SEO: Affordable SEO, Inexpensive SEO or, OK, Cheap SEO by Gene Schwerman

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is not easy and therefore is not usually cheap. It's six parts competition, three parts guessing game, and one part implementation; if you are extremely good at "Family Feud" you might have a head start at SEO. Further, as it happens, the SEO implementation part is based heavily on writing, proofreading, and research; skills not instantly available to all web designers. SEO requires a constant struggle to get to the top of the search engines and constant vigilance to stay there. To make it more challenging each search engine has different SEO techniques and procedures that it rewards and punishes based on complicated mathematical formulas called algorithms. So if every time Richard Dawson says "survey says" the next words out of your mouth are the number one survey result; if you are an excellent technical writer as well as quite prolific; if you also have a flair for complicated mathematical formulas and a gut instinct about the right answers; hey, maybe SEO has been awaiting your arrival. Otherwise, it is likely to be a challenge to do yourself or quite expensive to have done.
Search Engine Optimization is a formidable task, at which, no one can guarantee complete or immediate success. SEO requires significant time and effort, and requires that a new business struggle immediately against the most powerful competitors in their field from the moment they begin, with the added disadvantage that all of the best title keywords are usually taken plus at least some priority is given to those who came first. Oh, and did I mention that the criteria for success not only vary across the search engines but are only ephemerally defined in the first place, and are highly likely to change without notice? Even given those few challenges, SEO is really still fairly straightforward for those few of us who still believe that the pen is still mightier than the sword.
So when you're looking for someone to do SEO, don't seek those who immediately guarantee a top rank on the search engines--such claims are a sure sign that the company has no merit. To be clear: there are no miracles in SEO, and even skilled optimizers cannot guarantee a site will quickly reach the top of the list on Google. What you should look for is someone to take most of the hassles and difficulties of this complicated challenge off of your hands. Look for someone who can write articles, perhaps, generating organic links to your business and providing you with useful content for your website. Additionally, a professional can optimize your web pages for choice keywords, making sure all of the important tags have the proper terms applied. Not sure what words are best? People trained in the field of SEO will research the ones that will prove best for your business. Finally, if your previous SEO work has had no results or your position on the search engines has suddenly and significantly worsened, you may want someone to examine your website for SEO shortcuts or other unaccepted tactics. Such may have reduced your rankings or gotten you banned from some search engines, a potential pitfall we neglected to mention earlier.
The honest search engine optimizer is one who promises hard work rather than cheap SEO, a specific position or page rank on a site, as no one can promise exact results from SEO. However, the reputable companies don't offer irrelevant "benefits" such as submitting your site to thousands of search engines (folks, there are two search engines that really matter on the net and a handful more that sort of matter). A real professional will never suggest black hat tactics that sound good on paper but most often have already been dismantled by the search engines. The best you can expect is experience, advice, research, hard work and more incoming links. It's usually going to be a slower process than you might like, but, with enough work you will finally see a notable result - those highly coveted free clicks! In the end any search engine optimization which is cost effective, that simply delivers a lot more profits to your business than it costs, is very affordable SEO. Trading a reasonable commission on web sales for moving to page one of Google is very inexpensive SEO. And any inexpensive influx of free clicks is cheap SEO.

About the Author

Gene Schwerman is the founder and head marketing consultant for Truly Unique--Affordable Custom Website Design. He has been in marketing and consulting to small businesses for over twenty-five years. To read more of Gene's work, visit Truly Unique for more website design and SEO articles.