Why there is still a need for cheap SEO services

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Category : blog

Many practitioners of the SEO art (or science) will say that cheap SEO services are risky, not worth the money, and ultimately doomed to fail.

I’m here to tell you that throughout what is around 15 years of SEO industry experience, working with a varied range of agencies and clients alike, I have seen an ever increasing need for more affordable, less hands on, search engine optimisation services, especially for small businesses and startups that have limited budgets and time.

Now, I am not saying that just got grab the first 50 dollar deal you see out there. With the saying you get what you pay for is true for SEO and digital marketing as a whole, however many agencies and consultants charge retainer fees that are in the 1000’s of dollars, and while some are ethical and transparent in what is delivered for that amount of money, many will do the bare essentials at the start of the campaign and leave it to run its course while you still pay top dollar.

What sets the available cheap SEO services apart is what you get for your hard earned dollars.

Many agencies will say the following:

  • Page one rankings guaranteed
  • Get on Google’s front page on 24 hours
  • Etc etc B*#S BS etc etc

I will tell you now that Rankings are:

  • Never guaranteed
  • Not everything when it comes to measuring success

And as for getting on Google’s front page in 24 hours. Great. We can do that with Google Ads and pay for you to be there. For a day or two just to show it’s working right?

No. What affordable SEO services should offer is growth. Traffic growth. Lead growth. Sales growth. At the end of the day, if you are spending $100 on an SEO program, you should get $200-300 or more back in lead value or transaction value right? That is you should get a positive Return on Investment (ROI)

If you have already signed on with an agency, do the math, check the numbers. At the very least you should see a return within 3-6 months. I know that is a long time, but if you not seeing positive returns on your investment then it’s time to find another agency.

Other things to consider in a cheap SEO package:

  • Number of keywords. While here at West Legacy Group, we limit the number of keywords we target and track, we are actually looking at growing this over time so that you not just stuck with the same old 5 keywords month in and month out.
  • Reporting. What do the reports look like? Ranking reports are great but you should also see traffic and conversion/leads and revenue too.
  • Activity. What has been happening and what is planned for the next month. This is key to our deliverables and something many cheap SEO agencies do not offer. We provide a concise list that is easy to understand so you know what we are doing.
  • Communication and contact. While we won’t bog you down with hour long meetings, we will check in at least once a month, via email or message,  to see how things are working for you. And we will get back to any email you send us too. Usually the same day.

Here is some further proof why there is a need for more affordable Search Engine Optimisation services in Australia:

  • The number of small businesses by state – NSW over 700,000.  Victoria over 550,000

Image Source: Allianz
  • At the end of 2017/2018, there was 74,000 additional businesses operating in Australia
  • 12% of businesses operating during that year ceased operation by the end of it and 15.8% entered the Australian market.

Image Source: ABS.gov.au
  • Growth in business numbers has been across the board with smaller businesses, trades and financial companies leading the pack
  • Sole proprietors are the second highest entity type / business type in Australia

Image Source: ABS.gov.au
  • Most business employ between 0 and 4 people.

These are just a few of the reasons why we need affordable marketing. Most small business owners do not have the time to do their own marketing and yet they are in the most need of it.

With our cheap SEO services packages ranging from $300 to $1000, together with our experience (over two decades combined digital marketing and advertising experience), and that we are a small business ourselves, we understand that you need help and we are here to offer it.

How to write content for your blog

Category : blog

We often get asked this question or hear feedback such as:

  • I don’t know what to write about.
  • I don’t have the time.
  • What about keywords?
  • Where can I get pictures for my blog?

.These and many more are often very easy to answer once you step back and think about it a bit more.

1. You are the expert in your business.

Use that. You have vast amounts of knowledge and experience. Yes, even if you just started, you are still the expert. You learnt something along the way to get to where you are now. You decided that this thing you do or this thing you make can be a business and can be sold to others. That is enough to get started.

Write about one of your products or your services. Not about selling it but what makes it special and what makes you unique in doing what you do.

2. No one has the time

This is one of the hardest things to understand.  No one really has the time to write it do what they want to do. It is this reason that few businesses succeed.

The solution is to find it. 5 mins with your morning coffee. 20.mins on the train. Find the time. Maybe at lunch (Well while you have something to eat;)). Even in the car while driving to an appointment. Dictate your post. Not the whole thing just a few ideas. Maybe a paragraph or a few bullet points.

Then take ten minutes each morning or evening to flesh it out more until you have the complete post. And then read it. Read it out loud. 

If you are happy with it then post it.

3. Keywords

Yes everyone in SEO preaches about keywords but the truth is when it comes to a fresh blog you don’t need to worry about keywords. 

No, I don’t mean to ignore them. I mean that worrying about them shouldn’t slow down your writing or stop you from doing it completely.

4. Images.

Images are everywhere. Some good sources are freeimages.com,  pixabay and a lot more. Just don’t grab something from Google and make sure you read the licenses.

There you have it. Some simple ideas to get you writing.

If you need help we are happy to assist and have built affordable blogging plans just for you.

tools

Programmatic (SEO) what now?

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Category : blog

Yes, this may sound like something out of science fiction and to be honest you are not far off. While programmatic SEO doesn’t take full advantage of AI it does use templates or a “programmed ” solution based on other elements of your website 

So where should I use it?

Most often programmatic optimisation is used in eCommerce sites or other websites that have A LOT of data. No. Bigger than that.

Bigger still.

Think in the 100s of 1000s here. Even. Millions.

Ok. That’s big. But how do I do it?

Surprisingly, the “how” is relevantly easy to do.

First, you need to know what components of your site you can use programmatically(that word. Again?)

The most common ones are

  • Product name
  • Product category 
  • Product price
  • Company name (yours)
  • Brand name (product brand)

The second set is writing your template for title tags, meta descriptions, and excerpt or summary content.

Ok great. What does it look like?

Your title tags might look something like this

[Product name] Online | [product category] | [Company Name]

Yellow Polka Dot Shorts Online | Yellow Shorts | The Yellow Store.

(Ps there is actually a Purple Store)

Help I’m lost

Fear not. We have created the template for you!

Subscribe below and we will send you our full programmatic cheat sheets for you to use as you like.

You can also take it one step further where we will actually do it all for you with one of our affordable SEO plans.

never give up

How to be local without an office

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Category : blog

For many small businesses, especially those in trades or just starting out with an online shop, setting up a local presence can be quite tricky.

Luckily Google has thought of this situation and came up with the solution some time back. That is, you can have a local maps listing without ever displaying your physical address.

The idea here is, while you still need to enter one, is that you can hide that from the listing and instead show a service area.

This is awesome for tradies, plumbers, painters, electricians and even gardeners or dog groomers. If you have an online shop you can use this as well by setting your service area for a city. State or even the whole country.

The added benefits of this are numerous

  • Local business have more trust in Google’s eyes
  • Google maps listings is not just a map. You have the ability to create posts l. Highlight special offers or shout out your latest announcements. 
  • Add images of your services and products and brand up your page to represent your business.
  • Get review from your customers and build your brands reputation

The list can go on for some time but we’re sure you get the idea. Setting up a Google business listing isn’t that hard.

If you need help, reach out or take up one of affordable local SEO our packages…

Terms & Conditions

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West Legacy Group Terms & Conditions

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Marketing Budget Calculator

Marketing Budget Calculator

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Category : blog

Starting a Business is hard and keeping it going perhaps even harder

One if the biggest challenges for new businesses and startups is figuring out or calculating your marketing budget.

This post will explore the subject further and offers a simple method of calculating your budget.

What is your Conversion Rate

Whether you are willing products or service, determining your final Conversion rate is essential to calculating your required marketing budget to achieve the goals you want.

Your Final Conversion Rate is like different to your websites conversion rate for lead generation type sites.

For example, if you get 5 enquiries and close 1 you have a 20% conversion rate.

Where as ecommerce sites it’s all based on sales. If you get 200 visits and 10 buy from you then you have a 5% conversion rate.

Determine your Lead or Transaction value

Your next step is to work out the value per Lead or Transaction.

For ecommerce. This is usually as easy and providing average order values or average product price. But you should take it a step further and work out your profit margins on each product to get to a true Transaction Value.

For lead generation sites, look at your last 10 sales (actual closed deals). This should give you an approximate value per Sale.

Example of the average value of the last 10 deals was $2000 then use that

After getting the average deal value, multiply  the number by your personal conversion rate or closure rate.

Example, of your closure rate is 20% and your average deal value is $2000 then your value per lead is $400

While this is not exact, the numbers are helpful in calculating your market budget and the return on investment.

Calculating Your Return on Investment

This step looks at your Lead value, website conversion rates and calculates what it costs you get a lead, on average.

For your industry or type of business, this can vary a whole lot.

For example, insurance companies could expect to pay $20-50 or more for just one click on Google Ads. If their sites conversion rate is 5% then the cost is $400 or greater for one website lead. Let’s say the convert internally at 50%. Then that sale costs them about $800.

If the insurance policy is worth about $2000 to them, then they have made 150% Return in this regards. (We would call this Return on Ad Spend)

Putting it all together

Knowing that a sale costs the insurance company $800 on average they could then work out their marketing budget for a month, a quarter, even an entire year.

If your cost per Sale is $50 and you need 100 sales a month, then it’s easy to  calculate a budget of $5000.

Final Thoughts

These are just some basic ways to calculate your cost per lead and conversions and ultimately help you with your digital marketing budgets.

As always feel free to reach out to us and we can help you work out the best marketing strategy for your budget.

Helpful Link: Hubspot has a nifty calculator for calculating Ad Budget and ROI! Check it out here.

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