Looking for Cheap Search Engine Optimization

A guide for the small business or website owner to getting cheap but reliable search engine optimization, to increase traffic and exposure to their company or offer.
SEO or search engine optimization is the process of positioning your website higher in search engines like Google, so you can expose your website to as many people or potential customers as possible.

The higher the ranking the more traffic.

Of course other elements do come in to play, for example if the description of the webpage in no way represents the keyword then nobody will click-through, hence no traffic, but the general rule applies that the higher your search engine position the more traffic you will receive.

So what is the cheapest solution for SEO ?

Obviously by doing it yourself you will save a bundle, however SEO is not easy and requires constant maintenance just to maintain your current position, so outsourcing this job becomes the most viable solution to most people and companies.

You can do this in two ways, you can decide on what you want done for SEO, and outsource the jobs needed, or you can have a company take care of the entire process.

For the first option, you could decide that you want a number of articles and blog posts written, and hire ghost writers a set fee for the content, then upload the information with relevant links back to your site, to all the major article directories or blogs. You could also pay somebody to submit your site to directories, or create Web 2.0 pages like Squidoo or hub pages. There are so many options available depending on your knowledge and how you want to go about things, you could even buy links, but once you start looking in these areas you might end up doing more harm then good, so you should really know what you doing before attempting to outsource jobs like these.

If you are unsure of how to go about getting white hat links, or have no idea about search engine marketing then it is probably best to use a company for your entire optimization process.

The problem you face with this option is the price is generally much higher, and the more competitive the market or keywords the more you can expect to pay.

This is not generally an issue for larger companies who know that the projected income return will largely justify the expense of using an SEO company. But for the smaller business or person, you might not know if you will even generate any income from the traffic, and since it can take anywhere from a few weeks, to a few months and even years for major keywords, you could just well be throwing money down the drain for a lengthy period of time before realizing that you have a dud campaign or offer.

Of course you could also spend money on having somebody re-write your offer, but if you are looking for a cheap SEO company then the thought of spending even more money might just disillusion you.

But with so many search engine optimization companies covering the internet, and the prices differing by extreme amounts, how do you find a cheap service that will actually deliver?

It is not recommended to simple search for the cheapest offer, and choose that one, as they may be simple link farms or use black hat strategies, that may work for a little while, but will end up, not only dropping you down in the rankings, but possible even getting your website completely removed from search engines altogether.

And once your site has been dropped, it is very difficult if not impossible to get it listed again, especially if you don’t know what the company did.

My suggestion to find a cheap but reliable service is to look for three things.
First how well is the site itself ranked, is it positioned well and have good page rank? While the page rank itself does not necessarily position a site well, it does show they have a knowledge of power linking and authority.

Second check it’s history, make sure it is not a fly by night company that has only just started to rank, they should have been around for awhile and held constant positioning. Just because a company ranks number 1 for SEO does not mean they are the best in the business, since they could be using black hat strategies that will have them dropped in a week after you forked out your hard earned cash. A good site may not be number 1, but have stayed ranked for a long time.

Thirdly check user reviews or testimonials. While these can be manufactured, a large number of good reviews with little or no bad comments from people on forums or blogs is a good sign, don’t be afraid to ask people on forums about a company you are thinking about using. Learn from other peoples experience, chances are someone has tried the service before you.

Learn from those who tried before you, check out search engine optimization pricing and other great information here.

By Luke Lister
Published: 10/5/2009
 
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