I’m wondering how many of you out there pay for SEO services versus just doing it yourself? I’ve never paid for any SEO services, but have been tossing around the idea of it for some time now. I feel like I’ve done the best I can for a couple of sites I own. If I’ve done everything I know how to do, and still can’t get a top ranking in Google or Yahoo, then maybe it’s time to hire SEO experts to finish the job.

At what price though? Would $100 a month be reasonable? How about $500 a month? I guess it depends on how popular the keywords are and how much profit you expect from the increase in traffic.

Paying for SEO might be hard to do, because it’s not something you see results for right away. It would take months to move up in the rankings. You can drive traffic to your website in other ways, such as PPC or advertising, but they don’t provide the long term benefits of strong SERP rankings. On the other hand, nothing is guaranteed in search engines. You could spend $1000 to get to page 1, and then 2 months later get bumped down or banned and there’s nothing you can do about it.

It’s a tough debate. I’ve always been a believer of ‘it takes money to make money.’ I have to imagine a lot of the ‘big players’ spend money on SEO, or are experts themselves. I am not an expert. My knowledge on the subject is limited.

So would you pay money for SEO services? How much would you pay to get page 1 rankings for all your big keywords?