website versus SEO dollars

marketing dollars

[tennisdino]

Hello, I have a client who has a budget of $25,000 to build a website that which has search engine optimization in mind. His question to me was out of the $25,000 in his budget, what amount should be spent on the building of the website, and what percentage should be set aside for the SEO campaign.

Has anyone come across this question? Is there a formula? If so, are there articles, etc..

Thanks so much for any advice.

[rossH]

speaking as someone who handles both ends of this, let me offer this:

get the seo people and the marketing objectives figured out first, and when you have a concrete scope or plan defined that you totally trust, let that plan dictate the actual building of the site.

Instead of the way it usually works, which is the other way round, which causes seo to have to do all kinds of rebuild/workaround.

.02

[mack]

I think a big part of this question comes down to what market the client is in. A lot of markets require high quality SEO to ensure high rankings. Whereas some sectors can establish high rankings without as high an amount of expenditure. In these cases I would tend to spend the extra $$$ on design to make the site stand out from the competition.

Mack.

[Marketing Guy]

I agree with Mack.

Some industries, great SERP placement does not equal great sales conversions.

Taking 2 different ends of the scale as examples:

Impulse sales will be higher the more people you can attract.

High cost sales require much, much more - information, service, quality product, etc.

Scott

[Jim_Six]

Hi -

I agree with RossH - he says that SEO should come first and then the site design.

I believe he is on the money here - even if the field is not competitive SEO should come first, it is much easier for a designer to work to SEO requirements than an SEO to work to designer requirements.

I would suggest that you do something like ...

1. Determine how competitive the industry is (you could look at the distribution of link to's for the first 20 search responses for keywords it is likely your client would use

2. Talk to a few SEO businesses about how much they would be charging you (with your knowledge of the competitiveness of the nidustry you are looking at).

4. get that side of it sorted out and then get the designer in partway through this process and make sure that he is able to collaborate to some extent with the SEO group.

Looking at your budget I would imagine the client you have requires quite an involved site. So make sure that you don't get talked into an unreasonable spend on the SEO -

Good Luck,
Regards,
Jim Smith

[edited by: tedster at 6:25 pm (utc) on Nov. 20, 2003]
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