What’s Your Threshold of SEO Pain?

My husband and I are finishing our basement and attempting to make it the cool place for our kids and their friends. Whenever we make a major purchase, the decision always boils down to my financial pain threshold. I don’t know the competitive market price for granite or quartz, but I know my budget and what I can afford. My list of wants end up being scaled back to what my bank account will allow.

As we discuss a custom bar and bamboo flooring (I’m a bit high maintenance I’m told), it reminds me of my SEO clients. Like myself, they themselves have a pain threshold. While we both share budget constraints, their SEO pain threshold is also associated with internal resources, project timing, return on investment, and anticipated payback period.

Similar to my long list of remodeling desires, the small business owner can quickly run through his wants. He wants to meet his marketing goals and this typically means increased website traffic, better branding, additional leads, better conversions and engagement, and at the end of the day, he wants an increase in revenue and profit. Unfortunately, he also usually lacks internal marketing resources and internet marketing expertise. He doesn’t have a clue what an H1 tag is, an alt tag, meta, or how to improve his inbound links.

Measuring Your Threshold of SEO Pain

So if the small business owner doesn’t know SEO and doesn’t have an internal resource that is a tech-savvy do-it-yourself type of girl, what’s he to do? He is going to have to hire someone to fill the role in-house or he is going to have to outsource this task to a seasoned professional. But before he runs to Google and starts searching for an SEO consultant, he needs to ask himself a few questions and formulate some concrete answers.

1. What are the most important internet marketing goals that need to be achieved?
2. What is the timeframe for achieving these goals? Is this a firm, must have date or it is a desirable date?
3. What internal resources are available to allocate to this project?
4. Do the available internal resources have the technical and marketing aptitude for accomplishing the goals?
5. What is the available budget for this project?
6. What is the required payback period for the project? How soon is ROI expected?

Before you even begin to search for available SEO consulting firms, you need to have a firm grasp of your pain threshold. We search experts come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some of us are big and fat and require $300 or more per hour. Some of us are small and lean and only require $100 per hour. Some are even smaller than that, but I would not recommend searching the bargain basement with this type of project.

The key to launching internet marketing project successfully is to know your pain threshold and your expectations. More importantly, it is to make sure they align and are in sync. Once you have a solid grasp on your needs and wants, you will quickly be able to decide which type of SEO firm is within your project scope and budget.  This will not only speed the search for right SEO expert, it will help the small business owner find a suitable fit.