Good SEO isn’t Cheap, Cheap SEO isn’t Good
Christine Lu at the China Business Network related a story about the Used Car Salesman who sold her SEO services.
Everyone trying to make a quick buck wants to claim they know SEO, but the truth is if you are worth your salt at SEO you can make plenty at home in your PJ’s on Affiliate programs, Search Traffic, (and all the other things I have been doing for the last year).
So how do you know what to spend? And where to spend it?
People forget that Advertising should not be a fixed cost, it should be factored in to the price of everything you sell. So if each customer, sale, or subscription is worth $2 just plan to put 50 cents in to the ad pool. Until you have 100% market share you want to spend as much on SEO, SEM, and lead generation as you can and still maintain the margins you are looking for.
A Good domain name is worth its weight in gold if you are just getting started, so don’t cheap out. The $9 domains are good if you get lucky and no one bought what you are looking for, but don’t be afraid to pay that High School Kid who bought the domain you want the $10k he is asking.
I do believe what I tell people that you can rank well no matter what your domain, but it is hard to be taken seriously by your customers and clients if your operating your business out of some strange “web 2.0” URL no one can spell. Roger’s Auto Repair just doesn’t work as RogrsOto.com no matter how hard you want it to. Xavier at Notebooks.com ranks well for almost every model of notebook computer he has ever reviewed. Google puts a lot of weight on the words in your Domain, so if you are as targeted as Xavier is, you can’t beat having synonyms for topic in your domain name. If you are more about brand, then you want to make sure your domain is easy to remember and will rank well for people searching your name.
BlackWaterOps.com was not cheap, but you should see the look on people’s face when I tell them my Url.
I typically get a percentage of my clients AdWords budget, ( 20% in volume ) this may seem expensive but I can typically lower your CPC 40% and it is not uncommon for me to lower your CPC’s by 85%. But what I can really drive is your conversion rate, which makes your ad budget go a lot farther.
Categorised as: Ad Budgets