Search Engine Optimization requires specific skills, as well as the time and focus necessary to edit and test a web site against SEO best practices requirements. Most web masters are incredibly busy already with simply keeping their web sites functional, online, and growing. Yet hiring an SEO service can be an expensive investment. It's critical to make a strong business case for spending money on what might be a nebulous return – or to do the work yourself at the expense of other projects.



In order to do a cost/benefit analysis on the relevant factors, you must ask yourself a few business and technical questions:

- Do you have the skills needed to do search engine optimization? This will require streamlining and selecting keywords and tags that match what users are currently searching for, as well as generating unique content, and structuring your site architecture to be friendly for crawlers. If you don't have these skills, do you have time to acquire them? Would other, more high-priority projects be compromised if you spent your time this way?

- Will your site handle the traffic a higher search ranking would generate? If you're already working at capacity, it may not make sense to do any optimization until your site can handle an increase in traffic.

- Are there potential users searching for the keywords you're associated with? If you serve content to a unique niche, there may not be enough available traffic to make it worth your while to optimize. For example, if you average 100 unique visitors per day, and only 110 people per day search for your primary keywords, it may not be worth the investment. At this point, you should evaluate both the relevance of your keywords to your content, and the potential market for your website, before looking into SEO.

- Are your competitors ranked significantly higher than you are? They may have already spent time and money on SEO and be reaping the benefits. Look at their site architecture and content to glean clues about what they're doing right. If your sites are of similar quality on the surface, but drastically different in rankings, then it may be worth the investment.

- Can you afford an SEO service? Call a few reputable companies to get quotes on introductory services, as well as long-term contracts, in order to get an estimate of the expense. (Do stay away from companies that promise guaranteed rankings, or that will use a pay-per-click scheme rather than actually modifying your site correctly.) Then calculate the extra revenue you would generate if you were able to match your competitors' traffic volumes. Compare the difference between that and your current revenue, versus the cost of the SEO service quotes.

Ultimately, pursuing SEO is a business decision. Apply sound business logic along with your technical expertise, and use your professional contacts to get advice from people you trust. In many circumstances, it can be overkill and an unnecessary investment. However, for the web sites that would benefit from the service, the rewards can be enormous and well worth the investment in time and money.