Photo Credit: LendingMemo.com
Many small businesses shy away from SEO because of the cost. They don’t have large budgets, and when they see a price tag of $1-5K per month, they often balk at it as “unaffordable”. I certainly understand that. All new expenses have to be justified, and it’s tough to suddenly invest in something that doesn’t return immediate results.
But SEO cannot be measured in terms of cost. It has to be measured in terms of return on investment. [Tweet This] In one sense, SEO is like investing in stocks. You have to be willing to put your money in and wait for the value of the stock to rise . . . or in this case, the value of the site to rise.
Smaller SEO budgets take more time to get results than larger budgets. And while small businesses don’t need to invest as much into SEO as larger, more competitive businesses, it’s still that investment that sets the stage for how quickly results will appear.
No matter what you are investing, just keep an eye on the ROI. If you begin to see upticks, then you’re on the right track. Keep investing and your ROI will grow. If you’re only seeing SEO as a cost, you’ll have a hard time paying that monthly bill no matter what. But once you start looking at the ROI, you’ll realize that NOT investing in SEO is unaffordable.