Don’t Buy An SEO “Package”

A lot of SEO companies sell SEO “Packages” – pre-priced programs that list the services you’ll receive on a monthly basis. You might have seen SEO companies quoting something like this:

“SEO Gold” Package – $299/mo
– 4 – 6 keywords
– On page optimization 
– 3 article submissions
– 100 directory submissions
– Monthly SEO report

But there are all kinds of problems in quoting this way that can result in projects that are doomed to fail. Here’s a short list of reasons why you should never buy an SEO “package”:

Different Niches Have Different Competition Levels

Imagine that you run two websites: one is in the online poker niche, the other for a second hand clothing store. The amount of time and money you’d need to invest to build a strong online presence for your poker site would be substantially higher. Why?

The online poker niche is full of major SEO competitors who have been at it for years. The second hand clothing niche is soft, with few competitors who are leveraging SEO.

SEO packages fail to account for the fact that the niche you operate in makes a massive difference when it comes to what it will take to compete.

Not All Websites are Created Equal

Quoting “on page optimization” as a flat rate without actually seeing your website is a lot like quoting on renovations without knowing anything about the house.

A 1,000 page site has unique challenges; so does a 10 page site. An E-commerce platform has far different SEO requirements than WordPress. What content to write and how to organize it most effectively will change from site to site. There is no “one size fits all” SEO solution.

Quoting Per Keyword/Page Is Outdated & Flawed

Quoting on a keyword or per page basis used to be popular because it was a metric that clients understood and that was easy to report on, but this line of thinking simply doesn’t align with the way the web works.

If you’re hellbent on ranking #1 for “Calgary SEO” you can miss the long-tail opportunities surrounding that phrase. This thinking can also lead to poor SEO practices like over-optimization of title tags and anchor text or even keyword stuffing. Focusing on X number of keyword phrases also ignores other important metrics like conversions (which phrases actually drive sales?).

It is best to approach your SEO campaign holistically; identifying head phrases that are commonly searched and then writing content that utilizes multiple variations of those phrases, tracking as many of these as is relevant. That simply can’t be done when you’re selling rankings for “X” number of keywords.

Effective SEO is Strategic, Not Templated

While it’s nice to put a quantity to what an SEO company is doing for you every month (20 article submissions, etc.), doesn’t it make more sense to do what’s actually necessary for you to succeed?

If your competitors are crushing you with domain authority, all the article submissions in the world won’t help. If they’re getting traffic and rankings through partnerships, why waste time submitting to directories? If you compete for localized keywords, why invest in tactics that won’t improve your local listings rankings?

The problem with packages is that while they promise you work is getting done, they can’t promise you that what’s being done will actually help you succeed in your niche. For that, you need a strategy, not a package.

Custom Strategy? Custom Quote!

The reason we provide a unique, customized quote for every project we work on is because we firmly believe that SEO can never be a packaged, templated solution. Your website, niche and circumstances are all unique to your business and no package can ever properly account for that.

If you want to succeed online for the long term, don’t buy an SEO package! Instead, choose an agency (like us!) that takes the time to get to know your business and develop a strategy before trying to tell you what you ought to be paying for their services.