Planning a search engine marketing budget.

When you plan to implement a search engine marketing campaign for your site, it should be just one part of your overall marketing spend, whether online or offline. It is very rare that an online business can sustain itself just from search engine traffic alone and in the same way you should view the investment on search engines as just one part of your overall budget.

When you employ a company to manage your website's optimisation and marketing on search engines, it is very much the case that you pay for what you get. Low cost services will usually give you a poor service without any meaningful results for your site, so before deciding which route to take, please refer to our summary of different search engine marketing services and also consider the budget estimates outlined below.

The costs of getting a website established on the most popular search engines and directories has risen significantly in the past few years as many of these tools have started to charge for their service in order to improve their profits and remain in business. In addition, the growth in the use of 'pay-per-click' search tools and the opportunities they can deliver have also increased the potential spend, although these can also provide very targeted advertising.

The Return on Investment (ROI) from a search engine marketing campaign will also depend on the market you are competing in and the value of your products and services. The cost per lead from traditional sales channels will give you some idea of what you can invest on the web and what returns you might expect, or require.

The table below is designed to give you an idea of the costs that might now be involved if you are planning to launch a business website and want to get established on the main search engines as soon as possible. The darker shaded boxes indicate the relative importance of each option.

Of course, the value of each option will vary, depending on your objectives, but it should give you an idea of the main options and the costs now involved:

NB: All prices shown exclude VAT.

If you would like any further information on any of the above options and costs, or would like to receive a FREE site assessment and quotation for the search engine marketing of your website, please contact us now.

Return to Plans introduction
Statistics on search engine use
10 top tips to consider when planning your search engine marketing campaign
Selecting the best search engine marketing strategy for your business
Definitions of some relevant web terms