There seems to be a misconception and an ugly side to the digital marketing industry in Singapore. The popularity of get quick rich programs and make money online promises.

SEO services and the pricing of them are often lumped together with the black sheep in the industry.

I've heard of stories from business owners in Singapore outsourcing their SEO to cheap SEO firms.

They often come back with poor results and end up thinking that SEO is... a scam.

Why The Pricing of Good SEO Is Not Cheap

Price is what you pay, value is what you get. 

There will always be SEO consultants out there that are willing to provide SEO services for dirt cheap and guarantee-ing Google Page One Rank One results in X amount of time.

It's not uncommon for the usual SME owner who outsourced his SEO efforts to $200-$300 a month to the run of the mill SEO consultant promises a cheap price for high rankings.

These dirt cheap SEO packages may resort in using black hat SEO tactics that only gives your website temporary website boosts in Google and land yourself a Google penalty in the short run.

It's not uncommon for the SEO industry in Singapore to undercuts each other.

That's because: The barrier to entry to design a website is low, and somehow anyone who designs a website can declare himself an SEO expert.

Cheap SEO prices and empty promises are merely going to drive the industry into the ground.

Think about it, if all your competitors could pay $500 a month to get ranked on page 1, rank 1 of Google search results for any keyword in their industry... they would have done so already.

It isn't that easy.

Our team encourages you to take a look at other agencies, however, our team also rejects SEO projects that are solely compared base on price. 

Yes, there's a huge difference between good SEO, and poor SEO.

The Value of Good SEO Services

However, on the other hand, the long value of what a great SEO service can do for a company is boundless.

Great SEO isn't just about getting on the first page of Google, it's also about user experience, content positioning and turning traffic to buyers.

There are a lot more that can be done behind the scenes depending on the skillset of an SEO consultant.

Good SEOs are able to analyse, track and convert traffic on your site. This includes keeping users on the site longer by implementing more readable copy or longer content.

Just like any other specialized services such as accounting and etc. SEO is a form of specialized service.

Hence, good SEO is not cheap. Now, let's take a look at SEO prices from all around the world.

SEO Services Pricing in Singapore and all Over the World

This is a research that MOZ, a leading SEO authority conduct on SEO prices all over the world. Here's what they researched:

• SEO agencies and consultants across countries charge $76-$200 per hour for SEO consulting
• Monthly retainer charging models are popular
• The majority of SEO companies service small medium enterprises

If you compare this to SEOs that guarantee page 1, rank 1 Google rankings for $200 per month, it's entirely far-fetched.

Why a Good SEO Campaign is Priced Differently

Good SEO takes time and effort. 

I'll run you through the 80-20 behind the scenes of our proprietary 4 pillars white hat SEO campaign.

• Technical SEO Audit

The first part of our SEO services includes making sure your site is healthy before running any links/ traffic to it. 

This is technical SEO.

This includes checking for technical errors, checking for robots.txt errors, duplicate content, submission of sitemaps, crawl errors, hosting and linking errors. User experience signals such as dwell time, bounce rate, indirectly affect search engine rankings.

UX and web design services aren't part of a traditional SEO role, however, when you're looking at UI/ UX errors you're bound to get into web design scope in some form. Good SEOs will recommend you on how to better the user experience on your site.

• Keyword Research, Site Architecture

Keyword research involves figuring out the right keywords to target that will increase the likelihood of commercial traffic and sales.

This means analyzing your competitor's pages, identifying content and keyword gaps. 

Good SEOs then map out site restructure so that you can create a better user experience for web users. Good SEOs are also be able to advise you on planning out your site structure by mapping out content to commercial and informational keywords/ search queries. This way you are able to maximize your current content that's already published.

Good SEOs can advise you on proper on page optimization instead of outdated methods such as keyword stuffing. 

• Content Creation and On page SEO

One of the most time-consuming parts of SEO is the content publishing.

Quality content makes up to a third of Google's ranking factors. It takes money, time and effort to create quality content. The cost of content can go up to minimally $100 per article, up to the hundreds and thousands for infographics, video creation and more etc.

Good SEOs advise you on proper on page optimization instead of outdated methods such as keyword stuffing. He'll also be able to maximize your current content that's already published.

• White Hat Link Building

The biggest needle mover of traffic for your site: link building. 

The most time-consuming part of an SEO is reaching out for white backlinks. This includes guest blogging, reaching out to PR platforms, content promotion and etc.

There's no possible way you can manually reach out for links for $200 a month. Firms pricing their SEO packages at $200 a month aren't using white hat link building strategies.

• Reporting, Tracking and Analytics

Key performance indicators are measured before, during and the end of a campaign. This requires tracking effort and analytics. This is also part of a properly executed SEO campaign.

Unless you're using black hat SEO strategies, your Google rankings that you achieved after months of SEO efforts aren't going to fluctuate overnight. It's a bad user experience on Google's end. 

How to Measure SEO Return on Investment

Okay, all being said, is SEO worth investing into? Can you have a positive return on investment in SEO?

Yes, there is a correlation between higher search visibility and an increase in leads and enquiries.

Unlike direct response paid marketing such as Facebook Advertising, SEO can be seen as a long term customer acquisition asset building plan. 

If you are ranking on Google's first page for commercial keywords with a great offer for your products or services, it's safe to say that you are going to get a positive return on investment (however, we do NOT guarantee it)

This is why our SEO packages aren't merely focused on rankings, but business growth.

Our SEO packages includes:

• Consultation on how to generate more leads and enquiries through multi-angled digital marking practices such as, positioning, being a market leader and creating a great offer
• Consultation on your brand, UI/ UX of your website, the copy of the landing page, how persuasive your marketing offer that all contributes to determining revenue, sales growth, NOT JUST RANKINGS!

Can any SEO Packages or Services Guarantee Page 1 Rankings? 

Unfortunately, no, and no SEO packages can guarantee that. 

Google themselves have stated that rankings primarily depend on more than 200 different factors.

Furthermore, page one rankings do not guarantee a conversion or a sale. 

Sales, revenue growth are ultimately dependent on user experience, customer service, branding, positioning, offer creation and many other factors instead of just SEO rankings.

Our team understands that business owners looking to hire SEOs are looking for a more solid guarantee before deciding on investing in SEO. 

However, the purpose of an SEO is NOT to guarantee you page 1 rankings, but it is to help you:

• Put your website's best foot forward in search engines
• Maximise search engine visibility 
• Use SEO as a growth strategy

Google has mentioned that any SEO consultant or agency promising you rankings is marketing a lie. 

Either that, they may rely on black hat SEO strategies that might lead a temporary increase in SEO rankings.

"Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever."

- Google Webmaster

This is as explained by Google themselves.

SEO industry authorities such as MOZ has also come out openly to state that it takes four to six months to optimize a brand new website.

Ultimately, do you want to invest in long term ethical SEO strategies, or do you want to find yourself potentially penalized by Google half a year down the road and end up having to do extra work removing harmful links and redoing SEO all over again?