Small business owners are well aware that there is important business to be done and money to be made in the online marketplace. That’s why the search volume of queries related to search engine optimization (SEO) has increased since 2004, according to Google Trends. In response to this demand, many SEO startups have sprung up around the world and a new industry was born. The problem is that search engine optimization is often very expensive, which is why small business owners have been exploring the idea of outsourcing their SEO and website marketing abroad. Most small business owners or managers do not have a particular preference for SEO professionals abroad; they just want the cheap SEO services that places like Pakistan and India offer.
There are ups and downs to this plan. For one, if your marketing manager isn’t well-versed in search engine optimization, he’ll have a very difficult time managing the outsourced team. This challenge is magnified by the communication barrier that often exists between US-based small business owners and their offshore SEO contractors. This whole idea is really a recipe for disaster. Fortunately, there are other options that will still allow the thrifty business owner or manager to get traffic to their website and increase sales dramatically.
The good news is that there is a new trend emerging, in the opinion of this writer. It seems that there are more and more English-speaking SEO companies (meaning mainly in the US, UK and Australia) offering cheap and affordable services. This could also be in response to the growing demand for affordable yet effective SEO services, without the hassle of communication issues. Not to mention, our friendly overseas contractors have opposite sleep schedules to those in the US, so it’s definitely worth going with an SEO company in your country that you can talk to during normal business hours. This is especially true if you plan to have a long-term business relationship with your SEO company.
Low cost SEO services can be low cost for two reasons. The first reason is that not much time is spent on your SEO campaigns, hence the low cost. Instead of spending time finding quality links and composing quality SEO content, the software is simply used for quick rankings. The problem here is that the results are unpredictable if you use this type of SEO model. The second reason why some companies can make their SEO services so affordable is that they have an existing infrastructure that includes networks of websites that already have quality content. Of course, it is hard for non-experts to tell the difference just by visiting some SEO company websites, but luckily there is another indicator that a certain SEO company is completely competent and at the same time affordable. Look for a guarantee and make sure it is a real guarantee.
Beware. Some companies say they won’t charge you unless you rank, then find out that the “rank” includes page two and three on Google. You should never pay for guaranteed SEO services unless the company guarantees first page ranking. Also, some companies that offer “guaranteed” rankings will charge you for keywords that your site already ranks for. That sounds like highway robbery to me. The good news is that there really are some good companies that offer cheap SEO services with 100% guaranteed rankings. My advice is to make sure you shop around and know that there are some great deals waiting for you.