I am doing my training under the Marketing department and I would like to know why is it damn costly to get consultations from SEO gurus.... or are they scammers with ridiculous pricing quote for their services?
2006-09-08 16:59:46 · 8 answers · asked by ? 2 in Business & Finance ➔ Advertising & Marketing
That is a very good question.
Taking the second part first. There are so many scammers in the SEO field that it almost impossible to find a straight one. Anyone can pretend they know something about SEO, just look at some of the answers on Yahoo! Answers for example. It's actually easier for these people to scam someone than it is to build a profitable site that ranks well, so that's what they do. I know one SEO business that has 3 rubbish SEOs and over 100 telephone sales staff. I have had clients come to me from them having paid over a thousand dollars and absolutely nothing has been done to their site. Cash the check was all they did. There are lots of companies and individual scammers like that and they steal a lot of money. The very good genuine SEOs who really know what they are doing probably number less than 100 in the whole world.
So that brings us to the first part of your question. The very good SEOs charge large fees because they provide a return on investment (ROI) to the site owner. For example the current street price for one of the top 100 SEOs to take a new casino site to the top 3 for searches on the most popular poker terms is over $1 million dollars. That is not a lot when you consider that the site owner will be making in the region of five times that every month! On a smaller scale if every sale (service or product) is worth say $100 in profit to a site owner and they sell 100 per week after the site has been optimized then paying an expert SEO $10k-$20k is a very good deal.
It's all about ROI but you have to find the needle in the haystack first :)
2006-09-09 03:19:50 · answer #1 · answered by memetrader 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Some SEO's take advantage of others. I have been trying to exposure these people. Charging as high as $1000 per page. SEO is very much in demand. The top consultants charge anywhere from $200 - $500 an hour. My prices are consider lower than most. You just need to shop around and compare. If they have a great track record the cost may be worth it. If I told you I could get you on the first page for terms that would bring in thousands of dollars in profit to you, wouldn't you pay it?
Learn as much about SEO before hiring someone. Be sure to also talk to their former clients. I have seen companies with horrible results cliaming they do great work.
You can visit my site and listen to my podcast, read my articles and join my forum. You can learn a lot.
2006-09-09 02:56:16 · answer #2 · answered by linkme2mrseo 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I guess I might qualify as one of the people you would deem as overpriced, but so long as there is a positive ROI who cares how much the fee is?
About 3 years ago I charged as little as $20 - $30 an hour and now charge $500, but most likely with all I have learned in the past few years my current rate offers a better value than my past rate.
Those who are concerned with offering clients a good value typically turn down far more potential clients than they take. I know I do.
It is not just about how much you are spending, but also how much you save by not having to make every mistake yourself, and by marketing your site so it will do well now AND in the future.
Many of the people who charge a bunch for consulting or services also help people a bunch for free too.
Also price point is a signal for quality. No reason to aim for the lower end when there is so much opportunity out there. I recently wrote a rant post about why I thought doing too much client work was at best silly when you consider the opportunity cost:
http://www.seobook.com/archives/001815.shtml
If you think consultants are too expensive you can try to learn most everything yourself...I did (and still learn more stuff almost every day). But you really have to evaluate how much time and energy you want to put into it.
2006-09-09 21:47:24 · answer #3 · answered by aaron w 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It IS frustrating if you're working on a tight budget but in the end, getting advice from a seasoned SEO will prove to be a cost efficient tactic overall.
Professional advice from any business expert will cost some money, it's best to plan for it and then bite the bullet. Narrowing down what you want to know will help with the amount of time you need to engage someone and hopefully reduce your charges.
Many of the SEO industry experts participate in online forums and emails newsletters and will talk with you at no charge in these venues. Search on SEO Forums and sign up for free SEO newsletters, I've listed a couple resources below. Good luck!
2006-09-12 04:06:25 · answer #4 · answered by debraM 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is expensive because the information that a good SEO "guru" has to offer is so valuable. A company with a website on the first page of Google can make much more money then a comparable company that is located further down in search engine rankings. I work with one client that is losing 10s of thousands of dollars because a competitor is higher ranked in the search engines. This is all to say a good SEO "guru" is worth every dollar.
2006-09-08 18:36:23 · answer #5 · answered by LivingDownSouth 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
As long as there is the internet, we are going to need seo consultants. However, the difference will be if the seo consultant keeps up with what's going on in the industry. It's changing all the time and for an seo business to stay relevant, it needs to keep up.
2016-03-27 03:38:04 · answer #6 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hi,
First of all keep in mind that on the internet there are all sorts of scammers... Not all SEO consultants are good. Some are bad and waste of money...
Google provides information about this. Go to their help section.
Karl
2006-09-09 06:10:58 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Here is a good resource for you.
http://www.seo-web-consulting.com/
2006-09-09 04:36:35 · answer #8 · answered by TradeConsult 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋