I was doing some research today on what SEO companies out there are charging for their services. I found a great article in SEOmoz called “How to Price an SEO Campaign” – excellent job highlighting what a good SEO company will do for your site, and the SEO services you actually need for your site. Of course, it’s SEOmoz, so they can charge quite a bit more than a regular old jane who’s plain fantastic at SEO.

But! I did a Google search for “SEO services”, just for a quick pricing glimpse, and was oh-so-discouraged at what I saw. I did see a few reputable companies in the first few pages, and hats off to them, but then there were the companies who promised “search engine submissions”, “blog and forum comments”, “free directory submissions”, and “meta-tag rewrites”. There was even one company who charged $1K for little more than a simple Website Grader SEO evaluation! The horror, and it’s not even Halloween yet!

Rather than choosing a company that says they’ll get you SEO results fast and cheap, look for companies that not only will advise you on on-page and off-page SEO best practices, but will actually implement those practices. You’re a busy website owner, and you need a professional who will do the work and do it right, even if it’s going to cost you a bit more. Invest the time and money into doing it right the first time. If you don’t see results until month 3 or 4 into your campaign – that’s a good thing! That shows they’re implementing ethical SEO techniques and getting search engine attention over time, rather than buying 100 paid links and washing their hands of your website.

Remember, quantity does not equal quality. Going with a company who presents you with an impressive looking report filled with all the blog and forums they spammed with your link, the free directory submissions they submitted your site to, and a few links they bought for you on spammy sites has relatively little value. Go with a reputable company who spends time crafting creative SEO content, manually contacting only a handful of sites each month for link building with a personalized email or phone call, maintains a blog and writes interesting posts, ensures your site is optimized correctly, and maybe even does a bit of social media is the way to go. Their time is likely worth more money, in the $1-2K per month range, but it’s money spent wisely.