Quality SEO Packages

Just as there are multiple packages to service and clean your car or manage your financial planning, so are there multiple approaches to SEO Services Packages.

With so many SEO agencies offering packages at different service and price levels, it can be difficult to know which company to use. Some SEO Consultants will offer out of the box solutions and others will create tailored and customized applications.

Our approach to SEO service packages depends on the complexity of your site, the authority of your site, the context of your competition, and the effort required to ‘move the needle’. At SEOWorks we offer customised packages that will be tailored to your needs and budget.

Our SEO Packages start from $1500 per month, see example pricing below. If you would like a tailored SEO Package quote, get in touch.

Based on our over 15 years of providing quality SEO Services, here is an overview of SEO Service Packages, the inclusions you should expect and our insider tips for things you should be on the lookout for.

What factors should I ask for in my SEO Services Package?

Every business has different needs and our SEO experts completely understand this. SEO is not a one size fits all approach, so when we are creating your custom package we need to fully understand who your business is. We will talk to you about how your site is and what your goals are. We will give you an overview of what and where needs improving.

The 3 Primary SEO Drivers

Having down your homework you will have discovered that SEO success comes from maximizing:

• Content – unique product descriptions, expert articles, insightful blogs, etc
• Authority – quality links over quantity
• Website technical SEO friendliness – code, data, and structure

It’s important that you are crafting quality content is very important – original, trustworthy, expert content that demonstrates your leading knowledge in that particular subject matter.

You must build links from high quality, authoritative and relevant pages to show Google that you are an expert and have a reputation in your field. It should be a focus as part of your ongoing strategy, be it an SEO Package or a custom SEO consultancy.

And as for your website’s technical infrastructure? Depending on the size and complexity of your site this could be a huge part of the project. As technology becomes smarter it is vital that your website is up to scratch so it doesn’t get left behind. It’s easier to relevant than to play catch up.

So, what is an SEO Package?

An SEO Services Package is simply where several SEO Services are bundled together into a cost-effective and time-effective approach to optimising your website.

SEO Service Packages are usually based on a fixed monthly fee, sometimes for a minimum contracted period, but with smaller and less experienced agencies you may get the option of a month-to-month agreement.

What is included in an SEO Package?

Clearly SEO Service Packages vary from one provider to another, but as a minimum should include the following elements; beware of long lists of inclusions and take a reality check.

For example, if there are 150 items in the list and your monthly fee is $500, how likely is it that these 150 items will either a) be completed at all or b) be completed with a quality outcome in mind.

Preliminary assessment

Sometimes called an SEO Audit, this element typically includes a high level review of the current status of your website. It sets the scene for task prioritisation amongst the inclusions in your quality SEO Services Package.

An SEO Audit is a much more comprehensive analysis of your website, your competition, Search Engine visibility and if required would normally be conducted separate to any ongoing monthly SEO Package.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is an essential component of SEO packages and integral to the success of your SEO campaign.

Normally there are a set number of keywords that an agency will target – this will usually depend on the level of package you have bought. SEO consultants will use a variety of methods to obtain what they believe are the best keywords to drive traffic to your website. This may include some or all of the following:

• using research tools
• analysing Google Analytics
• analysing competitor’s keywords
• surveying customers/clients/suppliers
• reviewing natural language used on relevant social media sites

Unless you operate in a high tech or bio segment, your targeted keywords will not change significantly from to month. This task should be conducted in detail at the beginning, and then revisited every six months for a quick sanity check.

And unless your website or target market is particularly complex, keyword research should take no more than a few hours twice a year.

Inbound Linking

If you are considering an SEO Service Package, then we can safely assume that you have discovered the importance of another website linking to your website.

The off-page optimisation for your website is important to boosting your Search Engine rankings. Google sees a backlink or citation (web reference) from quality websites as a ‘vote’ or ‘validation’ for your website and they will rate your page being linked to or referenced more positively. A full-service agency may offer link building as part of a standard SEO package. This may include some or all of the following:

• analysing your current link profile
• analysing competitor’s link profiles
• submitting your website to relevant, quality websites offering content that they will like to link to – known as link outreach
• social bookmarking and networking
• creating content to generate links or writing content for other sites

On Site Page Optimization – Existing Content Optimization

You won’t gain the traction you desire without ensuring that what is on your pages fulfils the expectations of your website visitors, and by implication, the expectations of the Search Engines. Auditing the existing content that you have and optimizing it to ensure if matches these needs is an initial task that should come early on in the first few months of a project.

Meta optimization

Reviewing and optimizing the meta titles across key pages is also another task that will take some time but is likely to bring benefits. When done in conjunction with copy optimization, this will ensure the page is relevant and matches the target phrases you are working towards.

SEO Copywriting

SEO copywriting is another service that may also be included in SEO packages if an SEO expert believes pages need to be added to your site or rewritten. Writing optimized copy for the web is an acquired skill. Keywords need to be inserted naturally, seamlessly and strategically throughout the body copy. It should strike a balance between being engaging for readers but also telling Search Engine spiders what your copy is all about.

New Content Optimization

For a variety of reasons, SEO and in general, your website should be publishing new quality content regularly, at least once a month and more frequently for highly competitive market segments.

Internal Linking

Whilst a link from within your website from one page to another is perceived somewhat differently to a link from an external page, it is still a link and has some value in passing link value throughout your website. A quality SEO company will usually include and internal linking strategy as part of their ongoing content optimization element of your SEO Package.

Reporting

The discipline of preparing, presenting and reviewing your SEO Package performance is an essential component of an SEO Package and you should expect to not only receive a monthly report, on time, but you should also expect to schedule a discussion to review the outcomes and refine the objectives.
At a minimum you should receive a report that includes:

• Ranking for your keywords
• Backlinks summary of all links and especially new links
• Organic traffic

These should be for the immediate month prior and compare the to preceding month, and if data is available, should also include a comparison to the same time in the prior year.

SEO Services Package Prices – How much does SEO Cost?

We’re going to try not to dance around this subject and provide you with our insider knowledge as to what sort of investment you should be making for an SEO Package.

Typically, each SEO Company will offer a three-tier pricing structure – let’s call them Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Many SEO Packages are based on the number of keyword phrases that they are targeting, which is broadly appropriate and relative to effort. Don’t be drawn in by larger keyword number inclusion – just about every segment we ever worked on ourselves has about 10-30 “core” keywords, 20-50 more “primary” keywords and a further 20-50 “secondary” keywords. More than that and either your site is huge (enterprise level), the SEO company is stretching itself too thin, or they are exaggerating their efforts.

The SEO Package formula

To help you, here is how a quality SEO Company reverse engineers their SEO Packages.

A good SEO consultant based in a developed country earns about $100,000 a year or $50 an hour. Payroll costs are about 40% of operating costs, overheads about 35% and profit margin about 25%.

Based on the above, an SEO company has to charge about $125 an hour for their billable hours. Infact, AHREFs ran a study where they found that 50% of SEO’s charge between $75 and $200 per hour (the cost is higher if it is an agency vs a freelancer).

So, divide the SEO Package price you are contemplating by around $125 and you get the number of man hours available to compete the SEO activities included in your SEO Package. Now you have a benchmark to enable you to see what can reasonably be achieved.

How much does SEO cost?

If your SEO Service Packages fee is $1000 per month, then expect about 8 hours of work. At $2500 per month expect 20 hours of work and so on. Remember, hourly rates for consultants or companies will vary, but these will generally be between $75-200 per hour. Most SEO packages from reputable agencies (for a medium sized site) will cost between $1000-$5000 per month, depending on scope.

And what about SEO Packages fulfilled in popular outsourcing countries such as India, the Philippines or Thailand? The hourly rate will be cheaper there. Is it possible that good results can be delivered from this type of location? In our opinion it’s not impossible, it’s just much less likely. SEO techniques tend to be behind the curve there and mimic execution without much strategic thought behind why things are being done. Generally in SEO, you pay for what you get.
This will be an unpopular statement.

SEO Packages – Two Key Benchmarks

When considering an SEO Package, we strongly recommend that you consider two other important benchmarks.

• Return Of Investment – how many directly attributable, incremental sales must your company make to cover the cost of your SEO Package. If you are paying $2500 a month for and SEO package and your unit sales price is $100, by the end of the investment will you be easily able to make 25 new sales per month? This is your short-term measure.
• Return On Investment – what is your customer acquisition margin? Let’s say that you are prepared to invest 10% of your revenues in sales, marketing and customer acquisition costs. Using the same data as above, can you expect to generate $25,000 in directly attributable, incremental sales from your SEO Package. This should be your long-term measure.

SEO Package Timeframes

We hear a lot about it taking 6 months or so to start gaining SEO traction with the Search Engines.

Whilst it does take a few weeks for the early changes to start having an effect, if you are not seeing some ‘green shoots of ranking improvement’ by week 12 then you may have chosen the wrong provider. Do not expect to get to page 1 for all of your core keywords in 3 months, but do expect to see positive movement. For example, from invisible to being on page 4 or 5 (nobody except SEO companies look at page 4+), or from being on page 5 to page 3.

You should budget for a minimum 6 month commitment, and more realistically 12 months, to start to see your rankings reach page 1. But you should not be waiting until month 5 or 11 to see any movement (from the keyword starting point).

Also consider that not all of your target phrases may move: some may gain more traction than others. What is important is to also consider the impact the increased visibility is having in terms of sales or leads and measure this.

What To Look Out For

Like just about every industry, there are the good guys and the charlatans and snake oil sales people, and the world of SEO is no different. There are few barriers to entry to hanging up an SEO Company shingle and there are no formal qualifications from Bing College or Google University.

Check out our How To Choose An SEO Company article for more specific details but here is a summary of things you should take into consideration when looking at SEO Packages and providers:

• Technical Audits – as mentioned earlier, the Search Engines are pretty good at finding and indexing web pages – a high level technical review takes a few hours for most websites. If you need an SEO Audit you typically have a large, site with hundreds or thousands of pages, in a sector with tough online competition.
• Link Building – if they do talk about link building, ensure there is transparency, ask about their methodology – be worried when they talk about exclusive relationships with groups or websites.
• Proprietary solutions with cool sounding names – if it sounds like b******t, it usually is.
• Lump Sum Up Front Fees – do not pay for 6 months in advance. Period.
• Google Certification – Google does not certify SEO companies, Google only certifies Paid Search companies and SEO companies that refer to Google Partner Certification are breaking their Partner rules.
• Blending SEO and PPC – some SEO packages include Paid Search in combination with organic SEO – if this is the case, understand the amount of time dedicated to each service.
• Custom SEO Solutions – if you have a large site with 1,000’s of pages, an ecommerce site or a CMS that is not mainstream, you may well need a custom SEO consultancy or custom SEO package.
• Look at online reviews, case studies and ask for references from other clients. A reputable agency will be happy to supply these.

In Conclusion

SEO Service Packages represent a mutually beneficial platform for SEO Companies and potential clients. A fixed range of SEO Services for a fixed price seems like a good deal, and usually is. Just make sure that you are clear on the inclusions, quality of workmanship, by who and over what time period should you expect results.

Can we help you with your own SEO, you ask?

Yes – Contact Us and we will be happy to offer a quote.