This is a big question for businesses heading into 2018. Rumors flying around about SEO being dead. Here are the simple facts to make a long story short. Google operates on algorithms, meaning, Google is looking for specific things on every website or webpage to give a “score” and put it at the top of it’s searches, or down further based on the rank it gives it. As long as there is an algorithm, there is and will be a need for proper search engine optimization period.

So, the big question is, how do you control what score/ranking your website gets?

Well, there are a few answers as follows:

1. You can spend time and read googles SEO starter guide https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/40349?hl=en and then do your best to apply these techniques and ideas on your own.

2. You can Not do anything and pray you get there organically.

3. You can spend money and hire a professional SEO Agency to do the work for you.

I can tell you right now, that I have seen people read through the google manual and do pretty good for themselves overall for a small town business and market, so it is possible if you have the time. Most people do nothing and get nowhere quickly.....it is always an option. The best if you don’t have time is to hire it out and stick with doing what you are best at.

But is hiring an agency worth the money?

This can be a tricky question. It is not always yes or no, it really depends on your market and niche. It doesn’t make sense to spend $2,500 a month for 6 months to rank higher for dog walking in Lake Oswego Oregon if no one searches for that term. But it does make sense if you are a Dentist in Portland Oregon and there are 2,900 searches a month for people looking for a dentist in your area. A lot of it comes down to what the lifetime value of that client is worth to justify the cost.

I personally come from the construction industry and know that one clients lifetime value can range anywhere from $20.00 to millions of dollars. We got called to fix a closet door for a guy (who is now a friend) on his beach house and ended up remodeling the whole house for more than a million dollars of billable service. I would happily pay $2,500 for 6 months or more to obtain just one of those clients.

It really just comes down to math in the end. It might make sense to pay $300 a month for a dog walking business if there are 100 or more searches a month and little competition.

Each business is different, “no 2 ducks are the same” as the old saying goes. Sometimes it makes sense, and sometimes it doesn’t due to the fact that there can be a lot of costs involved in providing quality SEO service.

What kind of price range and I expect?

Really good question. If you are a local business just looking to rank for local keywords (meaning the area you live) so for example: “hair salon in Beaverton Oregon” then you can expect to pay anywhere from $900 a month to $1,600 a month for a quality SEO service to help you rank better. Again, this could be higher still based on competition, so “Beaverton Lawyer” could be even a more due to the competition and difficulty.

Now if you want to rank for a national keyword like “dry rot repair service” or something like that, then your are looking at anywhere from $2,500 a month on up depending on the keyword and difficulty. There are some companies that pay $100,000 a month to rank better for certain keywords that are insanely difficult because the value is there.

The only way to know what your market will cost is to get a free website analysis that some professional SEO companies offer like Our own. This way, you can get some great insight on where you are at and how to grow from there. Worst case, if it is not worth it in the end, at least you will know just in case something changes in the future. There are so many options people don’t consider, you might be surprised at what you don’t know.

In the end, SEO is here to stay as long as Google is around.

Thank you for reading and if you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us below or if you would like our free website analysis for your business, just use the following link: http://www.oregonwebsolutions.com/discovery-form/

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