Managing Monthly SEO budget

[indieswal]

I keep on going back and forth on how I should divide our budget. I was wondering for the small businesses out there, how much do you set a side for monthly SEO budget? Do you divide that budget between SEO and PPC?

[Biffy]

Re: Managing Monthly SEO budget

SEO is mostly a one-time cost. PPC is a monthly expense.

[Pamela Hazelton]

Re: Managing Monthly SEO budget

Sorry, but SEO can be an ongoing expense, especially when you sell products that result in great competition with other stores. It may take a while to work out which keywords, etc. work best. Even if you have number one placement right now, it doesn't mean you'll maintain that placement without additional work. Some of our clients have on-retainer SEO folk and budgets range from $600 - $2,500 per month, depending on the product, the number of products and the desires of how many keywords should be in the top 10 (or 5, or even 3).

[jen.bas]

Re: Managing Monthly SEO budget

The SEO budget varies, in general, you'll have to spend more when you've just started the optimization process.. after getting the results that you want, once you're satisfied..you will have lesser budget cause you'll just have to maintain the SEO for those that have good results already..

As for PPC, its pretty much the same, at first, bid high on the keywords that you think fits best for your site and then after getting the results, analyze which ones should be kept and eliminate the ones that did not yield good results.. From that, you could then lower the bid until you get the maximum profit for that PPC ad.