A Comprehensive (Beginners) Guide to SEO
Our 8 part guide on all aspects of SEO, from how search engines work to the effects of UI and UX.
Nearly every business these days owns a website. Whether it serves as your main source of revenue or just a reference point for information, a website is seen as a hugely important part of any successful business. However, having a website alone will not automatically bring you in new business, as without the proper marketing, new or existing customers might struggle to find it. This is where SEO or Search Engine Optimisation comes in.
SEO is the process of improving a webpage’s ranking in Search Engines (such as Google) so it appears higher in the results lists, for a specific keyword or search term. It’s often viewed as a great long-term digital marketing strategy and can be used in conjunction with paid ads such as Google Ads.
How much does it cost?
For nearly all prospects we speak to here at Phoenix Media when it comes to SEO, one of the main questions we get asked is “How much is SEO?” or “How much are your SEO packages?”. The simple answer is it depends. Over the last 10 years, we have worked on hundreds of campaigns across the UK, Australia, and Asia and have seen first-hand results in many different scenarios.
Ultimately no SEO company can guarantee exact results, but some of the things we look at before providing a quote are;
Keywords – What keywords do you want to target?
If you don’t have a list of Keywords, then what services of products are you looking to advertise. Are you are in a super competitive niche like Car Insurance or something more niche such as a Hair Salon in Asoke? The broader the keywords you choose will ultimately determine how many competing web pages there are, therefor the cost of SEO will increase.
Target Country and Language – What location do you want to target?
As with the above point, the size of the location you want to target will determine how many websites you are potentially competing with. This is the same for languages. Are you targeting globally using English keywords, or just in Thailand using Thai Keywords?
Website History – Another important factor in SEO is the history of your website. As the SEO industry grows, Google has become fairly strict with its policies and guidelines, if it thinks you are going about your SEO in the wrong way, then a variety of penalties can be handed out, which can sometimes be hard to recover from. This however is fairly rare, but, if poor quality SEO work has been carried out, it’s important that we do what we can to rectify this so it doesn’t hinder future SEO performance.
SERP landscape – One factor that should be looked at by any competent SEO consultant is the current listings on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Being number 1 in Google simply requires you to be better than the current listings. So an analysis of who is currently on the 1st page (and in the top listings) will show how close or far behind your website is from your competitors.
What do I get for my money?
Every SEO Company will go about its business in a slightly different way. At Phoenix Media, we have over 10 years of experience working on SEO in a variety of sectors and all different sizes of websites. In some instances, working with very large sites, such as DDproperty, we would mainly focus on the on-page optimization and structure, however, with most campaigns, we focus on the following three areas –
Onsite – We refer to any work being done on the client website as ‘onsite’. This can be technical issues such as fixing broken links, uploading the correct sitemap, optimizing the correct metadata.
This can also involve adding new pages. Often times we see the clients’ website doesn’t adequately reflect the keywords they want to target, in the Keyword Mapping stage we may suggest new pages need to be added or consolidated.
Offsite – The opposite of onsite, ‘offsite’ work is generally referring to work which happens away from the website. This is mainly made up of signals pointing back to the website that search engines can see and have a positive effect on your SEO. A positive signal can be in the form of a link, which points from one website back to yours (known as a ‘backlink’) in theory the more links pointing back to your website (provided they are obtained naturally) the higher your website will rank.
Content – Good content is extremely important in the eyes of search engines, both ‘onsite’ content and ‘offsite’ content needs to be quality, informative and most importantly unique. Search engines like Google are looking for websites to ‘add value’ to the internet, so if you’re able to provide great quality content (in any form) then you’ll be rewarded for it. Likewise, if you’re content is poor and has been taken from another website you’ll end up being penalized.
Is cheap SEO, bad SEO?
Very possibly. As mentioned in the point above where we discussed the website history, if you have undertaken an SEO campaign for bottom dollar, you can either expect very little work to have been done, or lots of very poor-quality work. The latter being very damaging for your website and domain moving forward.
So how much should I expect to pay for SEO?
There are many factors that we have highlighted that influence the cost of SEO, however, it should be noted that even with the proper research, no SEO agency can guarantee your organic ranking positions.
The price will largely depend on the Target Keywords, some something niche and local we would propose 15 – 20,000 THB per month, whereas with something more competitive and broader could be anywhere from 25 – 50,000 THB per month.
Each SEO project is different, in Thailand we deal with a wide range of clients from small startups, to very large and established Brands. If you are looking for some help with your website and SEO, or just have some questions you’d like to ask, feel free to get in touch with the team at Phoenix Media today.
