If you are shopping for SEO services on a serious budget, there are some pitfalls you need to watch out for. It's one thing to realize that the finances of your business are such that you can't spend great amounts. I am the first to support the idea of fiscal conservatism. You need to run your business with prudence. This spills over into purchasing decisions as they are, behind payroll, likely to be a major expense on your P&L.
But SEO services are like many other things in life. You really get what you pay for. The pitfall here is that many people shop for SEO services with a Volkswagen budget, but Cadillac expectations. Any way you slice this, it ends poorly.
I know there are certain purchasers who believe that they can simply always find a better deal. I've been accused of that myself. This is probably the mindset of those looking for cheap SEO. But at some point every Internet business owner realizes that the guy on the other end of the deal is just like them. That is, they are running a business too. The team selling the SEO services has the same profit requirements as the person buying search engine optimization. Once you get this point, things start to come into focus.
Specifically, if you are searching for affordable SEO services, but expect full service, you need to realize it just does not exist. If it does, there are two likely realities:
1) The SEO company selling you the service will not be around very long because they are buying market share by under pricing their services.
2) The cheap SEO firm has not been honest about what search engine optimization services they will really deliver to you.
As I said, both stories end poorly. In other words, you really can't cheat the system. Am I saying not to buy low cost SEO services? No. In fact, cheap SEO might be a great product for many businesses on a tight budget. Just realize that when you do, the results will come slower and you will not have the customer service you could have with a full service search optimization plan.