Why does SEO cost so much?
Don’t they just put a bunch of keywords on a webpage so people can find my website?
What do these agencies even do anyway?
If you’ve ever asked any of these questions or something similar, we’re here to help you. A lot goes into SEO under the hood of a website that most people don’t see. The fact is that search engine algorithms change all the time. It’s a full-time job for agencies to stay at the cutting edge of SEO methodology that actually works. Here, we’ll explain why SEO agencies charge so much so you’ll know exactly what questions to ask before you hand over your credit card.
Why SEO Agencies Charge So Much
Let’s get real about the cost of SEO services:
Experience and expertise: A seasoned SEO professional brings years of experience to the table. Their continuous education gives them an enormous advantage over your competition by ensuring their strategies remain effective. They’ve likely tried things that have worked and failed over the years and, as a result, can better gauge the plan for each site’s unique needs.
Comprehensive services: A thorough, honest agency is not just spamming keywords on your homepage and hoping your site shows up #1 on Google. The best agencies will meticulously handle on-page and off-page SEO, including:
- Ensuring your site is blazing fast
- Creating quality content for every page on your site
- Optimizing your pages for all types of web browsers and mobile devices
- Genuine backlink building with a focus on quality over quantity
- Providing metadata that communicates effectively with search algorithms
- Optimizing site health, such as removing broken links and avoiding duplicate content
- Presenting you with up-to-date analytics and showing you how to scale your results
Time and resource intensive: SEO is not just a one-time thing that you set and forget. It’s an ongoing process that requires consistent optimization to make sure your pages stay at the top of the search results for your chosen keywords.
An agency uses various tools to provide the comprehensive services listed above. These tools, especially sophisticated analytics platforms like SEMrush and Ahrefs, significantly add to operational costs.
The Threat of Low-Cost SEO
It might seem like a good idea to go with a cheaper SEO service from someone on Fiverr or Upwork, but this may come at a larger price in the long run.
Significant risk: Many of these services use outdated or black-hat techniques because they’re cheap and easily accessible. Schemes such as keyword stuffing and mass buying irrelevant backlinks may cause Google to penalize your ranking in search or even obliterate your site from results. That low-cost provider can result in either no results (so all that money is lost) or getting penalized by Google, which will cost you a whole lot of money in the long term.
One-size-fits-all approach: Many cheaper services neglect your business’s specific needs. This will result in poor optimization for local or more niche markets especially. Most of the content will be low quality, such as:
- Plagiarized or poorly managed AI-generated content
- General, low-quality, repetitive content that provides no real value
- Content that fails to establish your brand as an authority in your industry
Lack of transparency: Good luck getting any reports or analytics from these low-cost services showing their tactics are actually working. This is because they’re probably not doing much to improve your site or even making your results worse. At best, they’ll provide a screenshot of general analytics that is not tailored to your questions. At worst, they just never contact you with reports.
Questions To Ask Your SEO Agency About Costs
Now that you’re well versed in what goes into the price of SEO services, we’ll equip you with solid questions you can ask any agency you’re considering.
- “What services are included in the cost?” Make sure the answer aligns with what we discussed above in Comprehensive Services.
- “How do you measure the success of your SEO strategies in terms of cost?” This is quite a curveball question because the answer to this can vary significantly from business to business, even in the same industry, but how an agency answers can give you insight into how trustworthy it is.
- “What kind of reporting will I receive for my investment?” The answer will let you know how transparent the agency will be while providing services for you. You can then use your judgment to decide if what it will report will be sufficient for you to retain the agency.
- “How do you ensure that the strategies employed now will be cost-effective in the long term?” Unfortunately, SEO doesn’t happen overnight. Generally, the more competition for a keyword, the longer it will take. Expect about six months to see substantial ROI from a competent agency’s services.
Here are a few ways an enterprise SEO agency such as Motoza will allocate budget spending:
- Detailed research
- Meticulous on-page optimization
- Crafting engaging content
- Working with you to build an effective marketing strategy
- Quality link building
- Continuously refining your strategy to grow and scale your business
Choose an Agency That’s Worth Every Penny
At Motoza, we make sure you understand exactly where your investment goes. Our commitment to transparency and results for your business is the catalyst for delivering tangible SEO value. Our campaigns start as low as $750 a month for Local SEO. Contact us today to discover how we can provide data-driven results for your business.
