Is it really necessary to set a proper budget for your SEO marketing efforts? As with good business practices everywhere, the answer certainly seems to be yes. Like any form of marketing and advertising, the more you decide to invest, the higher your return and conversions. But, how to go about determining where to spend and where not to spend?
The challenge is not to get too caught up in what your rivals are doing, at least at the beginning. Know what your marketing limits are and try to craft a budget from that. See what is already working or and what is not. Shut down those programs that aren’t working and throw more money at your SEO efforts which, in the long run, will give the results you ultimately need.
As with your business, your goals need to be understood and clearly defined. You need to know what you want to accomplish with your SEO efforts. What kind of traffic are you looking to generate? Who are my customers? Where are my customers? What do I need with regard to a ROI in order to keep this program running? Do you want traffic fromm all over? Go volume and see what happens? Are you more concentrated on local search and local business? Figure out what you want to accomplish and then craft a specific plan to make it happen.
Take a hard look at what your visibility currently is and evaluate what resources you can put towards it all. What does your online presence look like now? Is your site effective with regard to driving conversions? Are you optimized for mobile? How is your content? Is if fresh and engaging with a mix of both articles and video? What resources are you putting toward your efforts? Are you using an in-house person or a team? Are you better off with a professional SEO firm putting everything together for you? These are the hard questions you need to be asking and evaluating.
Once you have a coherent and effective plan and budget in place, it is time to move on and see what measurable results you will be achieving. Understand your data and your analytics. Keep what is working and toss the rest. You can’t afford to stay with something that is not working.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
