What to Check and Inquire Before Buying Full-service SEO Packages

Getting full-service SEO packages is no joke; with prices ranging from $150 to $1,500 per month, it’s a significant investment to make for your website. The definition for ‘full-service SEO package,’ however, can vary as much as its price. Different SEO companies include different services and guarantees in their respective packages. There are, however, certain SEO techniques that no Internet marketing package should go without.

Pre-Analysis: Planning for the Campaign

Although you could just get any set of services at random, packages from real professional SEO companies usually include some pre-analysis. That group of services usually answers questions that are critical to your SEO project such as

•    How popular is your site? How popular could your site be?

•    Who are your primary competitors? Do they have an advantage with regard to SEO?

•    Do you have marketing advantages that aren’t being maximized?

•    Are your goals realistic? What’s necessary to achieve them? How long will that take?

It might seem like answering these questions would merely be a minor quibble, but it will set the path that your project will take. These services are very important if you’re serious about achieving a certain goal with your site.

On-Site Analysis: Maximizing What’s There

Now, it’s possible that your site already has certain marketing content that you’re just not maximizing. You should ask for these services because they could turn that existing content into big assets for your SEO project. This group of SEO services usually includes

•    Creation of meta tags in your site’s HTML code

•    Editing of robot.txt files for best search engine results

•    Creation of XML sitemaps for better crawling by search spiders

Because these services require a high level of expertise, not all service providers manage to provide them. The SEO package you eventually get, however, should include all these items to achieve maximum impact.

Off-Site Marketing: The Meat of the Matter

Central to all SEO packages are the off-site marketing techniques, which form the core of most Internet marketing projects. That’s because these SEO strategies will address multiple areas of your marketing scheme. Off-site marketing often includes things like

•    Writing a number of unique articles and then manually submitting them to top article sites

•    Submission of your site’s URL to various web directories, known as manual directory submissions

•    Contextual link building with the use of niche blogs or hub pages

•    SEO Copywriting for improved search engine crawling and conversion

•    Making some guest posts at popular blogs of your niche. It’d brand your business and website while giving you quality backlinks.

•    Advertising in related niche forums

•    Link bait articles – These articles are written on hot concepts related to your niche and industry. They’re usually picked up by various publishers and this helps you increase your link popularity.

You’ll notice that the products in this group of services will interact not just with the search engines, but also directly with your market and site visitors. Aside from explicitly looking for these same services, you should also make sure to get them from a well-established, quality-conscious professional SEO company.

Updates and Support: The Invisible Factor

While this group can’t exactly be called SEO services, they’re just as important once your project begins. Regular updates and progress reports will help you gauge how well your project is going, if additional components are necessary or if certain things have already become superfluous. Some of the questions you should ask SEO companies are

•    How often will they update you, and through what means?

•    How and when can you ask for additional support once the project starts?

•    Will the company give you reports, breakdowns and detailed analyses of your project progress?

These value-added services will make it easier for you to keep track of your project and keep your project on track. You should always ask about what each company offers in this category because only the really good companies can offer you thorough services in this respect.

When you canvass for a full-service SEO package for your site, look for all the services listed above. That way, you’ll be getting the most out of your investment and making sure that you’re really getting a full set of SEO services.