Frequently asked SEO questions

Frequently asked questions

SEO throws up a lot of questions, especially if you're new to the SEO world. Below are a handful of useful Q & A's, but if there's something else you would like to know, then please get in touch.

Q: How long will it take before I see the results?

A: Although the typical answer is it depends, we can and will look to boost the performance of pages of your Website that are sitting in or around pages 2, 3, 4 & 5 of the SERPS. These are often good pages ‘reoptimise' due to their established rankings and closeness to page 1 of the SERPS.

It also depends on how much budget you have and are willing to spend over a short period of time. For example, if we were to target a competitive search term over a 6 month time period, we could see results within 3-4 months if the monthly budget was doubled.

Q: How much will it cost?

A: The cost of optimising your Website will depend on the competitiveness of your industry, how much content is needed (including rewriting existing content) and how many links need to be built.

There are no hard and fast rules with regards to the cost of SEO as every Website is different, but we recommend your monthly budget should start at around £1500, depending on how quickly you expect to see results.

Q: Do I have to sign a contract?

A: Absolutely not. We ask you to sign a consent form to say that you're happy to let Digital Cornerstone optimise your site but that's it.

We want to build long term relationships with you and for you to trust us. This means you can email us and ask us to stop or increase/decrease budgets at any point.

Q: Is payment made upfront or on completion of the monthly deliverables?

A: We ask for payment upfront at all times.

Q: Can you let us do some of the work so we can keep the costs down?

A: Absolutely. In many cases, we recommend Website owners take on some of the SEO work, with our guidance.

We are more than happy to provide you with topic details, keywords, estimated article-length needed, and examples of how your content should be written so that you can write your own content.

We also suggest that page titles and meta descriptions are written by site owners due to the time-consuming nature of writing them.

Q: Why should I bother investing in SEO instead of PPC?

A: Search engine optimisation is the marketing channel that lifts all boats, is trusted by searchers and will always provide the best medium to long term ROI. Not only will SEO outperform PPC from a long term traffic point of view, it also costs less.

For example, you could spend £5 per paid advertising click and bring in 2000 visitors to your site per month at a total cost of £10'000 per month or £120'000 per year. Whereas you could spend £3500 per month on SEO over a 12 month period and by the end of the campaign drive 10'000 visitors per month to your site and save £78'000.

And don't forget that the moment your PPC campaign is turned off, the traffic stops.