A lot of people now know how to use the internet and even see themselves as a bit of an expert. As a result, they think they can handle their search engine optimization by themselves as well. There are certainly cases in which this works – if you have the time and the expertise. But more often than not, it leads to complete failure. After all, you need to invest your time in building whatever it is that your business offers, and you should leave online marketing to true online marketing professionals. But why do they have to cost so much?

Time, Dedication, and Effort Is Required

We live in a world where we always want value for money. But you have to consider what you are paying for here. Before the advent of the internet, you would probably hire a graphic designer and pay them a huge amount of money to create a single advertisement that would be spread in a variety of different locations. With SEO, you pay less than what you did for the graphic designer, and far more elements of your marketing are being targeted. This is not a one time thing, but rather a continuous effort, and you have to pay something for that.

It Takes Time to Become an Expert and Stay One

A true SEO expert has never finished learning. The internet changes on a daily basis. Some of those changes are minor, but a lot of minor changes still add up to one big one. In order for an SEO professional to retain their relevance, they must constantly take the time to update their skills, something that is likely to cost them quite a bit of money as well. Just as your profits pay for your staff training, so do theirs, but that does mean they have to make a profit.

SEO Is Hard

Search engine optimization has been explained in so many different ways that people think they get it. It is about writing articles with the right keywords and getting them placed in the right places. In reality, however, it is about so much more than that. SEO is complex and difficult, it involves programming language, meta tags and descriptions, keyword searches, pay per click management, blog posting, back linking, and more. Yes, once upon a time SEO was only about creating amazing content. While content is still king today, there is a lot more to it. SEO today is about architecture, method, and strategy. It is about staying up to date with all the latest trends, but also about having the foresight to know which trends you should and shouldn’t follow. It is about using historical methods, skills, experience, and determined best practice to market a site, while at the same time developing new methods of best practice. SEO experts are engineers who rely not just on technical expertise, but also on instinct and gut feelings, all the while staying ethical in everything that they do.