How much should I invest in Malaysian SEO Services?

Business owners often struggle with this question.  Because business nature differs and specific requirements are needed to develop a successful SEO campaign.

The Pricing of SEO services in Malaysia dependent on many factors which include:

• The competitiveness of the industry
• Quality of service provided
• Experience in SEO

Remember.

High pricing does not indicate high quality services. At the same time, low priced SEO does not justify the quality of service provided. Because the main two activities of SEO; high quality contents and backlinks will use up a major part of SEO cost.

If the Seo Pricing is low, how can they afford in producing long-form structured contents and outreach for links from high authority sites?

Cheap SEO services also have high changes in increasing your risk of getting penalized by Google, if they build poor quality backlinks from irrelevant sites.

When it comes to choosing the right SEO partner in Malaysia, you’ll need to know how much SEO will cost for your business website.

In this article, I will provide insight on the average cost of SEO in 2019, so you know how much you need to pay to work with top SEO agencies or SEO consultant, like Naven Pillai.

Just keep reading to learn more.

Let’s take a look at example pricing model if you choose to work with me.

SEO Pricing Plans from Naven Pillai

I avoid providing SEO packages for clients as each client have different requirements and goals for their businesses. However, I have a benchmark that I follow to fit the various needs of clients.

I only work with a maximum of 4 clients at a time. I want to give the best for their business growth through SEO strategies. I can easily charge slightly lower and work with ten or twenty clients but I’m pretty sure I can’t provide 100% attention to all.

My SEO plans are designed to maximize results and not focused on search rankings alone.

To get a peek on how much you should be paying for my SEO services, take a look at the table below.

Most SEO agencies who offer packages include every aspect of the SEO tasks they will be performing on your website. I’m a bit different. I’ve mentioned that I don’t fancy SEO packages but you gotta give what people are looking for. Most of the clients I met ask me to give pricing packages they can choose from.

Offering a few SEO packages allow potential clients to have flexibility in choosing the packages that suit their marketing budget. But, after the initial discussion, I’ll suggest the best package to go for and the expected results. The common misconception among business owners in Malaysia is that they are still in dilemma whether SEO will work for them. And that’s the reason I will always choose the right business owners to work with.

Ok, let me explain more about each of the elements I’ve added to my SEO packages.

Website Analysis & Optimization

When you take a look at packages from digital agencies in Malaysia they elaborate in detail about the tasks they will accomplish.

I love to keep it simple. When we talk about website analysis and optimization it includes the following aspects of SEO:

SEO Initial Review & Analysis

• Website review
• Duplicate content checking
• Backlink Audit
• Competitor research
• Keyword research
• Keyword URL mapping
• Current Keywords Ranking Report

On-Page Optimization

• Landing page analysis (homepage and service pages in most cases)
• Title Tag Optimization
• Meta Description Optimization
• Content Optimization
• Header Text Optimization
• Image Optimization

Technical SEO

• Canonicalization  / 301 redirects
• Robots.txt creation & Optimization
• Sitemap creation and Optimization
• Site Responsiveness Analysis
• Permalink Analysis (URL)
• Schema Markup Analysis
• Page Loading Speed Analysis

Tools Implementation

• Google Search Console Setup
• Bing Webmaster Tools Setup
• Google Analytics / Clicky (if clients are willing to pay) Setup & Integration
• Google Analytics Conversion Tracking Setup
• Google Analytics Custom Dashboard

Local Optimization

• Google My Business Page Setup & Verification
• Customer Reviews Optimization
• Local Business Directory / Citation Submission

These are the exact things I do for SEO Audit expect for Tools Implementation.  These are the things I will perform for my clients before diving into other parts of SEO.

You need to get the fundamentals right before implementing other strategies to provide great results. Without solving the fundamental SEO issues, it is not worth the time to implement other strategies.

Let’s move on to the next step.

Content Marketing

Most people believe SEO and Content Marketing works separately.

The typical SEO mentality is to optimize an existing website with researched keywords and gain links from relevant and high authority websites.

The main focus of SEO is to bring in more traffic from search engine. But, what’s the point of driving traffic if you can’t keep your visitors engaged with your website and convert them into paying customers?

This is where content marketing comes in. Combining SEO with Content Marketing is like killing two birds with one stone.

I love to use a combination of SEO with Content Marketing. And I have used it in my very own projects as well.

You can take a look at one of my case study where I increased organic traffic of a website from 107 to 6,007 in 6 months.

Here’s the list of things I do when developing the right contents for my clients:

• Identify the target audience
• Understand the pain points experienced by the target audience
• Perform customer analysis

These are the fundamental research need to be conducted before moving on to the content development process.

So, how do I develop and optimize contents for both audience and search engines?

Well, read on.

• Produce content on relevant topics – Content should focus on solving the reader’s problems. Creating content that promotes your products and service will be such a huge turn-off. The contents should be customer-centric and focused on the target audience and their pain points.
• Identify and incorporate the right keywords or phrases – Keeping contents simple is the best way to attract more readers to consume the information provided. The targeted keywords and phrases naturally added to the contents.

Guest Posting

You want to devise strategies to earn backlinks to your site. Broken link building strategy works like a wonder but it doesn’t work for every niche.

The best link building method to implement will be getting quality content published on high authority websites related to the business.  Guest posting is not restricted to link building alone but also allow businesses to reach a new audience and gain their trust by publishing quality content.

This is one of my favorite methods to get high quality links from authority websites while increasing the brand awareness of client business.

Linking the right resources or landing page on a guest post or the bio section can earn a massive amount of targeted traffic.

Content Promotion

You need to gain exposure for your content. Relying on search engines to rank your content takes time. Meanwhile, content promotion can help you gain exposure and potentially increase your customer counts when it’s done right.

The main reason for me to include content promotion as part of the SEO service I provide is to gain more backlinks. Contacting the people who have shared similar content or people who have linked to similar content will help in acquiring new backlinks.

What’s the point in developing top-notch content in your niche if no one reading it?

Keywords Ranking on the First Page of Search Engine in 6 months

I’ve been in the SEO industry for more than 7 years and helped businesses grow their business with SEO efforts.

The number one question clients ask me “How long will it take to reach Google First page?”.

To be frank, I don’t have an answer for it. The answer is more complicated than the question.

From my experience, a website can see results in 5-6 months depending on the competition. But, if you’re continuously carrying out your SEO campaigns, you will see greater traction in 12 months.

I have successfully helped clients getting on top of the search ranking results in 6 months even for competitive niches.

The best way to reach the top position is by developing really fantastic contents.

You need to understand that SEO is an investment. The more efforts you put into it the greater the results and returns.

SEO is for the ones who want to be in the game for long.

This is basically the breakdown of the SEO service I provide.

SEO Pricing

I will be as transparent as possible with the pricing here. Let me breakdown the cost and time for the SEO services I’m providing.

• Website Analysis & Optimization (SEO Audit) – RM 2,500 (3-4 days) approximately RM210 – RM250 per hour.
• Content Development – I don’t write contents on the niche I’m not familiar in. I will outsource the content development task to freelancers who have experience in that particular niche . One content of 2000+ words will cost RM300 – RM400 per content (1-2 days per content)
• Guest Posting – Getting content published on authority sites is not an easy task. There are outreaching and email tasks involved.  It will cost around RM250-RM500 (1-2 weeks)
• Content Promotion – The contents will be promoted on various platforms which include social media networks, forums, and community sites. It will cost RM300-RM400 (1-2 weeks)

I never include the cost of the tools I’m using to perform other SEO tasks like competitor research, keyword research, and technical SEO.

This is a realistic SEO costing for the services I’ve explained earlier.

So, coming back to the question I’ve mentioned earlier in this article,

How much should you spend on SEO services in Malaysia?

The amount you want to spend on SEO depends on your marketing budget. But anything less than RM2,000, it’s better to educate yourself with SEO and implement them. If you have the time for learning and implementation, you can definitely do it.

If SEO agencies in Malaysia offering services for less than RM3,000 you need to thoroughly discuss and find out what they are actually bringing to the table. As being a freelancer, I don’t work with clients who can’t invest RM3,000/monthly in SEO campaigns.

Just remember that you often get what you pay for when it comes to digital marketing services. If you’re serious about your business and looking to grow to another level, please don’t compromise for “cheap” SEO services.

SEO is an ongoing long-term strategy. I always suggest clients stick at least with 6 months plan to see results. If they are satisfied with the results, I would ask them to decide whether they want to continue monthly retainer or offer to train their staffs in handling SEO campaigns in-house.

Don’t invest in one-time SEO strategies. It’s hard to see any results from one-time implementation. You need to keep your site fresh with new contents to consistently rank at the top of search results.

How Malaysia SEO Pricing is Determined in 2019?

There is no minimum or maximum pricing for SEO in Malaysia. It does not mean any agencies can claim to do SEO and charge whatever price they want. It comes to you as a client to decide on the right SEO price for your business.

The Internet is the best place to do your research.

There are 6 important key components of marketing ROI you should consider to grow your business.

• Determine customer lifetime value (CLV)
• Estimate target acquisition cost for every customer
• Identify the best marketing strategy that will help you with customer acquisition.
• Determine a realistic marketing budget
• Setup your target marketing ROI
• Consistently monitor your ROI

According to recent research, leads from search engine have a 14.6% close rate compared to outbound leads.

Different Types of SEO Pricing Models

A monthly retainer is one of the common SEO pricing models used by digital agencies in Malaysia. There are other SEO pricing models which include:

• Fixed-Price SEO Contract – The client will sign a contract with the agency or freelancer to provide specific SEO services. For example, the client only wants to build backlinks and hire the agency to perform that specific SEO task.
• Project-Based Pricing – This pricing model often used by companies for custom SEO projects. This SEO pricing model often used by large digital agencies to outsource SEO tasks.
• Hourly SEO Consultation – Some agencies and freelancers only provide consultation and action plan for businesses. This pricing model often used by companies that have an in-house marketing team that implements SEO strategies.

Note** If companies are charging less than RM2,000/month, you need to be extremely cautious. SEO tools and strategies are pretty expensive today as online marketing is getting pretty competitive.

When it comes to SEO, you get results for what you paid for. The main reason for digital marketing agencies to offer “ cheap SEO” is either they are lack of clients. These agencies might be successful at getting you top ranking on search results but lack of experience and resources to sustain the rankings.

It’s also important to know that ranking is not everything. You also need to have the right landing page in capturing leads and convert them into paying customers.

So what’s next?

I’ve covered everything that you need to know about SEO pricing in Malaysia.

What do you think about the SEO pricing offered by digital marketing agencies in Malaysia?

Please share your opinion by commenting below.

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