Managing Monthly SEO budget

[indieswal]

I keep on going back and forth on how I should divide our budget. I was wondering for the small businesses out there, how much do you set a side for monthly SEO budget? Do you divide that budget between SEO and PPC?

[BC SEO Guy]

seo should not cost you anythign more than labour - its free.

[Brennan]

seo should not cost you anythign more than labour - its free.

Labour can be expensive if your hiring link builder, content creators, etc.

Also building links isn't necessarily free, if you doing directory submissions a lot of the quality directories charge. You may be buying backlinks. You may be spending money to do something interesting that will catch the attention of bloggers and news sites to create more backlinks.

[discountedclothing]

I don't know how much you would like to spend on paid directories? But there are a lot of free submissions from directories, article submissions, social bookmarkings, social networkings etc. Are you hiring someone else to do this seo activity?

[SmarterGroup]

PPC is a waste of time IMO. Research (and you'll need to Google it for yourself!) has shown that sites appearing in natural search results get more hits than the links posted alongside them in the paid results.

[kimbeckers]

PPC is a waste of time IMO. Research (and you'll need to Google it for yourself!) has shown that sites appearing in natural search results get more hits than the links posted alongside them in the paid results.

Very true, but that does not mean that PPC is not effective. PPC can be very effective if done correctly, it is also a great way to measure if there is a market for something to see if it is worth pursuing your time.

As far as budget is concerned, it depends on what you can spend on advertising and how you want to spend it, it is really personal preference I think.

[mike810]

You are right SmarterGroup. But not really. Yes more people click on the ads on Google then the search results. That is what makes it so effective, the amount of traffic you gain because of it. If you are going after a particular audience and your site and company appeal to that certain audience then ppc is amazing. If your site does is not appealing and your services suck, then yes ppc is horrible.

To answer the Op's question.

SEO is a great investment for any company, no matter what way you look at it. It will forever be in your companies favor to rank high on "search engines" which is free advertising. If you are employing all the best SEO strategies you would end up paying for labor (if you are hiring, i own a company that offers SEO services, i can give you a good deal) and the following services. I could give you an estimate of how much people in your situation usually spend, but would need to know what kind of business you are in.

Paid directory submissions, Yahoo paid submission, Yahoo directory submission, Paid back links, and a few other small places.

Now to Internet Marketing, your ppc part of the question

PPC is a great investment for any business, who again, has an appealing site and good services/features. How much you should spend each week/month would depend mostly on the industry you are in.

Please elaborate on your type of business and i would be glad to give you more advise.