Everywhere you look online at the moment companies and so-called online marketing experts are offering cheap SEO packages, starting at ridiculous prices, and promising number 1 rankings in the time it takes to blink twice. These snake oil charmer’s are damaging a serious, reputable industry causing uncertainty and mistrust.

So you own a small local business doing reasonably well, but you want to make the next step. You have a website, but your clients and prospective clients can’t find you on the net, sound familiar? You enlist the services of a search engine marketing expert, who promises page 1 rankings after showing you a range of cheap SEO packages he supplies, and you happily agree because it’s well within your marketing budget. In fact, it’s far more affordable than the ads you place every week in the local newspaper, so what the hell.

The problem is this, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys, or to put it another way, in life you get what you pay for! Quite often in life and business when you take the cheapest option, it ends up two, three, even four times more expensive in the long run. And investing in low cost search engine optimization bundles may well come back to bite you in the pocket.

This doesn’t mean that every consultant or agency offering cheap SEO packages is a con artist, far from it, but all men are not created equal. The guys that are offering dirt cheap SEO are either using outdated practices, or dark arts techniques that will get your website banned or de-indexed by Google.

This is why it takes months to see your rankings change, if at all. If an SEO consultant says, “the reason he can’t improve your rankings is because you need to get thousands of backlinks”, he is not a good SEO. If your consultant says, “you need lots of backlinks all with your keyword or keywords as the anchor text”, then he is not a good SEO.

Affordable search engine optimization bundles must and should be customized. Each SEO campaign developed by a professional consulting expert, ought to be specifically tailored for the business and clients represented. A bespoke strategy that reflects the uniqueness of the company’s identity, position, and branding, not a one brush suits all approach.

To achieve results with search engine marketing on a low cost budget, your SEO expert will take many elements into consideration, when developing a strategy for your local business. If your professional, is truly a professional who knows the game, they will first of all review your website, analyze if and what changes need to be made. They will also analyze your market and industry, including competitors. Any SEO that does not follow this type of process should be avoided.

The bottom line here is this: really cheap SEO packages are not all they’re cracked up to be. Doing SEO effectively takes hours of painstaking work, anyone who says they can produce it for a few bucks a month, is never going to produce the results you desire.

These days, it is important to stay ahead of the competition. What that really means is that the business whose website enjoys top search engine rankings is the one that ultimately thrives. The challenge, then, is to find a balance between great content and a well optimized page.

When was the last time you really examined how well your site was doing in the search engines? It could be time for a tuneup or even a complete overhaul. This is also the time to decide if you want to outsource your SEO content creation or complete the work in house. Here are some reasons why you may want to hire a specialist.

1. Boost Your Search Engine Rankings

Most SEO firms and content writers won’t necessarily guarantee results but chances are pretty good that when you entrust an expert, you WILL get the search engine results you desire. Entrust a professional and your chances of getting on the first page of the major search engines increases considerably.

2. Get More Website Traffic

Well crafted website copy will help you get more traffic. As your site begins to rank well in the search engines, more people will visit your pages. Though you may experience an initial traffic surge, it is more common for this strategy to pay off in the long term rather than the short term.

3. Populate Your Site With Great Content Quickly

How long does it take your company to write all your website copy in house? SEO writers tend to get the job done not only effectively, but quickly. If your site is in desperate need of content posting it online quickly is vital to your future successes. Once the content is online, the search engines will have a chance to index it and rank it.

4. Take Full Advantage of the Latest Strategies

With all the updates and changes, it can be hard to stay on top of all the latest SEO strategies. However, if you were to hire an expert to write your content, it is very likely that their knowledge will be current. This means that your marketing department won’t necessarily need to learn the latest techniques. Trust the experts to do it.

5. Convert Traffic to Leads

Most SEO writers are also copywriters. This means that not only will your content be effective in the search engines, but it will also help increase conversions. What is your desired response? Be sure to let your writer know the purpose of the content and of the website itself so that they can craft it in a way that will help you achieve your goals.

Sure, you can write all of your website content yourself. Yes, it does cost money to hire someone to do it, and doing it yourself can help you save your cash and spend it on other things. However, there are some huge advantages to hiring an SEO content writer that are certainly worth considering. Understand that it is very likely that your investment will pay off over time.

When it comes to the online media, one often wonders to how customer relations are formed. Can an email be enough to establish this relation? The answer can be a yes or a no; but one of the most important elements when it comes to relationship building in SEO is link building. Link building is referred to the process of getting external pages to link pages/content on your websites. When an external page puts a link on your website, there is an instant relationship that emerges. This relationship may be with a blogger, a business owner or a third party wanting to promote their products on all websites. These people are associated with your websites as digital partners.

One thing to keep in mind is to never go and ask for a link. That just puts a question mark on your website or on what you do online. You can say that this is frowned upon on in the online world. You need to establish a reputation first. Use your SEO skills to put your website in the top ranking. Then use online media to promote it. Once this is complete use your creativity and marketing skills to advertise for an online medium. Or maybe ask a blogger to promote what you do. Links will flow in.

Link building is a technical process and building a quality relationship for link building is even more crucial and not at all simple. Let’s take it step by step in how you can develop a healthy online relationship in link building. When you are initiating the process of link building, ask yourself the following questions; where do I start from? how do I reach to them? who do I reach out to? how to I set myself apart from my competition? how do I get in touch with bloggers or business owners? how many links can I handle?

The answer is to start from the very bottom of the pyramid. Get your priorities organized. Make a list of the people and sites that you would want to connect with. Many online tools can help you get lists of particular businesses or bloggers. For instance, Follower wonk allows you to search for bios of twitter users. Ethical or not, you can find your desired audience. In the online world, almost nothing is impossible to find. Once you have your desired list of contacts, you can expand your search by looking for more dynamic options. You can use specific target words to find an exact audience. By doing this your search becomes more relevant and you can find people that can relate to what you’re talking about. Your options to getting more website traffic and sales by doing this are more probable.

Link building with your existing clients is like a bonus you get. When you have your business in the online world, it is foolish not to utilize your existing clientele to establish a link building relationship. Skim out your clients and find businesses relevant to your offerings or links. Sell them the idea of strengthened relations via link building techniques. You can also use clients that you have worked on a partnership basis. Use this co-host element to boost your links. You can also ask your clients to promote your links no their websites. Yes, it is a two way road. This way you get more traffic on your website.

Some points to remember is that you should always categorize options to where you want the link to be placed. The link should be on a website page that you’re proud of. It should be an updated page with updated and relevant information. Make sure that the page is error free and does not lead to a “404″ error. Strategics your steps to a successful link building process. Only then can you establish strong and ever-lasting online relationships.