Affordable SEO is the holy grail of webmasters everywhere — if you can offer the struggling business owners a surefire way to rank them on Google for ‘an affordable amount’, you have business in your pocket. Of course, every business owner has a different idea of what they consider ‘affordable’. It would actually benefit most SEO companies to have a few different payment setups to take advantage of different small business’ SEO expectations. Let’s look at a couple of different examples to show what I mean:
Business 1: Clever T-shirts
This shop was set up by a college student with some wit to him. The student spends $300/month purchasing cheaply silkscreened shirts from a shop in Bangladesh that put his .png files onto the shirts for $3 including shipping. He sells those 100 shirts for $9 each on campus and in the town’s gaming shops. Of his $600/month profit, he spends half on beer and World of Warcraft, and is interested in putting the other half toward improving his business — and half of that into SEO so that he can do web sales. He’s going to be in business for at least the next 6 months (until summer break), and if he’s doing well enough, he’ll keep going over the summer and into next year.
What kind of services can your company offer someone with a consistent and long-term but relatively low amount of money to spend like this guy? How long will it take at $150/month before you can get him ranked for some quality keywords?
Business 2: The Solopreneur’s Niche Site
This website was set up by a man who lost his job, and it’s his last-ditch attempt to avoid collecting unemployment. He’s going to sell African mango supplements, and if he makes even a mild profit, he’s going to invest in further such niche sites. The gentleman in question just cashed in his last big tax return, and he has $4000 up front to spend on SEO to get his business off the ground.
Can your SEO company do something helpful for this guy to get his business kick-started given a budget that large? Or would you simply treat this as a down payment on several months of SEO?
These are extreme examples, but the point remains a good one: there are an infinite number of differing circumstances in the marketplace, and a one-size-fits-all billing plan is going to leave some significant chunk of that marketplace looking elsewhere for SEO they can consider “affordable”.
