SEO, also known as Search Engine Optimization is when you tailor your website to provide the value that the search engine’s algorithm is looking for. It is a very complicated subject that takes a lot of things into account that is ever-changing, and due to this, there are a lot of methods that can be used to boost the local SEO of your business’ website. We will be addressing and comparing the different cost of SEO practices, to help you have a better overview of the topic so you can decide which strategy is the best for you.

The Popular SEO Strategies That You Need to Know About ​

  1. Backlinks – one of the most important ways for you to notify the search engines that your website is an authoritative one that it can safely recommend to is users is by making sure that your website has a good amount of ‘dofollow’ links from other websites. Other connected metrics in this are also taken into account, such as the authority of the sites linking to your online platform.

  2. Keyword Density – you also have to make sure that all of your pages contain the keywords that you are aiming to rank for. You do however need to make sure that you are not adding too many keywords which are known as ‘keyword stuffing’. It is recommended that your keyword density is between is around 3%.

  3. Bounce Rate Reduction – a metric that search engines use to figure out if the content on your website is the bounce rate, which is how many pages a user will visit.

  4. Increasing Traffic – it is also important that your online site is able to attract large numbers of users organically, this means traffic from search results that you have not paid for.

  5. Tags – you also have to pay particular attention to your tags, these include meta tags, image alt tags and title tags. Tags are in basic terms descriptions that help Google’s crawlers are able to better analyze your online business.

The Cost of SEO Practices Compared

The number of SEO methods that we have highlighted above will vary in cost depending on how you go about it. The first decision you will likely have to make is whether to pay for a premium SEO tool, with popular ones including SEMrush and Moz. These premiums tools allow you to search for keywords that you have a realistic chance to rank highly for, analyze your backlinks and overall see in what areas you need to improve in order to take the necessary action. Admittedly, you do not have to pay the subscription fees for these tools, there are free ad-powered alternatives although they are a lot more limited and of lower quality.

Next, you have to consider whether you are going to do the work yourself or pay someone else to do it. SEO optimization is a long process that will require a lot of work as well as attention to detail to make sure that it is done correctly. Depending on what the person that you hire will be doing and their experience it may vary.

If you are hiring a basic SEO content writer then you should expect to pay around $0.07 per word while if you are hiring an SEO expert that will be doing careful keyword research and then creating meta and alt tags you may have to pay $75 or more.

Furthermore, you may have to pay an experienced website designer in order to make your online site easy to use and navigate so that you can increase your bounce rate and the amount of time that the visitors spend there. In reality, you could do the SEO optimization yourself, but there may be the risk that you are not doing right, and also you should be aware that it will take up a lot of your time.

Is SEO Worth the Money?

SEO is definitely worth the money, as long as you have a plan of how you will benefit from the optimization. It is a very competitive field, you may spend a lot of money and still not get the results that you want as there could be high competition from other online platforms.

You should also take note that it will take time for you to develop what is known as ‘domain authority’ which is how high your business website and its pages rank in search engines. According to experts, it may take at least twelve months before you see any considerable results while it could take up to three years for you to develop a high domain authority score. Therefore you should analyze the cost of SEO practices in the long term as well as consult a proven SEO expert who can advise you on what is the most cost-effective investment into your search engine optimization.

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