Is SEO even worth bothering with anymore?

[dsieg58]

Or maybe I should say, is it worth spending money on?

This is a serious question being asked to the "guys that know." For a small online business is it worth hiring decent professionals to get your page ranked highly on Google? By decent, I mean the cheapest I can find for a reputable SEO genius is $500-$1000 USD a month. (I'm not talking Fiverr gigs.) I really miss the traffic and the sales that came from being at the top of the page.

[cBusiness]

I cannot say what 'is' but I can say what I choose.

I do NOT hire any SEO workers these days. I am not sure which direction Google is going with their algo-updates. I feel original content will be linked to by others at variable rates but eventually, your blog will catch on if consistent.

As for SEO, i just will not touch it with a 10-foot pole myself.

[Thomas]

$500/mo is pretty cheap for someone who is a "genius". Anyone who is half decent would charge that by the hour.

I'm not a big fan of SEO but as long as you're not relying on it for 100% of your traffic and sales, ranking well can often make financial sense. In others, it does not. I have sites in extremely low paying niches, so even ranking #1 for a 500k/search a month keyword is not worth the SEO cost. I have others where ranking #1 can be worth $XX,XXX a month to me so as long as my SEO cost is less it's worthwhile.

I definitely think SEO is worthwhile if you have data to support it converting. The hardest part is finding someone reputable - these days I only work off referrals. Expect to pay well for decent SEO.

[JJMcClure]

Have you thought about using PPC instead? It's never a good idea to rely too much on organic traffic and PPC is very easy to control.

[Kay]

That was the first thing that came to my mind, JJ. But I didn't really know enough about SEO to comment.

Are people more likely to click on SERPs results than on paid advertising? I guess some of that relates to your niche and how Internet savvy your customers are. Anyone here could tell the difference at a glance between an organic result and a paid ad. But if you were selling, say, knitting supplies or car parts, would your customers know or care?

[Chabrenas]

We've often experienced people clicking on our PPC ad instead of the SERPS result on the same page. Now we're trying a bit of social network advertising so that it doesn't clash with search-based ads.

I agree with Thomas that paid SEO work only makes sense with higher-value products.

[JJMcClure]

Are people more likely to click on SERPs results than on paid advertising? I guess some of that relates to your niche and how Internet savvy your customers are. Anyone here could tell the difference at a glance between an organic result and a paid ad. But if you were selling, say, knitting supplies or car parts, would your customers know or care?

Well, some people might argue that Google have blended their paid services into the SERP so well that 'ordinary' users can hardly tell the difference any more, and you could further argue that Google have done it deliberately to encourage people to click on PPC Ads (and other services like Places) rather than organic listings and so in practice that's going to be what's more likely to happen.

IF that's the case, then it could be argued that not having an Adwords campaign, when your competitors do have one, is now a significant disadvantage in the effort to attract traffic from the Google SERP.

In any case, I simply prefer it over SEO which can be expensive, time consuming, long term, possibly ineffective and these days it can even hurt you.

[dsieg58]

I also agree with the above, paid SEO is only advisable if you're showing a return on the investment. Which is what prompted the OP to begin with. Quality SEO personnel is expensive and out of the reach of many, myself included. Unless you have a product selling for tens of thousands of dollars, and have a decent conversion rate, SEO has become a thing of the past.

I've done PPC for years. And yes, Google has blended the PPC with the search results to such an extent that sometimes it is very difficult to tell which is which. Also, in many niches they did away with their sidebar ads. Which for all practical purposes means, expect to pay top dollar, for the top positions, or you won't be on the first page either. But in addition to that, there is an art form to PPC. People who click on ads are different than people who click on SERPs. You have to have a high converting landing page to make it work. In a lot of niches, if the customer is spending money, this means a squeeze page offering a free product. So it isn't a "sales strategy" per se, it's a "customer acquisition" strategy. (Totally different) PPC is also extremely fickle. What works one day, might bomb and be useless next week. Your conversions can be all over the map. And you have 3 different conversions to track. Your CTR, how many opt in on your squeeze page, as well as how many convert to sales at the end of the funnel. It's not like you can just slap up an ad and the money just rolls in. Back in the day, yes, it was that simple. Now it isn't. Back in the day I averaged a 12:1 conversion ratio with PPC with an ad and a sales page. 12 dollars made for every dollar spent. It's nowhere remotely near that now, and much more complicated. I'm lucky to get 2:1. Organic traffic doesn't appear to be that much better, either but you get more of it.

[Escondido]

There have been some good points addressed in this thread. I agree with Thomas that $500 is VERY cheap and I highly doubt such a person would be doing much SEO wise unless they are based in India or SE Asia area where costs are cheaper. Without knowing your niche and where you compete it's a bit tough to comment on exactly what you should do, but here are a few collective tips based on my experience.

-Before hiring somebody ask them to provide a few examples of websites he or she has ranked and make sure you learn what approach they prefer to ranking. If I decided one day to be more public and build up a brand I would probably launch 1 white hat site and 3-5 other hat sites to spread out my risk. Focusing on just one website is stupid and when that site tanks (it will) you are left with nothing (if you focus ONLY on organic traffic).

-If you haven't done so yet build up an email list, but don't be one of those people who just emails out affiliate offers because that is very annoying and makes me think that you don't know what you are doing. Provide VALUE and it will come back to you! I have subscribed to a newsletter for a few years and I think it costs me something like $25 a month. When people ask me what sources I use to keep up to date on SEO I always recommend that newsletter, among other free sources.

-You might consider offering some type of revenue share model for a SEO specialist that you decide to hire vs paying a flat amount. This is a great way to minimize your costs while providing an incentive for the SEO expert to do his/her thing. Up until a month ago I mostly worked out deals on a CPA model, but I recently decided to work out a rev share model with a few companies. The great thing about the deal is that they keep marketing costs within norm, while most of the risk lies with me since I am fronting the cost of acquiring customers. This wouldn't exactly work out on low payouts unless there is significant volume/conversions, so YMMV.

-STOP looking to fiverr to solve your SEO needs for ranking and ask friends/colleagues who they use as long as they are in a different niches. I don't normally offer SEO services because I don't have the time or inclination to deal with it, but from time to time, friends hire me to provide a service to help their business. Case in point, a friend recently contacted me after he had a hard time getting quality backlinks in volume. He tried fiverr, seoclerks, etc. but couldn't reach his goal. So we reached a deal and I guaranteed him that I would exceed his expectations and he would basically get my expertise on an as needed basis for FREE. I decided to go above and beyond because I want to see him exceed. If he merely wanted to buy lists he could do that A LOT cheaper by simply visiting various forums/websites. But he will get VALUE by knowing how I automate a few things and where he should focus to increase his ROI.

-Lastly, decide exactly what you are trying to get. It sound like you know that a 12:1 return is a bit unrealistic at this time, but figure out what you want to achieve and be honest with whomever you decide to hire.

[crabfoot]

Jill Whalen has stopped doing SEO. Matt Cutts linked to a post on Search Engine Land by Barry Schwartz which quoted Jill as saying
　
"Finally, however, Google put their money where their mouth was with their Panda and Penguin updates. At last the only real way to do SEO was what I had been espousing all along. And it’s a beautiful thing! Today’s SEO blogs and conferences are bursting with SEO consultants talking about how, when you create amazing websites and content for your users, the search engines will follow."
　
What a load of BS. You only get those results if you create the sites in the way the search engines want. Put a site up that tells people how to make millions of dollars a year, and the search engines will ignore it, if it doesn't have pictures and/or video.
　
Put those pictures and video elsewhere and link to them from your site, and you run the risk of Gargyl taking a dislike to your site's links.
　
If Jill Whalen thinks what Gargyl has done is good, I'm glad I never paid her to work for me.
　
　
If she thinks what she is doing by stopping SEO is a good idea, I'd say it can't be a good idea because Cat Mutts likes it, and he gets his kicks from getting webmasters to do exactly what Gargyl wants, without any explanation of the real "whys" in the process.