not being able to adjust their strategies.
    
    Ront Communications does not offer visitor tracking services, but we do ask you that you sign up for one and we are happy to provide a recommendation. Your visitor tracking service costs will depend on the service you choose and how much traffic your web site will receive.
    
    

Please contact us for more information on getting your web site rank well in search engines, linking campaigns, internet marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), as well as other marketing services such as graphic design and corporate identity packages, please contact us at our Vancouver office:

Tel: 604-629-7499
E-mail: info [at] rontcommunications [dot] com

Thank you and we look forward to working with you!