There are lots of agencies offering low-cost search engine optimisation or SEO services. For example, if you search using SEO Glasgow, and you can replace the word Glasgow with any city name, you'll find a full and varied range of agencies and freelancers showing their wares.
If you're reading this by accident and you're not sure what SEO is, this quick guide to search marketing should help. But is it possible to create a powerful high ranking website by paying someone a few hundred pounds or dollars or less per month? Probably not, and here's why.
Cheap SEO service offerings usually say things like "Guaranteed page one rankings from only £99/month". It's easy to see the allure of such an offer, but think about what's being suggested. They are saying, in effect, that for only £99/m they will secure search engine results that will send customers your way. Does that not suggest that it's easy? Surely if you only need to spend the equivalent of what a decent garage would bill out for a mechanic for one hour they are claiming SEO is easy and securing rankings even easier.
Is that your experience of search? Have you found it easy? No, it's not is it, it's bloody hard, so how can they do this?
Cheap SEO Is Just A Comfort Blanket
Low-cost SEO is nothing more than a comfort blanket for business owners who want to believe they are doing something worthwhile with their website. We know this because we get lots of calls from people who go quiet when we mention our fees because they are way higher. We're not saying you can't strike it lucky, of
The firms offering these cheap services know that because the money involved is trivial you're unlikely to complain too loudly when nothing good happens. Again, in our experience, the expectation is often as low as the budget. It's a nice little earner for the SEO firms and although financially the impact on their customers is trivial, the six or twelve months wasted, effectively doing nothing, is another matter.
But You Would Say That, You're Expensive
We're not cheap, that's true, and we don't offer guarantees either, but we're honest. We could possibly make more money telling people what they want to hear but it's not how we roll. We lay it bare, tell it like it is and help people create websites with lead generation staying power. It's an approach lots of other great inbound marketing specialists adopt so we're not alone in our thinking.
That said, we do understand our services are too expensive for many smaller firms to use. That's why we created our SEO micro retainer. But if you can't afford to buy what you need, don't waste money buying what you don't need just because you can afford it. There's an enormous amount of free advice online and reputable agencies like us are always happy to point you in the right direction. Just ask!
It's Your Money, But Spend It Wisely
Ultimately, it's your money and you can spend it however you like. We're only offering our thoughts on low-cost search marketing services. We don't think they work, but we're coming at it from the point of view of an inbound marketing agency who sell services for way more than these guys charge, so we get your scepticism. We really do.
In mitigation, we do try and put ourselves in the place of our customers in order to help them more effectively. We also accept the nature of the work we do is confusing and it can be frustrating trying to find a reliable and honest supplier to help you get more traffic to your website and from that more customers. All we would say is trust your instincts, if it sounds too good to be true, well, you know the rest.
