White hat on a small business budget.
-
How can a small internet marketing firm build links and do SEO for small business clients? Seems to me the white hat link building would be next to impossible to do while making money at the same time. Say a small business client has $300 per month to spend on internet marketing... how can you possibly do white hat work for that kind of money?
If you can... then how?
-
Perhaps a focus on online PR, with the clients doing some of the legwork to drive ideas and initiatives? (PR Power by Amanda Barry-Hirst is a great book for small businesses).
-
That's what I meant when I started mentioning wages toward the end of my post.
Is the OP talking about $300/month in addition to someone's salary or AS someone's salary?How much do companies spend on SEO that is not part of someone's salary?
Does this include outsourcing graphic design for content creation? Buying links? Analytics software?If you have one SEO All-star on your staff who can do their own graphic design, web development, write content, and reach out for links - are there any costs other than their salary?
-
I have always considered SEO to be "free".
There are quite a few companies who spend over $50,000/month on SEO.
And, if you consider content creation to be part of SEO then an awful lot of companies are spending that much per month on SEO.
All that I put into it is my time, both writing content and working on our websites.
You can place a value on your time. If you are just starting out just assign yourself a wage. If you have an established biz then divide your average annual profits by the number of hours that you work.
If you do either of those you will probably conclude that $300/month is not very much at all.
-
This raises some interesting questions.
I have always considered SEO to be "free" (aside from my subscription to Moz)
All that I put into it is my time, both writing content and working on our websites.When you say $300 is that including the wage of whoever you want to do your SEO?
or do you mean $300 in addition to their (or your own) wage? -
Hi,
Depending on your client niche you can host an event. Events are an easy way to build a lot of links:
"Why are they easy? So long as you have an interesting event that is put on by a legitimate organization, you’re very likely to get accepted by most event listing sites. Many of the event sites require a simple form consisting of an event title, description, when and where the event takes place, and of course, a URL for more information. And as long as your event is valuable to the people that will attend, the outreach portion can be much easier than other link outreach methods."
Check the full article here: http://moz.com/blog/the-complete-guide-to-link-building-with-local-events
-
how can you possibly do white hat work for that kind of money?
As SEroB says, if they are in a not-to-difficult local niche that might be enough to be effective.
If they are competing in a sleepy little product niche with mostly naive competitors then spending that $300 on one piece of really great content per month (hitting different keywords with each) might be enough to get some traffic flow that will pay back long term. It is possible that the competition is weak enough that a few pedestrian content pages will pull in traffic (but not links).
If the company has a person who can write this content then you might get a couple great pieces per month and use the $300 to promote them.
However, if they face any real competition at all then it might be best to tell them... "What would happen if you sent 10 soldiers out when 10,000 are needed? Right... you got your ass kicked and wasted 10 soldiers."
I think that it is going to take $xxxx/month (or whatever). If you are up for the fight I think I can help you but I don't want to lead you into a fight that you can't win.
-
I suppose this depends on the type of business.
As you know, $300 wont get much. If local SEO is relevant to the business, I'd go that route.
Otherwise, you're dealing with a company who is not sold on the value of SEO. And do you really want to deal w/ that?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Creating Local Listings for Small Business Clients - Verifying if phone call is only verification option? Are directory submission services worth it?
I'm relatively new to local SEO --- I do a lot of local websites for small businesses (restaurants, bars, hotels, attorneys, dentists) in my area and thought it would make sense to include basic local SEO work with my websites. I have a couple of questions about adding my client's businesses to local business directories... I've started by adding each business to Google, Bing, and Yahoo business listings. I verified these listings with the postcard option which my clients then email to me. I've started adding them to additional directories but have found that many local directories require a phone call to the business to verify it (no other options). How do most SEO companies handle this? Do I ask them to forward their phone to mine for a night? Does it make sense to do local directory submission by hand? I created a spreadsheet for each company and keep track of each directory I submit to (the directory name, verification status, and username & password). I looked at services like Yext but doubt they are as thorough as doing it by hand? Any other advice on local business directory submission would greatly be appreciated. Thanks.
Link Building | | RustySmith0 -
Best Way to Market a White Paper
Hello everyone, I had to write a white paper for an entirely different purpose than to drive links, but it did come out very well and I think it would be a fantastic tool in my SEO efforts. What do you guys think is the best way to market a white paper? Obviously I will let our email subscribers know about it and place a link to it in a prominent place on the website, but if anyone has any extra ideas, I would love to hear them. Also, what is the best way to host it? Taking the Moz beginners guide for example, I would love to just put it on my server like http://static.seomoz.org/files/SEOmoz-The-Beginners-Guide-To-SEO-2012.pdf but is it necessary that I make it web-friendly like http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo? Can the former do anything for SEO? What if there are links to and from the site? Any advice would be great. Thanks
Link Building | | CleanEdisonInc0 -
Optimizing YP.com and Yelp listings for local business
I have a fairly new business and I have been citation building over the past year. I noticed that when I perform a search for my keyword and city that YP.com and Yelp show up high on Google SERPS. I have a listing on both of these directories but my listing is unfortunately buried. I have optimized my listings on these sites to the best of my ability. I have not upgraded to paid advertising on either. It's expensive and I here mixed reviews on the ROI. I will list both profiles: http://www.yelp.com/biz/care-wellness-center-margate | http://www.yellowpages.com/margate-fl/mip/care-wellness-center-465315829 | Can anyone offer any advice on optimizing or boosting these listings so I turn up in the first 3-5 instead of 20 or lower? Thank you Robert Herbst
Link Building | | TheAcupuncturist0 -
Link Building for lower budgets that work on 2012
Hello, I think many of us have re-plan their SEO strategy since the latest updates from Google and we all saw that coming anyway. We already know that link building using Directories, Article sites, Link exchange, profiles, footer/side links, paid links, press releases and other have been devalued or not working at all. For low budget websites and websites that cannot afford fresh/valued updated content or other link baiting techniques there arent much left. I my self found that Social Media and Blogging (Guest posts) are they only techniques left for websites that cannot manage to get natural links. Also i have realized that On-page optimization is getting more attention again. We all have great ideas of acquiring links but what we do when time and budget is limited? Google promotes natural link building but how you supposed to get natural links from a new low reputation website? I kinda of like the new approach since it will make SEO work a lot of harder and eliminate the easy path success. It will also focus the SEO job more on On-page and on great content. But this is getting a lot of harder for new websites with lower budgets and lower time to consume on SEO. I deeply know the answer of my question but i would like your opinion also and of course if anyone would like to share some ideas or know-how to discuss is welcome.
Link Building | | Lakiscy0 -
Unrealistic White Hat philosphy
After all of the uproar with Google's recent updates in link building penalties, I am hearing even more from the Nuns of SEO about White Hat techniques and how if you just have great original content all will be right with the world. The truth of the matter is that it is impossible to remain competitive in difficult search verticals without SOME use of link purchasing or SEO aimed link campaigns. If you simply make a great site and wait for people to link to you naturally, your client will fire you before you get link #1. It is what it is, if I'm wrong tell me how.
Link Building | | TheGrid4 -
I am purely White, but...
I spend a lot of time building great content for my webzines/blogs and I received quality links from other blog of my niches. So the game is done, I receive targeted and quality traffic from Google and my rankings in SERP are often good... but... there is always a "but"... Sometimes I see some sites in #1 with competitive keyword in my niches who has built link from hundreds of trash-site. So I understand that Google has not reached his objective to fight spam definitely. Now I decided to understand from scratch "Black Hat" strategies... brrrrrrr...
Link Building | | YouON
In example i build my links manually, commenting on blog, talking on forums, submitting into directory and obviously spending a lot of time and energy for good guest-posting... as I say but... Anyone have experienced with automated software like Senuke and others? Not to become a spammer, but really to understand what is the best for us... I see also people buy links from Philippines company who has hundreds of employees who manually build links... Hope you may understand my point of view (and my poor english)... All the best, Alessio0 -
Inbound links from porn sites into a professional business services site - remove help?
The website in question was hacked four years ago and there was porn on the servers. It was used as a peer to peer torrent streamer. The images were deleted. We have just found inappropriate inward bound links (with great link juice!!) - how can we remove these links - or should we? any advice would be appreciated thanks
Link Building | | GardenBeet0 -
Submitting my URL on web/business/service directories
Does it make sense to submit a business URL in as many relevant web/business directories as possible when kicking off a link building campaign? Submitting a free listing is obviously better than nothing, but when does it make sense to pay extra for a premium listing profile on some of these directories? There are just so many and a lot of them appear spammy, even though some of my competitors are getting traffic from them. Any advice on this would be great!
Link Building | | TheSquareFoot1