web directory I had a client very recently who owns a small legal firm in Brisbane Australia. They contacted us wanting to rank their website in google search so potential clients who are looking for legal services in the Brisbane area would be able to find their website and use their legal firm. In order to achieve this they would need to be on page one google for search terms like lawyers Brisbane, legal services Brisbane, family law Brisbane etc. They saw our website, our pricing and contacted us for SEO services but made it clear they only wanted to pay $150 per month. How did we respond?
First thing to point out is we do offer SEO packages and SEM campaign management for $150 per month. In fact we will optimize a website for upto four primary key words and for secondary key words for as little as $150 per month but we also have an SEO package of $1000 per month. There is a massive difference in the work being performed for $150 per month and $1000 per month. The process and the quality of work is similar but the main difference is time spent each month to improve rankings. We are charging on time. The time we are spending on a site paying $1000 per month is six times more than the client paying $150 per month. So now that you understand we have two monthly plans and the work performed varies greatly in terms of time spent each month now let us explore this a little further.
No two websites are the same, chances are they are competing in different markets trying to rank on different key words. Key word competition varies greatly, searching for a term like “chocolate cakes Geelong” is completely different to a search term like “Brisbane legal services” The number of searches per month are differ and the amount of money people are willing to invest to rank for these terms are also completely different. The more competitive a key word phrase is the more time will need to be spent on that website to increase its SEO rankings.
So we explained that going on a $150 plan for SEO per month would be a complete waste of time trying to rank for the law firms search terms as a lot more work would be needed to see improvements in rankings and we would need to place them on the $1000 plan. They would not have it and replied, “NO $150 IS ALL I WANT TO PAY”
We offered another strategy. Pay us $150 per month for SEM/Google Adwords Management but told them they would need somewhere between $100 – $300 per month for an advertising budget. They were still not happy, they explained they were a small legal firm and did not want to spend one cent above $150 per month. Again we tried to explain their industry is one of the most competitive industries and regardless of if they are trying to rank via SEO or SEM/Google Ads they would need to expand their budget and go with one of our recommendation, they still would not have it. So we gave them another alternative where they would save money.
We told them to turn off their website and save $80 – $100 per year. If your website is not worth the investment it needs then it is simply not going to make your business money, if it is not even worth spending a few hundred dollars a month then it is useless. We told the legal firm to turn it off!!!
Author Rod Day
Digital Marketing Expert