I'm looking to rank in the top 10 on the three major search engines for two particular search terms. According to Google, one has 62,600,000 results. The other has 14,300,000 results. Without disclosing the site or the search terms, what type of financial commitment should I expect to have to pay? My site is roughly 5 months old. I'm already ranked highly for some of my search terms and receive a sizeable amount of traffic from search engines. I am currently using Adwords to deliver me traffic for those keywords.
Aiming for top 10 is to broad I think. Either you should aim for top 3 or top 4-10 because there are a huge difference in visitors from number 3 to lets say number 8.
Using Adwords will only bring your some traffic (how much you pay for that?), but it will not increase your rank.
if you rank in top 3 on adwords,how much you pay ?,then x2,i think this is you pay for rank top 3,(at least i can accept this price).
Results from google are virtually meaningless because it doesn't tell you anything about how many searches are done for it - i.e. you can have a keyword with 5 million results, but only 100 people actually search for the keyword for a month. You need to look at the overture (actual searches) to get a good idea of how competitive the term might be. How much (cost) is impossible to determine without knowing the exact keyword (and even then, it's only going to be an estimate) because regardless of how many people are searching for a keyword, you are trying to beat the top ten sites - and depending on the keyword, you could be going up against .gov sites, etc., which means a #1 ranking is virtually impossible. There are some highly competitive keywords where the top ten rankings sites are all very established and old domains (all older than 10 years) and a new site should concentrate on less competitive keywords. There are sites that spend six figures (in-house SEO) on ranking for highly competitive keyword(s). I wouldn't trust anyone who says they can guarantee you a #1, #2 or #5 ranking for a competitive keyword unless they agree to payment only after they have produced (which they aren't going to do). Before you hire a firm, check their keywords in their meta and then check their rankings on google. If they can't rank well for their own keywords, then any price they charge is too much. Check the overture for any examples of keywords they rank well for - don't be fooled by examples of low-overture or #1 rankings for the name of their own site in quotations. Also, only a small percentage of visitors use quotations, so keyword examples should be without the quotes. Quality SEO isn't cheap - and cheap SEO isn't likely to give you the results you are looking for. btw - Everything you need to know about getting top rankings can be found by spending a lot of time reading this forum - ranking for competitive terms can be a long process and not a quick event.
I would recommend trying to rank high for a niche keyword to start with then progressing up to your targeted keyword. The only way you are going to improve your rankings is by: A) Making sure your on-page SEO is as good as it could be. B) Obtaining relevant one way links from trusted sites. Here are a few ideas on getting some links: Quality articles for your business/industry - $5 to $40 per article Distribute the articles your self to article directories and other sites that could benefit from using your article. Directories - Submit your site to as many broad and niche directories as possible. We offer a service where we manually submit your site to 1000 broad directories for $200 - You may be able to find a better price for this if you search on this forum. Buying Sponsorship deals (aka links!) - Check out "link sales" section on this forum for sites that have similar relevance to yours and see if you can buy some links annually. Links range from $5 to $500 depending on the page rank and traffic volumes. Contact Webmasters with similar sites - This takes time but is worth it in my opinion. Either trade links or offer them something in return for a link. Blog Posts - Search for Blogs in your niche and ask them if they would like to write a blog post on your product/service/site in exchange for xxxxxx So, your question is: How much? Well, this all depends on if you want to do the work yourself or out-source it! No matter how big your budget, you could always spend it somewhere on either: quality articles, distribution services and links! Good luck!
I 'could' pay around $4-5 for the #1 position. I'm currently paying less for around the 15th position. I'm averaging 2 new members everyday as a result of my Adwords campaign. The rest of my membership comes from other keyword results I rank highly for and external links from other sites.
From Overture: Search Term #1: 4513 searches in October The second term is the plural version of the first term, so it doesn't show up in Overture's results. I'm already ranking highly on competitive keywords. Most of those keywords, I'm in the top 3. Others are in the top 10. I don't seem to be having any issues ranking highly for them. There's one site that ranks highly for the search term, but its pretty much the authority. I'm not a competitor in regards to content, but I am a competitor on the search term. I realize this. However, I value my time.
I'm already ranked highly for my niche keywords. I'm ready to start taking on my primary keyword. Right. This is how I got my current search engine rankings. All wonderful ideas. However, this is stuff I really don't want to do myself. I don't want to do any of this myself.
Overture doesn't differentiate between plural and singular forms, so 4513 includes the plural searches in that figure. It's not a highly competitive term, so I'm guessing it should be a realistic term to rank for. Analyze the top 10 sites that are ranking on google and that is going to give you an idea of what you need to do. Check the number of incoming links those sites have, and pay attention to the relevant links because that is what google is looking for. The age of the domain, the quality of content, etc., is all going to play a factor. .edu and .gov sites are likely considered authority sites by google so I would pay more attention to the other sites. Those top ten are your competition - what the others are doing doesn't really matter. They have already succeeded in what you are trying to accomplish so try and gain insight from what they have done - and realize there could be another 500 sites trying to do the same. A top SEO might be able to charge $100 an hour or more, but there are certainly those who will work for a lot less. Always remember that the google algorithm is constantly changing, so even a number #1 ranking could be tomorrows #100. Once you achieve your goal, you're likely going to need to keep having work done to maintain it. Again, I don't think any legitimate SEO is going to be able to give you a set dollar amount for a guaranteed position. Another way to look at it - If a number #1 ranking will result in 500 clicks per month, there is already advertisers willing to pay $4 a click or $2000 per month for the top adwords position - which isn't as desirable as a #1 natural ranking. Any SEO who could "guarantee" a number #1 spot could charge $1,000 to $2,000 per month for their services.
Yeah, my site is fairly niche. I think my biggest obstacle is going to be the domain age. Most of these sites have been around for 10+ years. True. Makes sense.