I have to say I disagree with this article and not becuase my paycheck depends on SEO quotes. Especially the directory submissions. You can use one of those budget submission services but you are going to get outdated garbage links from very general directories that are completely unrelated to your niche and are probably already banned by Google. With your argument why would anyone buy a new BMW M3 when they can get a used 1994 Honda Accord for so much cheaper. Also, I would GLADLY pay $3,000 for 100 links if they are of a high enough quality - get me 100 directories on PR5+, .edu, or .gov links and I’ll throw you more work then you can handle!

As far as articles I guess you can hire someone in India to rewrite an EzineArticle packed with grammatical errors for $15 but good luck trying to get an experienced writer in a client’s niche for less then $50 per page (research is what racks the hours up). As far as submitting again you can use that out of the box article submitting software that doesn’t update and half the sites use no follows. Not even worth the $15…

If you pay that company $50 for “guaranteed rankings” kiss your website creditability good bye. They all just use some type of SPAM links and they don’t care if your site gets banned or penalized - but I bet if you complain a bunch they will refund your $50 back… Remember, If they could really do this they would be billionaires running affiliate programs.

I for one don’t think SEO is expensive as long as it gets results. I’ve been running my company since 2001 and we are growing every year based on demand from referrals. If you can make more money for a client then their other advertising streams they will hire you. Once you do this several times you can start working 18 work days or charge $200 per hour and pick and choose the companies you want to work with. The reason SEO is becoming so expensive is because good internet marketing experts with proven track records are in high demand.