Plan SEO budget correctly

A company’s budget planning comes up every year. Funds are distributed to departments and there again to individual task areas as a rule. This also includes the distribution of the SEO budget. For a long time, SEOs put most of their budget on one horse: link building.

Even though link building is an important part of any
SEO strategy
there are other areas of search engine optimization that are worth investing in. In particular, the creation of content is now receiving an increasingly large share of the SEO budget.

As is so often the case: A balanced distribution of the SEO budget will make 2023 (and every subsequent year) a successful and high-revenue year.

Now the question arises, how such a balanced distribution of your SEO budget looks like. We give you an overview of the important factors you need to consider when budgeting for your search engine optimization and how to allocate correctly.

Unfortunately, there is no universal recipe for SEO budget planning. The planning of each year depends on the company itself, the industry, the products or services offered and, of course, the market. Add to that the developments and updates that search engines like Google make.

So you have to put together your own recipe for success. To give you a good foundation, we present the three main pillars of SEO budgeting. You should keep these in mind when allocating your funds.

A few years ago, quasi-empty websites often ranked in the top results of Google searches. These were over-optimized pages with little to no content, but they were well linked so they ranked.

At the end of 2022, Google announced a link spam update that should eliminate this problem. The update dealt with:

• matching anchor text links
• irrelevant links
• foreign language links
• unnatural links

The update made it possible to neutralize such links. This kind of link building now leads to nowhere, so to speak.

Of course, backlinks still play a significant role in the ranking factor. In the best case, your content is so outstanding that you naturally draw links. Accordingly, one adjusting screw to get backlinks could be to invest in content marketing.

Notice:

Links to empty websites or bad content are a waste of money. High-quality content, on the other hand, can automatically generate links.

Also, the importance of user experience on a website is no secret among SEOs today. Some time ago, however, there was no mention of user experience on most websites. Most of them had a poor interface with simple HTML pages.

One did not want to linger on these pages for very long. Google reacted to this with the Core Web Vitals, so that websites already look very different today. Quality raters and AI algorithms check, for example, whether a website is user-friendly or should simply rank.

The beginning of a user-friendly website lies in writing a meaningful title and meta description that will ensure users click to your website. You should also consider (and invest in) the following aspects to improve your website’s user experience:

Findability: If content is not findable for users, it is also less likely to be crawled and indexed. Content with important links, should be placed as top, well visible to the user.

Load Time: Load time has a big impact on Core Web Vitals. In addition, a fast loading time is also well received by users.

Look and feel: A page that is overloaded with ads and therefore has usability problems will perform poorly on Google. Few website elements like ads and optimized text formatting provide pleasant user experience and good ranking.

Readability: Even if websites have poorly readable texts because they are too small or narrow, Google sees that. As a result, these pages do not reach the top places of search results. Of course, readability is also important for users. Those who have great difficulty reading a content will stop reading early and leave the page.

Value proposition: This is where your unique selling proposition comes in. Make it clear to Google and users what your website is about. If users spend minutes at first wondering if your site can provide the right answer to their search query, you’re quickly out of the running. Moreover, Google will rank you poorly in search results if it cannot identify which search queries your website is suitable for.

Notice:

A good user experience is rewarded by Google with a good ranking position. Then, it ensures that users find what they are looking for on your website. User experience can help you stand out from the competition. An investment is therefore worthwhile.

Content is the most important factor in
search engine optimization
more important than ever. Meanwhile, its role is so significant that the boundaries between content marketing and SEO are slowly disappearing.

Google’s preferred content fulfills the so-called E-E-A-T principle:

• Experience
• Expertise
• Authority
• Trust (confidence)

In addition to the E-E-A-T principle, editorial links given by an author or publisher also influence the ranking of a website in Google search results.

Such linking makes the content highly visible. Because with the huge competition of websites peppered with similar content, such linking is an easy way to find out whether a text is helpful or not.

Notice:

Google attaches great importance to good content. With the E-E-A-T principle, the search engine can recognize high-quality content and, above all, content that is helpful to users. So good content also gets a good placement in Google search results.

SEO is a multidisciplinary approach. This means you can’t invest your money in just one aspect and hope for the best result and success. Still, you need to prioritize and thus allocate your SEO budget properly.

At the beginning of every strategy development and budget planning is the inventory. So look at where the funds are currently going and where they are needed. For example, if you have no one to create content, it’s high time.

Also the already mentioned topics like findability, loading time, etc. should be considered here. If you have not been included in the budget planning process before, you should do so now.

To keep a clear overview of which areas the budget is spent on, you should break down your SEO by department.

A well-established website with all the technical SEO basics usually requires no more than 25% of the SEO budget. The technical SEO basics (as an SEO department) are your foundation, so to speak. Once that is set, you can focus on the actual building. For example, in the form of content, another SEO department.

The recipe for success in your SEO budget planning is not set in stone. You should approach and optimize the planning every year. Take a look at what things brought success in the previous year and where there is still need for optimization.

At the beginning, we talked about the fact that budget planning is always done in departments and then task areas. SEO is a department of marketing and even if it receives its own budget, it should not be treated completely independently. This is still the case in many companies.

However, marketing strategies work most successfully when the individual departments work together like cogs. They move with each other and support each other. So always treat your search engine optimization as part of marketing and drive a joint strategy. Cooperation is the guarantee for success here.

Whether you have your search engine optimization done by an SEO agency or in-house depends entirely on your business. If you already have an SEO expert or even an SEO department, you can approach planning the budget with them.

The advantage of an SEO agency is mainly that you are dealing with experts who know exactly what to invest the time and work into for a successful SEO strategy. They can (and should) also work closely with an SEO agency.

Regardless of whether you choose search engine optimization in-house or through an agency:

You should definitely take advantage of an initial consultation and a free SEO check.

This way you can get specific tips and advice for your company’s situation and get another perspective that will definitely be helpful. With this knowledge, you can successfully approach planning your SEO budget.

The budget for SEO can vary depending on several factors, including the size and industry of the company, the competitive situation in the industry, the goals and the desired results. There is no set standard budget for SEO, as it depends heavily on individual needs and goals.

When setting an SEO budget, you should consider the following aspects:

1. Goals and priorities: Define your SEO goals and determine what priority SEO has in your marketing strategy. The more ambitious the goals and the more competitive the industry, the larger the budget required can be.
2. Competitive environment: Consider the competitive situation in your industry. If there are many other companies already investing in SEO, it may be necessary to allocate a higher budget to stay competitive.
3. Scope of optimization measures: The larger and more extensive your website is, the more resources are needed for optimization. This may have an impact on the budget required.
4. Internal or external resources: consider whether you want to conduct your SEO activities internally or hire an external agency or SEO specialist. External services may incur additional costs that must be included in the budget.
5. Continuous optimization: SEO is an ongoing process that requires regular updates and optimization. Take this into account when budgeting to ensure you have sufficient resources to continually work on improving your search engine presence.

It is recommended to work with an SEO expert or an
SEO agency
to get an informed estimate of the budget needed for your specific situation. Together, you can analyze your goals, the scope of optimization, and the resources required to set an appropriate budget.