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Web Host SEO or Independent SEO?

Web Host SEO or Independent SEO?

When it comes to SEO, which should you choose?

SEO is the process of improving your web site to optimize it’s traffic. Understanding how each performs will help you make the best decision based on your business needs.

What is a Web Host SEO?

Web Hosting SEO’s are Web Host Sites primarily, such as Go Daddy, Host Gator, Web Hosting Hub and others. They provide websites, domain names, dedicated servers, templates and limited SEO. They cover a variety of services in many areas. Generally, they are not as focused on individual care, but in providing a one-size- fits-all philosophy, with their main business being a web-hosting site.

What is an Independent SEO?

An Independent SEO is a company that specializes on doing only SEO services for businesses. They invest time in learning proper search techniques, sorting through what works and what is no longer applicable. This takes time and patience. SEO is their only specialization so they’re good at it. They provide individual service, while staying on top of current and future trends.

What makes a Web Host SEO attractive?

Web Host SEO is sometimes cheaper. When starting a website, they make it available to package with the web sites at a cheaper price. This may appear to be a step saver for some. Budgets are smaller, so the savings aspect is appealing. Beginners don’t always understand, cheaper is not always better!

Why is an Independent SEO a better choice?

  1. Personal and individual care
  2. Up to date optimization skills
  3. SEO is not their side business, it is the business.

For the beginner, Web Host SEO is possibly a good fit, if you are looking for an entry level, inexpensive, one-size-fits-all approach. If you are looking to optimize traffic to your site, an Independent SEO is a better choice. Review the pros and cons and make the best decision for your business.

Why Do SEO Companies Charge a Monthly Fee?

Why do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Companies charge a monthly fee instead of a one time fee?

The main reason SEO Companies should charge a monthly fee is search engine optimization needs to be an ongoing commitment to help generate leads and build your business. Continuous effort to maintain the website’s visibilty for search engines after the initial optimization while improving customer experience is required.

One Time Fees Imply One Time Work

Usually, when you pay a company a one time fee, it’s in exchange for a one time service. In the case of SEO, there is definitely an up front service performed – combing through your website and modifying it to be search engine friendly as well as modifying page content to conform to the rules of Google and other search engines. But the work doesn’t stop there. In fact, it can take a great deal of time and effort to get your site to rank highly for various search keywords.

SEO is an Ongoing Effort

SEO Companies need to utilize the data collected from prospective clients to keep your website updated with original content. After your site is initially optimized and the SEO company has done research into the competitive landscape to create a strategy for your website, there are 3 key ongoing steps to be performed monthly.

  1. Keyword research also ensures the updates help your clients find what they are searching for.
  2. Building links is an ongoing process that involves locating quality websites with similar subject matter then negotiating and maintaining links to bring in clients and increase seach engine references.
  3. Creating fresh content both in terms of new pages and blog articles helps you target additional keyword areas and builds up the inherent trust and page rank of your site.

SEO is Worth the Effort

Search engine optimization isn’t a one-size-fits-all investment. Maintaining a search engine presence requires a monthly marketing commitment, but the dividends are evident in this growing, fast-paced e-commerce society. Once rankings have been achieved, the overall profitability of your company can be enhanced significantly. Unfortunately, SEO isn’t a one time event, but if you stick with it over the long haul you could see your business transform dramatically.

How To Do An ROI Analysis?

We find it utterly astonishing that most SEO companies don’t perform ROI analysis when providing an estimate or quote. In fact, when we were recently talking to one of the biggest SEO firms out there, they mentioned that they don’t do any kind of ROI analysis because it is too risky for them! Too risky? In reading between the lines, it seems that the risk is that they might be held accountable for their performance.

So, the short of it is that most SEO providers aren’t going to “offer” you an ROI analysis so that you can see if using search engine optimization will benefit your company financially. We firmly believe in looking at the numbers to see if you should invest, as it will take a considerable amount of money to get solid rankings, so there better be a corresponding revenues that is greater than the cost.

One point of note that is important – it may still make sense for you to implement SEO even though the numbers don’t show a return over costs. Perhaps your overall strategy is to build up momentum over time as a part of a larger online marketing investment – including PPC, social media, and other online advertising channels. We’re not suggesting that you don’t invest in SEO unless it shows a shorter term positive ROI. But we are saying that you should consider these numbers before making the decision to dive in.

Now, on to an SEO ROI methodology that you can easily implement. First, take the keywords that they’re proposing you should optimize. Then, plug them into the Google Keyword Tool in order to gauge the Local Monthly searches per month. Be sure that you’re using “exact match” only. So, for example, the total local monthly exact searches for the term “toy trains” is 6,600. Now, the historical numbers show that most clicks on the first page go to the top ranking sites. There are a number of different thoughts here, but take a conservative number, say 6-8%. This will be your conservative click through rate scenario. So, by multiplying the total local monthly exact searches (in our case 6,600) by the conservative click through rate (in our case, say 6%), you’ll find the conservative potential clicks to your site. In our example, there are a potential of 396 visitors to our site. And, let’s say that our average conversion rate is 2% (total number of visitors to our site that “take an action”. So, of the 396 visitors, about 7 or 8 will be buying our toy trains.

There are a number of factors that come into play here – for example, if you’re optimizing for the wrong term, you may not get as many people to click through or to convert on your site. But in the very least, it’s important to understand if the investment is financially worth it. In our case, if we earn $30 per train and sell 8 trains per month, then our total revenue is $240. The cost of SEO services should be less than this if we’re ultimately going to sustain the investment.