What would it cost to rank #1?

upl8t

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I've mostly done my own SEO work so far with the odd outsourcing of an occassional bookmarking campaign,profile links or some manual edu link packages.

I'm now wondering if it makes more sense to outsource all of my link building work and focus on the site building and content side of things. My better half is a great writer. She's written for top end magazines for over 20 years so we have the ability to generate significant volumes of content.

These are all EMD sites. Each site starts with 5 or 6 pages of high quality original content and we can continue to add from there. They're all reasonably low competition with around 1,500 to 2,500 monthly exact match U.S. searches per month.

How much should it cost to outsource the link building to get a number 1 position and how long should it take to get to number 1. I know there are no guarantees but reaching positions other than number 1 don't amount to much at these search volumes. Any thoughts?
 
The problem is no one will really answer that until they know the keyword and look at the competition. I generally tell every client to expect top 3 between 90 and 180 days. I never guarantee #1 because there are so many variables that aren't under your control.

The great thing is since you're making expectations low, when things do better you look awesome. For example I just told a client to expect your keyword to be in the 50s to 40s at this point (3 weeks), He's already #6 and #9 for the two main keywords. I can now upsell him "I hired some REALLY good link builders. Remember that keyword that I told you would cost a very large portion of your budget but had a very large amount of searches? I believe I can get you to top 3 in 90 days because my team is so good"

Upsell For the Win
 
Well,
To rank for EMD's and low competition keywords it won't take more than 10-20 days if you have strong on-site and of-site SEO.
I usually for an emd which it may have wikipedia, cnn and competition like this (Which i call strong) i rank for about 20-30 days on top3-5.

I'm sure that there is no real guaranteed way to rank but i also know that if you do things right you will get on those position that you are aiming.
 
Of course it's impossible to guarantee these things. What I'm trying to get a handle is an average cost to get there. In the end it doesn't matter if 1 or 2 sites out of 10 fail. It's a game of averages. I have a pretty good handle on the revenue that these kinds of sites can generate per month. The question remains...does it cost $50, $100, $250 , $500 ???? to rank these kinds of sites on average.
 
I've mostly done my own SEO work so far with the odd outsourcing of an occassional bookmarking campaign,profile links or some manual edu link packages.

I'm now wondering if it makes more sense to outsource all of my link building work and focus on the site building and content side of things. My better half is a great writer. She's written for top end magazines for over 20 years so we have the ability to generate significant volumes of content.

These are all EMD sites. Each site starts with 5 or 6 pages of high quality original content and we can continue to add from there. They're all reasonably low competition with around 1,500 to 2,500 monthly exact match U.S. searches per month.

How much should it cost to outsource the link building to get a number 1 position and how long should it take to get to number 1. I know there are no guarantees but reaching positions other than number 1 don't amount to much at these search volumes. Any thoughts?

you are on the right track. the entire point of outsourcing is to focus on what you do best.
 
you are on the right track. the entire point of outsourcing is to focus on what you do best.

For sure. Ultimately to scale any business you have to start off loading certain things and find cost-effective solutions for them.
 
Of course it's impossible to guarantee these things. What I'm trying to get a handle is an average cost to get there. In the end it doesn't matter if 1 or 2 sites out of 10 fail. It's a game of averages. I have a pretty good handle on the revenue that these kinds of sites can generate per month. The question remains...does it cost $50, $100, $250 , $500 ???? to rank these kinds of sites on average.

from one newb to another... It depends on the competition of the front page. From what I've been told, if ere is an aged domain on the top 5 its going to take a lot more firepower in terms of high PR blog posts (a lot of them) and paying for backlinks.

I think the simple answer is, no one can guarantee how much it would be to place #1. If that were the case... A whole lot more people would be advertising "be #1 for $1000." and clamouring to take your money.

Run traffic Travis and post a scrubbed screen shot of the top 10 comp. People will give u better insight that way.
 
from one newb to another... It depends on the competition of the front page. From what I've been told, if ere is an aged domain on the top 5 its going to take a lot more firepower in terms of high PR blog posts (a lot of them) and paying for backlinks.

I think the simple answer is, no one can guarantee how much it would be to place #1. If that were the case... A whole lot more people would be advertising "be #1 for $1000." and clamouring to take your money.

Run traffic Travis and post a scrubbed screen shot of the top 10 comp. People will give u better insight that way.

These are mostly brand new EMD domains and mostly low competition. Plus, this really isn't about ranking 1 site. It's about the cost of doing that every week for a new batch of sites.

You can go into the buy and sell section every day and there's hundreds of offers for every combination of link package you can think of. Of course the challenge is to know which one of these or how many of them it takes to rank a site like this.
 
It's impossible to say for sure without knowing the kws.

@OP: I work for an SEO/IM firm. If you'd like to chat on skype about your project feel free to PM me.
 
$600,000 exactly.

Not a penny more or less.


lol, as said above it's almost impossible to tell you how much it will cost.
 
For the keywords "flash games" probably a few million dollars, plus a decade.
Give or take.
For "purple sprinkled custom cupcakes in Duluth, Iowa" $12 and I'll have it done by Friday.
For "homemade recycled soap" again, $12 and Friday.
For "used cars in CA" again.. A few mil and a few years.

Let me know which one of these are your keywords, if these aren't, don't worry. I have a list with 12.8 trillion keywords in it of varying competition, price and time scales. One is sure to be yours. :P
 
Well i don't see no reason why combining your link building services under 1 roof would be bad, i also don't think it would cost more. Even if it would be bit more xpensive would certainly be easier to manage if you plan on launching lots of new sites every week
 
For the keywords "flash games" probably a few million dollars, plus a decade.
Give or take.
For "purple sprinkled custom cupcakes in Duluth, Iowa" $12 and I'll have it done by Friday.
For "homemade recycled soap" again, $12 and Friday.
For "used cars in CA" again.. A few mil and a few years.

Let me know which one of these are your keywords, if these aren't, don't worry. I have a list with 12.8 trillion keywords in it of varying competition, price and time scales. One is sure to be yours. :P

Although its outlandish, all these posts are quite clear with the quoted being my fav. You cant add a time based measurements to a organic creature like search...
 
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