Friday, November 20, 2009

Learn The Basics Behind Affordable SEO!

By Terry Yonge

One definition of insanity is paying for something that's worth less than what you think its value is. If this sounds sort of irrational, then . . . well . . . it is! This goes for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services too. There are plenty of opportunities to overpay for SEO services. Just Google (or Yahoo, or Bing) on SEO, and your search results will return millions of hits. One other thing that also will drive you nuts is too many choices. What you want is affordable SEO services which means that you will pay a price for a site design or renovation (and, maybe hosting) which is less than the value it creates for you.

Search engines such as Google have been a boon to the consumer. We have a lot of opportunities to find the exact products and services that we need and run all sorts of quality and price comparisons between the different products that we feel like buying. Like most other things in life, SEO comes in many different tastes, flavors, functionality and prices. Many SEO firms will force you to contact them for a quote on the design, marketing and SEO for any new websites that you might own. Others will post menus of prices and services, including hosting services where you can host your website So, if nothing else, you can compare on price and the amount of services you are paying for.

When you are going through the long and sometimes extensive menu of choices to build, redesign and/or host your website, the things which emphasize value are the following:

* Do you like the designs you see? Click on the portfolio of past clients and click through their websites. Are the designs, colors, structures and photos/illustrations something that is attractive, and would you think that the firm could design something catchy for you? * How about site navigation? How long does it take you to click through the site? Are all the hyperlinks there, so you don't click and nothing happens? * What's the quality and persuasiveness of the copywriting? Does all the text you see from one site to another seem the same? Stale? Does it intrigue you and invite you to click on further into the website? Is it full of misspellings, no punctuation, bad syntax, or other writing sins that would cause you to question the quality of the product you may end up with? * Are sufficient and relevant keywords and key phrases sprinkled through the text that the search engines can find, but not so many as to get you banned from their searches (may be difficult to tell, except for picking out particular words and phrases and see what happens when you search for them.

Always understand, the best way to find the value for anything which you are going to pay for is by putting yourself in the shoes of your customers. To be honest, your thoughts about the website do not matter; what matters is what the customer thinks. It's what your customers will find attractive/intriguing/easy to find/easy to navigate/etc.

So, what are you gonna pay? Well, certainly no more than what it is worth to you. The worth pretty much has to be in the number of contacts, and more so, the number of buying customers that are generated by your website. So, the best practice for deciding on an affordable SEO firm is to explore their portfolio of past customers, and contact them to see what their experience has been. Then, you're in a better position to make a value-driven choice for your SEO partner.

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