How much should SEO for Wordpress site cost?

[krx]

I just had a Wordpress site built for a mental health/counseling center. The primary purpose of the site is to generate referrals in the local area. We have not done any SEO for it and need someone or a service to do it. I have looked around a bit but it's hard to make sense of the options when you know little to nothing about it. I want the site to rank very well - top few spots - for its primary keywords (eg, "marital counseling", "couples counseing", "family counseling", etc).

What I'm wondering is, how much should it cost to do the SEO? What should I be looking for in such a service?

Also, the site has the All in One SEO Plugin. Are there any comprehensive tutorials for this plugin that a non-developer would find easy to use?

Many thanks!

 

[Bizzoyce]

You can Hire SEO experts for weekly or monthly rates, All depends on your budget. You can find some good ones on maybe this forum and I have seen them on other forums. Look for a lot of good reviews. Check, Blackhatworld, Warrior, WickedFire etc. PM people that have posted in there service threads to see how they are.

 

[dotker]

Many seo companies are scam and will run away and take your money.. good luck..

 

[RachaelJetkins]

You can also start search engine optimization manually through article submissions, blogging and social bookmarking.

 

[carob]

What I'm wondering is, how much should it cost to do the SEO? What should I be looking for in such a service?

$0.00

You only need SEO if you have not built a site correctly in the first place. The search terms you are targeting should be in the brief from the start, not an afterthought.

External SEO, that is to say building links to your site, can be done by an ordinary person with a bit of time but no special skills. Think long term. You know what you are targeting, it will take time and patience to get there.

Bad self-proclaimed SEO experts can hurt your rankings as well as your wallet. There is no objective way to know if they are any good, or what such services should cost.

Also, the site has the All in One SEO Plugin. Are there any comprehensive tutorials for this plugin that a non-developer would find easy to use?

The free Yoast plugin is much better and IMO reasonably well explained. A few short articles or an easy SEO book would put it in context for you and save you a lot of trouble and aggravation. SEO is not black magic, and trying it that way can really bite you in the backside.

 

[tradingdavid]

I'd probably charge 1500 for local seo for that industry in most areas except like maybe some larger west coast market. probably 1/2 to begin 1/4 first page rankings and rest at #1. Doing it yourself buying the same links I'd end up buying would be about 400. Don't go with a monthly that's ridiculous for local.

 

[carob]

The quickest way of doing this is to use Adwords. You definitely get clicks when you pay to have you ads in Google search results, but make sure you set a daily limit on how much you spend in your account or you can end up with a huge bill.

 

[enlytend]

Cost totally depends upon the market, the experience of the person you hire, and the amount of work that will be done and what your goals are. Expect this to be an ongoing cost, not a one-time thing - you implement, you measure the results, you adjust. Rinse and repeat.

If you're a local business (with a physical address, not an "online only" business), it's essential that you focus on Local SEO and you need someone who understands the difference between local and "generic" search! Look at the results pages for locally-oriented search terms - more than ever, the local "places" results dominate - generic results are being pushed down below the fold to the point where #1 generically may actually be more like #8 on the page!

Expenses for Local are weighted much more towards initial setup than with generic search (something to consider if you are short on budget), but whoever sets it up should be measuring results, looking for additional opportunities and be ready to adjust for changes in local ranking factors on an ongoing basis.

If you want to familiarize yourself with local search and get off to a a quick start the right way, look at David Mihm's excellent site and also visit GetListed dot org.

Real SEO's are not a fraud - unfortunately there are a lot of clueless opportunists and out-and-out scammers who call themselves "SEO's" who have given the industry a bad name. Google has some good guidelines for hiring an SEO - http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291

You only need SEO if you have not built a site correctly in the first place. The search terms you are targeting should be in the brief from the start, not an afterthought.

Building it right is a good start, but SEO is an ongoing process. Your site doesn't exist in a vacuum - there are constant changes, both from the engines and by competitors. A well-thought-out site won't give you the edge if your competitors are already established and have also done their homework... and have a good marketing person working to keep them where they are!

The quickest way of doing this is to use Adwords. You definitely get clicks when you pay to have you ads in Google search results, but make sure you set a daily limit on how much you spend in your account or you can end up with a huge bill.

(FYI, Google MAKES you declare a daily budget )Organic search optimization takes time to yield results - Adwords is something to consider in conjunction with SEO. Again, hire someone who knows what they're doing. You'll spend a lot less on your ad costs if you work with someone who knows how to properly structure and optimize an account.

With my local clients, I usually start by creating or cleaning up their local citations, fixing anything which is harming their generic rankings, and encourage them to establish a social presence - those are where a local business will get the best ROI. Then (if their budget allows) begin an adwords campaign and work on their sites in terms of generic ranking factors, classic link building, etc.

Look for a lot of good reviews. Check, Blackhatworld, Warrior, WickedFire etc. PM people that have posted in there service threads to see how they are.

Um ...personally, those are the LAST places I would look !

(Long post, but I hope it helps ! )

 

[regan]

Cost totally depends upon the market, the experience of the person you hire, and the amount of work that will be done and what your goals are.

Very pertinent points in this post. I may add a strategy that proved successful - subcontracting only a segment of SEO, not leaving everything up to the service provider. If you can't do content writing on your own for article submission, hire a writer! If AdWords management is what overtakes you, hire an AdWords specialist! Supervise them and do the rest on your own.

 

[carob]

In some ways this thread is answering the wrong question - it's like asking how much should a wedding cost? Depends on what you want.

So who do you want to attract to your site? What search terms matter to you and why? Does attracting searchers result in conversion to sales? Is that really where your customers come from? Are they the right customers? Who are your competitors?

If there are 20+ people offering the same thing you need an effort to get on page 1 of results. But if there are just a few and you are in the top five results and the web is not your most important source of customers, it may be something that is not worth much to you in terms of what real benefits you'd get from the effort.

Glad to hear Adwords now requires a budget, that is an improvement.