SEO Maintenance Retainer Fees

Should you pay your SEO agency a monthly retainer to work on your site? Is search optimising an ongoing task? Is regular scheduled SEO the way to go? Are SEO retainers the right thing?

This is a perennial question, all these adding up to the same thing. The answer - in our case, that is: in most cases no; in some cases a definite yes.

The sites that almost certainly do not need a monthly (or even quarterly) SEO tune-up are:

• Small sites earning less than $2,000 a month
• Any site with few content changes

However, there are websites that, without doubt, would benefit from some monthly work. Obviously, a large site with regular content changes would qualify. In some cases work required would be minimal, in others it is conceivable that there would need to be several hours spent each and every month. That may depend on how much work a website owner's in-house staff could do.

In any case a site would need to be earning $4,000 a month plus in order to justify any regular expenditure at all; however, if the site was still on the upward slope of an SEO project (e.g. in its first year with a search optimising agency), then even a small but busy site with many products or page changes would probably benefit from a quarterly inspection - if only for the reason that it is not usually possible to achieve perfection with a single project, which is how many an SEO company works.

These sites will probably benefit from monthly SEO work, assuming they have the revenue to support it:

• Large sites with regular content changes
• Very large sites with some content changes
• Large sites with a very wide remit, such as price comparison sites
• Sites with good earnings who wish to maximise their revenues
• Ecommerce sites of medium-size and up, with regular product changes

Opinion seems to be fairly polarised on this subject, but it may well be because any given SEO agency probably has more of one type of client, such as either small businesses or large corporate clients. Since, as we saw above, the type of website affects the answer to the question, it is therefore reasonable to expect that people will disagree.

It is sensible to suggest that the answer is different according to the type of website, the nature of the business, and the size of the revenues. If a website is very large, has many page changes every month, earns a high income, and has an owner who wishes to maximise revenues - it is fairly obvious that the site will be receiving regular attention from their SEO agency.

If a site is small and doesn't earn much, then it is equally obvious there wouldn't be much benefit to regular SEO maintenance.

It is a moot point whether every site needs an annual maintenance tune-up; for any site with regular content changes and reasonable earnings, it would seem to be a good idea.

Monthly SEO tasks

However, there are some tasks which all sites need to be doing every month, and if the owner/ staff can attend to them, that's fine. In connection with this, one should bear in mind the following factors:

• The Internet is expanding
• More websites come online every day in any given market
• Markets are getting tougher day by day
• If you stand still everyone will overtake you

These things taken together mean that a website must improve in several areas, year on year, if it is to maintain its position - otherwise it will fall back. If the owner can keep progressing as advised by his SEO agency, then things should be fine. In some areas, though, the task may be too big or too complex for anyone other than search optimising consultants to handle.

We normally find that large ecommerce sites benefit from regular attention, but most other sites don't. The majority of websites need some sort of annual attention; and if earnings justify it, then a more frequent inspection and maintenance schedule will ensure income is maximised. Any time there is a major content addition or change of direction on the site, you would probably be wise to let your search optimising people know.