SEO isn’t as complex as many people make it out to be – at the same time, it isn’t as simple as you may think. Optimizing search engines begins with the way you present your content. If your landing pages don’t make sense, or your navigation is confusing, then they’re probably not going to rank you highly. Linking, with proper anchor text helps, but spammy inbound links can hurt your domain score. I focus on helping you develop your message so we choose the most accurate keywords while improving citation listings and relevant linking. Once you understand the basics of this, it’s a matter of trial and error.

$500 is a common proposed budget for SEO services. To be honest, an effective optimization normally takes a vast amount of time to fine tune. This budget tends to get you an audit with some routine maintenance from the agency realm. From experience, a solid SEO boost can cost up to $3000. But, if you focus on search intent and develop your own niche, it can be done for far cheaper. My solution would include an audit and fix of any current errors (up to 8 hours). From there, I would re evaluate your site map keywords and search for improved variations (10 service/product limit). To round of your budget, I’d also provide you with citation errors and the contact information for you to fix them. This will make a huge impact in your ranking.

This is a great and very frequent question. In my opinion, this depends on: if you’re offering something unique or competitive; or if you’re providing a product or service. Typically, ranking for a unique product doesn’t take much time as competition is low. But, when it comes to the service industry, there tends to be a market established. In this scenario, it might be best to invest in PPC advertising to garner traffic now. Once you’re able to convert some of your traffic, you can invest in website optimization. Since a new website takes 60-90 days to simply register with search engines, it might be best to invest in both if you can. It’s normally worth it in the long run.

In my opinion, no. You can get by with a go-to SEO specialist that focuses on auditing your optimization on a limited basis. Once you’ve implemented a strategy, there’s no need to stay on top of it daily. PPC advertising should be monitored but you should only invest in SEO management if you’re noticing a lapse in your lead generation funnel. Spending money on a content strategy is more effective as you’ll be routinely publishing new content that improves the ranking of your domain as a whole.

What are consumers in your niche looking for? What topics are your ideal consumers interested in – in general? What is relevant and compliments your products or services? What is your competition doing and what can you do better? Where are there opportunities to extend your reach? How can you engage your customer base while keeping content relevant to you brand? What does your target audience value and what keywords align with those characteristics? All of these questions will help you decide what keywords to use for the news and article sections of your website. My SEO solutions focus on differentiating your site map from your blog strategy.