3 Things Small Businesses Should Know Before Planning an SEO Budget

The inbound marketing industry is all about ideas and strategies, and that’s very exciting for a small business who is looking forward to getting some brand recognition. However, the options to promote brands are so numerous it can often overwhelm entrepreneurs who aren’t sure where to start. It’s a great idea to start with a budget, so you don’t run your start-up funds dry too quickly. When deciding on how much of your precious marketing budget to earmark for SEO, keep a few pieces of essential information in mind:

SEO isn’t Quick

When allocating a budget for your SEO efforts, make sure you are planning long-term, not thinking it’s a 90-day deal. While Google will begin to recognize and crawl your website as soon as you make it live, their algorithm is designed in a way that it will take some time to fully calculate all of the changes. Ranking signals usually start appearing in the third month, although they will be minimal. It will take at least four to six months for the optimization to really start working, and longer to really see more complete picture of your efforts. If you are contacted by an agency that promises you a #1 ranking in a month, be very weary.

SEO isn’t Cheap

But wait, isn’t SEO free? The answer is both yes and no. You don’t have to pay to be ranked high on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs); your optimization efforts are what puts you at the top spot. The cost per acquisition with SEO is second cheapest, coming in only after email marketing. But still, you will need to allocate money every month for your SEO activities, whether it’s to an in-house marketing person or you pay an outside company to handle your entire website. Google has extremely complicated algorithm, which is difficult to comprehend if you aren’t from the SEO industry, so don’t try to go the “free” route and do it yourself, since it will probably end up costing you money in the long run.

SEO is Goal-Oriented

SMART goals are a must for all your business efforts, including your SEO campaigns. Using this approach will help you determine the areas where you need to focus more so that you can adjust your budget for those aspects. A SMART goal, which is defined as one that is specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time bound, should be simplistically written and clearly define what you are going to do, that way you can accurately measure afterwards if your strategy is working or not.

SEO is not a magic trick that experts can use to make your website skyrocket in the rankings. It’s a long-term, but necessary effort, that your company needs. As a small business owner, you need to understand the key elements of SEO before entering into a strategy, so you can properly plan your marketing budget. If you want to learn more about SEO basics to help you make your decisions, download our free eBook Modern SEO.