It can be difficult for a marketing team, or indeed the management of a company to work out how much they should be investing into online marketing.
Often with other types of marketing spend, such as radio advertising there are fixed prices and also figures can often be provided as to the size of the audience.
However online marketing is altogether different, and that’s because of so many variables. These variables we believe fall into two distinct categories, they are the strength of the agency that is employed, plus also Google’s ranking signals.
This means when investing in online marketing services, the business should be hands-on throughout the investment.
How much should my business be investing in seo per month?
The amount a business should be investing often falls down to how strong are the businesses direct competitors?
If a direct competitor is investing in content marketing, link building, social media then the business who is seeking to overtake the competitor should do the same.
However, this is where the strength of the agency employed comes into its own, as an agency that can offer quality work, and has experience of advanced seo methods can often close the gap between you and the competition much faster.
What can happen if I was to stop investing?
Some companies reach the top of Google and then decide to apply their marketing budget elsewhere, however this can often cost the business.
That’s because most businesses now recognise, that even when they are at the top of Google, they still need to continue strengthening their websites. Only a few powerful links, or a highly ranked piece of content marketing could mean that a competitor knocks a business off the top spot in a blink of an eye.
This means that even when a business reaches the top of Google, a strategy should be put in place so that the business can defend its position at the top.
How do I ensure my monthly budget is being applied wisely?
There are so many areas where a digital marketing budget can be applied, for example link building, social media, or onsite seo.
However, your marketing agency, or the freelancer that you have employed should know the best place to invest your marketing budget. So, do enquire whether they are concentrating on strengthening the strongest ranking signals, and if not it may be worth moving the marketing budget around so that the agency can concentrate solely on the more important areas of the seo campaign.
Some agencies may place for example a third of the marketing budget on social media, but with so many seo experts stating that social media is one of the less important ranking signals, would your marketing budget be better placed say on onsite content marketing work instead?
Why must all work be white hat?
All work must be white hat, if not the company runs the risk of the site incurring an algorithmic or a manual penalty.
How fast after ceasing investment will my website drop?
How fast a website drops in the rankings after pausing or stopping seo investment, will depend on your competitors.
For example, if there are only one backlink between you and your next competitor, then your competitor can easily overtake you perhaps in a matter of days.
However, it’s important to know that Google uses over 200+ ranking signals to work out how important a website is, so if a website moves up the rankings, it could be because it has one ranking signal stronger than its competitors, or because they have potentially hundreds of ranking signals that are stronger.
