Nah.
You’ve got it all wrong. And in this post, you’ll learn why.
SEO in and of itself is a proven concept. I’ll share some studies to back this up.
For starters, the average ROI on SEO is one of the highest in the digital marketing space, equaling 22:1. The ONLY higher ROI digital marketing channel is email marketing, which can’t really be done if you don’t get traffic through the door first anyway.
It’s merely a question of whether a given service you’re considering paying is a waste of money or not.
I’ll also help you figure that out.
~4 Minute Read
Quick Answer
Is SEO a waste of money? No, it's not. More and more people use Google to find local businesses every single day and if you belong to my core audience, which are home service business owners, your competition still hasn't fully adopted SEO. The few of those who did are killing it, so you might as well jump on the bandwagon.
Clear Example of Why SEO is Worth It
Let’s do some math. I know my contractor clients and readers love doing that, so let’s get into it.
An average mold removal job is worth between $1,500 and $3,000. Restoration companies make 30%-40% profit, though this varies, as you know.
But let’s use a 30% take-home rate.
Now, using a location like Miami, which is hard-core competitive because of a huge demand for mold removal, water and fire restoration, biohazard cleanup, and more.
In the image below, you see average monthly demand for mold removal in Miami on Google.
The number is 7,200. That is, 7,200 new potential customers every month.
Now, let’s play a devil’s advocate—the tool is a flaw (which is not; Mangools is fairly accurate compared to other local SEO tools). Let’s say that only 1,500 of those 7,200 searches are real (so around one fifth of what the tool says).
The #1 website gets 23-ish% of all clicks from total demand, whereas a #2 website gets 15%.
Google Business Profiles ranking in a map pack get the following percentages of all clicks each:
- 17%
- 15%
- 15%
What is a map pack?
This is a map pack.
So, the overall goal of your local SEO campaign would be to claim a spot in a map pack and in the websites section.
Doable? Yes. Hard? Absolutely. Takes long? Possibly years in competitive areas.
But what do you get out of that?
Up to a 40% combined click through rate (a percentage of clicks from total demand), which would equal 1,500*40%=600 eyeballs to your business each month.
Standard conversion rates (a call or a quote form submission) are at around 5%.
That’s 30 leads per month. New leads. For mold removal, a $3,000 job, which people from the industry know has the potential to be worth much, much more.
At an average close rate of 30% (let’s say you know what you’re doing) and a profit margin of 30%, your monthly take-home would be $4,000-$8,000. Profit.
This result was calculated after underestimating the actual demand, but it also came from a calculation where you’re #1 for the keyword.
The real-world result of your specific campaign would likely be somewhere in the middle. Ranking #1 can take many months or even years, whereas there’s hundreds, if not thousands, of keywords that could make you money that take far less time to rank.
The Average Timeframe for SEO Results
It’d be great if you could be making those $8,000 per month while paying an agency $1,000. That would essentially be free money.
Now, the trick is that most agencies, ourselves included, take the monthly payments upfront, delivering on the results later.
We’re essentially selling “air,” a non-tangible promise that relies on an algorithm—not a rational human being checking your website—with the hopes of getting you more sales in the coming months.
This is why SEO is a turnoff for many businesses, and rightfully so.
But what if I could show you the way you could start ranking for keywords INSTANTLY, seeing the value right away and then starting to believe the process even more?
In our blow on how long does local SEO take, I outlined some ways you could see the progress in your SEO campaign right away.
There are many keywords across industries that are very easy to rank for. An SEO agency doing it right would initially target these while focusing on the real money makers like “mold removal Miami” for the long term.
Here’s an example of how we did the same thing.
Ranking for “roofing SEO” will take a lot of time, and the same thing can be said for the keyword “SEO agency Los Angeles.”
So, we took both keywords and found out that the keyword you see in the picture has some demand – not a lot, but still enough to justify a page of it’s own.
And voila! This ranking was achieved pretty much overnight. Easy.
Apply this at a large enough scale (with dozens and maybe even hundreds of pages), and you’ve got an instant flow of leads.
Is The SEO Service You're Looking at Worth It
Now it’s time to actually figure out whether or not the company you’re about to hire has the right know-how.
The founder or a salesperson you’re speaking with may indeed understand SEO, but the fulfillment team may not be the best (wrong hires, bad SOPs; happens when companies try to hire as cheap as possible).
So, how do you do it?
You can filter them out by:
- Educating yourself. Our blog is a nice corner of the web for that, but there are plenty other resources online for you to learn the basics of SEO and what you’re actually paying.
- Asking the right questions—read more in our article on what to ask your SEO agency.
- Learning how long it truly takes by looking at the top competitors who are ranking currently and seeing how long it truly took them to see results.
The way you do that is by taking a website of your competitor, entering them into Ahrefs Site Explorer or SEMRush Domain Overview, and then looking at the graph.
When did it start, and what was the gain until today?
Check the timeframe, see the number of months it took them to see success, and multiply by the monthly quote your agency gave you.
One way to do it, although it never really shows the full picture.
The only way to truly know for sure, as with anything marketing-related, is to test.
What to Do Next
That’s it for today!
Mind you, this post was related to local SEO, but the principles are very similar for all types of SEO – eCommerce, SaaS, info-marketing, and more.
Need more help?
If you have an existing website you’d like to be SEO-ed and bring more sales for your company, get our free SEO audit.
Other than that, feel free to learn more from our blog:
Bogdan is a local SEO expert with over 3 years of experience helping businesses grow using Google. When he is not helping businesses grow, he works on his own SEO projects, works out, takes long walks, and watches Suits, which is completely ironic given how rarely he dresses up in a suit himself.