Chicken or the Budget? What Comes First?
**Originally posted on Mar 12, 2007**
I recently engaged in a spirited discussion about business strategy and planning with some posters at SEOChat. Basically, I was challenging the position on how to go about creating SEO budgets. My basic premise was that budgets come out of plans, and not the other way around. Here is some key highlites to help you create the right goals for the right budget and not the other way around.
SEO Plans Lead to SEO Budgets
I am going to argue that it is not in the best interest for your company to just throw money at a project aimlessly. Do we agree so far? So how should one go about investing in search engine optimization or web marketing alternatives (i.e. social media marketing).
You FIRST go through a planning stage, a time to articulate goals and objectives. After this process you THEN create a budget OUT OF the goals you’ve made. At this point you will find out if have the cash to meet the budget you will require to meet your goals. If you can’t, then you turn around and repeat the process until you have adjusted your goals to coincide with a budget that you can afford. (Goals are measurable and attainable items within the short run. The ambitious ‘rule the market!’ idea is a vision and need not be attainable within a short period of time.)
This is how you come up with the right budget for your SEO project, not the other way around. Don’t start by taking marketing dollars and throwing it blindly at ideas or ‘trial runs’. That’s why some many people loose so much cash in marketing, they have zero clue what they’re doing because they don’t have a plan or goals.
DON’T WORK BACKWARDS! Save yourself the time and reward yourself with coherent goal setting by walking straight forwards and not backwards. In a planning process the steps in order go:
- Vision
Objectives
Goals (measurable and attainable in the short run)
Strategies (built around distinct capabilities and competitive advantages)
Tactics
Budget
Too many people try to start at tactics the move to budget–no wonder your marketing dollar is lost in the wind. The fact is, plans start with objectives and budgets fall out of plans.
When you have defined the budget through this planning process then you work your way in reverse through the same steps until you have met your vision. Skipping these steps is like putting a bullet through your car tire. You may (or may not) reach your destination, and if even you do, you’re late (but your competitors aren’t).
Sure, you need to figure out some cost plans before you can articulate a budget, that’s all fine and dandy, but that doesn’t come before a planning process. You don’t get quotes first, and then go, ‘ok, what am I going to remodel and what do I want it to look like?’ Maybe it’s a fact finding mission, but you still need your clear objectives before embarking on your web marketing missions.
[tags]seo budget, budgeting seo, budget seo projects, seo budgeting[/tags]
Still doesn’t answer how much! Give me numbers!
You need numbers to start off. Sure, you can get a broad idea in a brief search, but SEO is subjective. Better and more experienced consultants usually cost more…. but some services you can get for cheap. You need to create a plan before you go looking for consultants. Know what you want so you can dictate your selection to a greater degree.
I freelance.
My clients generally know they want to be #1 and that’s it. If I start talking one-way links, their eyes glaze over. The don’t want to SEO speak.
I am dealing with the small to mid-size co. They just say do it.
You points are valid, my customers just want to make widgets and have the sales through their site increase.
That’s pretty much it.
Hence why you have to break down the language to things they understand like profit, value, sales, etc. Most companies don’t have coherent business plans and only see SEO as a one-time marketing investment. I suggest that smart business’ need to be smarter in their pursuit of objectives (Assuming they have some…).