Paying others is ok, but to get people to do GOOD work for you (as opposed to shit - or NO work for you) costs A LOT.
Start off with a basic toolkit - 3 or 4 tools that help in your niche
Then have a look at the Uber solutions like Nuke, Xrumer SEpro and suchlike.
The pro's that do a proper FULL seo job for your site - using these tool - charge a lot for it.
Sure you can pay for a Xrumer "blast" - but full seo, content writing and optimization. PPC ad analysis, keyword analysis, market targetting and CONTINOUS posting over a long period (i.e daily or weekly for months on end) is going to cost you thousands.
Best to learn what is goo and what is bad first. Otherwise you end up paying for a "black hole" service.
That's to say you've got no frikking idea if the service you are paying for is worth it, what it does, why, and even if it's really happening or not.
The most valuable thing you put into the first year of SEO is your time. There are a TON of things to learn. Site design, keywords, HTML. social networking, writing skills, the list is a loooooong one.
Going in blind and throwing money - whether that's for products or services - is not a good idea really. .
Lot's of people seem to take that approach though. Then come back here with threads like
- "SEnuke doesn't work" or
- "I've bought scrapebox now what" or even
- "I paid some guys to write and offiste SEO for me but I still have no traffic"
Don't be one of those people.
If you've got THAT much money that you can afford to just throw it away like that you probably shouldn't bother with IM anyway. Go and have a round of golf - or give it to me.
Scritty