Outsourcing Companies spend $53.98 per click on paid search, which can be reduced to just $3.32 with SEO

Abstract:

This study examines search volume, cost-per-click (CPC), and keyword difficulty (KD) for transactional keywords related to customer care, HR, IT, software development, digital marketing, finance, and logistics outsourcing in the USA.

Additionally, I used practical examples of estimated web traffic of the top results to show how much web traffic they can expect by ranking organically on these transactional keywords and how beneficial it will be in lead generation.

The primary goal of this study is to analyze how much business process outsourcing companies spend on Google ads (SEM) for transactional keywords, how they can reduce advertisement costs, and how to acquire more customers with the same budget by organically ranking for those keywords (SEO).

Key points:

Here is the breakdown:

Introduction:

Businesses outsource due mostly due to tailore cost-effective solutions. Thus, to make the outsourcing industry more effective, there is a need to reduce client acquisition costs.

BPO businesses use cold outreach and ads to target clients, but both are expensive marketing strategies. Cold outreach costs may not be measurable by external businesses, but thanks to SEO tools, SEM spending can be estimated.

Thus, I researched SEM by analyzing keywords, search volume, CPC, KD, and estimated web traffic.

This provided a clear idea of how much they are spending on ads, the average CPC of the industry, and how this CPC for the same keywords can be reduced by employing SEO.

By analyzing these metrics, the study aims to provide insights into how outsourcing businesses can strategically reduce their Google Ads (SEM) expenses and enhance customer acquisition through effective organic ranking (SEO), thereby making informed decisions that balance their advertising budgets and lead generation efforts.

Methodology:

Data was gathered from keyword research tools (Semrush, Google Keyword Planner, Ahref, and Google trends) to determine metrics such as search volume, keywords, intent, ( cost-per-click) CPC, (keyword difficulty) KD, trend, and estimated organic traffic potential for a range of keywords in each outsourcing domain.

Keywords with intents classified as informational, transactional, and navigational were considered.

We neglected informational intent keywords and ignored keywords without any ad spending.

This approach enabled us to obtain accurate results regarding SEM spending on money keywords.

Averages were calculated for each metric to facilitate a comparative analysis across the sectors.

Results and Insights from the Research:

The following sections present the detailed findings from my research, including key metrics, analyses, and insights across various outsourcing domains.

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IT:

• Average Search Volume: 60
• Average CPC: $112.98
• Average KD: 31
• Estimated Organic Traffic (per page): 600
• Estimated SEO CPC: $3.33

Discussion:

Search Volume Analysis:

If we look at all outsourcing domains, IT has a higher search volume. Higher search volumes for IT keywords indicate significant demand and interest in these services.

Thus, companies in the IT sourcing sector should expect substantial organic traffic potential if they invest in SEO.

CPC Analysis:

Unfortunately, the average CPC is the highest for this domain. The high CPC for IT reflects competitive bidding, indicating that acquiring leads in this industry is highly costly with SEM.

Thus, there is a huge need to normalize the cost per lead in IT outsourcing by leveraging other cost-effective strategies.

Keyword Difficulty Analysis:

Despite high search volumes and CPCs, IT outsourcing keywords have a relatively lower KD, presenting opportunities for effective SEO.

The average KD in IT is 31, indicating it’s not highly competitive yet. A keyword with a 31% KD on Semrush indicates a moderately competitive term. Generally, for a keyword with 31% KD, you might expect to see progress toward the first page within 3 to 6 months, provided you follow best practices for SEO.

However, this is a rough estimate and can vary.

Estimated traffic:

The search volume of a keyword doesn’t necessarily reflect its traffic potential because different people use various variants and questions to find tailored solutions.

Therefore, I examined the estimated traffic of these keywords to provide a more accurate representation of their organic traffic potential.

For clarity, here’s an example for the IT domain.

Keyword: IT services outsource

The keyword has a 140 search volume with some decent KD.

But now let’s break it down to see a bigger picture.

Here are metrics from the Semrush database.

IT firms are paying $83.69 per click. But if we look at the organic traffic. It has a different story.

Even the top three results are getting over 2,000 organic visits without any ad spend. As the pages are attracting traffic from roughly 150 keyword variants, we can assume some of them might not be highly competitive. Let’s estimate the value at $50 per click.

2000x$50 = $100,000

It implies roughly $100,000 worth of traffic going to the top three pages organically.

As the high-quality traffic goes to the top 3 results, the conversion rate here is always maximum.

If you could rank in position 3 and get 600 organic traffic, its SEM cost is $30,000.

But now let’s see how much it takes to rank for these keywords.

If we analyze the SERP with different tools, we realize at least one website doesn’t have high authority and doesn’t have many backlinks.

Result #2 has low DR, and the number of backlinks pointing is pretty low. It makes me think that it should not take more than 8 months to secure one position in this image.

Let’s say, you avail of my B2B SEO services for your BPO company and you invested $1500/month.

Your total spend: $1500×8=$12000

Let’s say I created 40 SEO copies and landing pages on your website, targeting different stages of the funnel for three services.

It’s now, $4000 total cost per service page. But the traffic you get from all other supporting (37) pages is also valuable.

With a total of $4000 spent per transactional keyword, you get $30,000 worth of traffic each month. Thus, as the time passes, the SEO costs become cheaper and cheaper.

Additionally, as I emphasize brand building, you will benefit from enhanced reputation, branding, increased conversions, and thousands of potential customers from MOFU and TOFU keywords.

SEO CPC calculation:

Thus, if you consider the bigger picture and account for the few initial months when traffic may be low, SEO becomes 25.2 times cheaper.

The surprising part is that if you continue producing high-quality content and increasing brand value, the cost will be significantly lower in the following years.

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Customer Care:

• Average Search Volume: 10
• Average CPC: $42.48
• Average KD: 38.4
• Estimated Organic Traffic (per page): 500
• Estimated SEO CPC: $3.5

Discussion:

Search Volume Analysis:

The low search volume of 10/keyword indicates limited interest or demand for customer care keywords, suggesting that the potential audience is smaller, which may impact traffic potential.

CPC Analysis:

The CPC of $42.48 is moderate, indicating that while lead acquisition costs are not excessively high, they still represent a significant investment for customer care services.

Keyword Difficulty Analysis:

With an average KD of 38.4, customer care keywords face a relatively high level of competition. Achieving a top ranking may require a more aggressive and targeted SEO strategy.

Web traffic estimation:

The estimated organic web traffic you can attract in the customer service domain for each service page is 300. That makes it one of the cheapest client acquisition opportunities for call center and customer service BPO business.

For instance, let’s examine “customer care call center outsourcing”

Customer care business ad spending for this keyword is $41.44.

Now, let’s do some SERP analysis to see how hard is to target these keywords and rank on the first page (ideally top 3 results).

There is one 1 website with a low domain rating (DR), which has fewer backlinks securing the 3rd position. The estimated traffic is over 600.

In my experience, if I start working on your business to target this keyword, it shouldn’t take more than 8 months to attract these 600 clicks.

If we combine the outcomes, the CPC for SEO organic traffic to attract customer care or call centers for transactional keywords will be $3.50.

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Human Resource (HR):

• Average Search Volume: 15
• Average CPC: $52.90
• Average KD: 39.7
• Estimated traffic (per service page): 1000
• Estimated SEO CPC: $1.75

Discussion:

Search Volume Analysis:

The average search volume of transactional keywords for human resources is 15/keyword. But when we look at web organic traffic potential, I think most people use different variations of keywords that’s why it’s not reliable.

I see even more organic traffic potential for this domain.

CPC Analysis:

The high CPC of $52.90 reflects competitive bidding in the HR sector, indicating that acquiring leads can be expensive. Thus, if you are in the HR domain, it’s crucial to normalize these costs by targeting organic traffic.

Keyword Difficulty Analysis:

With a KD of 39.7, HR keywords are moderately competitive. Thus, it might take 6 to 9 months of effort to rank your service page for these high-intent, transactional keywords.

Organic traffic potential:

Let’s take an example of the keyword, outsourced hr recruiting.

We see that it has a low volume. But when we examine the web in real time, it has a different story.

The top results are attracting thousands of potential clients from hundreds of keyword variations.

And the surprising part is that companies with pretty low domain authority are ranking. So, we work on your recruiting company to rank for these high-intent keywords, it will be pretty easy to secure top positions.

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Software Development:

• Average Search Volume: 62.5
• Average CPC: $68.20
• Average KD: 40.6
• Estimated Traffic (per page): 2000
• CPC (SEO): $7.5

Discussion:

Search Volume Analysis:

The average search volume of 62.5/keyword shows substantial interest in software development keywords, pointing to strong demand and potential for high traffic.

CPC Analysis:

The CPC of $68.20 is relatively high, indicating that competition for leads in software development is intense and can be costly. Therefore, client acquisition from the United States for software development can be very costly and needs to be normalized with SEO.

Keyword Difficulty Analysis:

With a KD of 40.6, software development-related transactional keywords are comparatively competitive. Ranking well will likely require a robust SEO strategy and ongoing optimization efforts for around 12 months.

However, a tailored approach to targeting low-hanging fruit (low KD keywords) can make things easier and yield quick results.

Organic traffic potential:

To understand this domain, let’s take an example of the keyword “custom software outsourcing”. It’s a high-intent keyword with an expected high conversion rate.

Let’s analyze the SERP for this keyword.

The top websites have a decent domain rating. And the backlinks pointing to the top pages are also high. Thus, it will more resources to reach these positions.

But once you are here, the estimated traffic going to each company is around 2.5K. The third result is a review page that has low traffic, which means the keyword has very high intent, and the conversion must be high too.

It means that more companies are interested in outsourcing software development and once you acquire these, you are more likely to get over 2K traffic with a significant conversion rate.

The estimated cost for around 12 months could be around 15K to 20K.

The estimated CPC for SEO is $7.5. For the software development domain, SEO is approximately 9.09 times cheaper than PPC per click.

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Digital Marketing:

• Average Search Volume: 37.5
• Average CPC: $38.18
• Average KD: 26.2
• Estimated organic traffic: 700
• Average CPC (SEO): $2.6

Discussion:

Search Volume Analysis:

The search volume of 37.5/keyword indicates a moderate level of interest in digital marketing, suggesting a reasonable potential for generating traffic.

CPC Analysis:

The CPC of $38.18 is moderate compared to other domains. However, it still represents a significant investment for client acquisition in the context of digital marketing services. If we consider the average conversion rate that is 2.5%, one successful client cost is $1,527. That’s huge.

Keyword Difficulty Analysis:

With a KD of 26.2, digital marketing keywords can be easily targeted with SEO.

Estimated organic traffic:

Thousands of businesses search for digital marketing companies with clear intent. You can target all of them to acquire thousands of clients for your digital marketing services.

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Finance:

• Average Search Volume: 14
• Average CPC: $38.28
• Average KD: 28
• Average organic traffic (per page): 500
• Average CPC (SEO): $1.85

Discussion:

Search Volume Analysis:

The search volume of 14/keyword is relatively low, suggesting that the demand for finance-related keywords is modest. But as the keywords in this niche are high intent the conversion rate should be high.

CPC Analysis:

The CPC of $38.28 is moderate, but still, it’s a very high investment for lead generation.

Keyword Difficulty Analysis:

With a KD of 28, finance keywords face relatively low competition, presenting opportunities for effective SEO with tailored strategies.

Organic traffic potential:

If you niche down and use a tailored approach to target this niche with SEO, it has a huge potential to reduce paid search costs.

For instance, here is the estimated volume for high-intent keywords.

The KD is so low that it won’t take much effort to rank for these keywords. Therefore, the SEO input will be relatively low compared to many other domains.

The SERP analysis can give us an even better picture.

The result two an average domain rating and still it’s rated at position 2 with just 5 backlinks.

Thus, if we start working on your project to reach this destination, it may take 8 months almost to drive a decent amount of traffic.

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Logistics:

• Average Search Volume: 26
• Average CPC: $12.66
• Average KD: 25
• Estimated traffic (per page): 100
• Estimated CPC (SEO): $2.75

Discussion:

Search Volume Analysis:

As compared to other BPO services, the search volume of 26/keyword for logistics shows a moderate interest in logistics, suggesting a good potential for targeted traffic.

CPC Analysis:

The low CPC of $12.66 indicates that acquiring leads in the logistics sector is relatively inexpensive compared to other sectors.

Keyword Difficulty Analysis:

With a KD of 25, logistics keywords are less competitive, presenting a favorable opportunity for achieving high rankings with effective SEO practices.

Practically, it’s even easier to rank for these terms, but since it’s a local business, the estimated traffic in your targeted state can be lower.

Estimated web traffic:

Here is a rough estimate of the potential in this sector:

The average KD for all these terms is 9%. This implies that targeting any of these keywords won’t take much resources.

For instance, look at this result.

This website is getting around 500 clicks by using the Excat match domain (EMD). Even the top result has no backlinks.

But this also implies that you can’t expect huge organic traffic.

As logistics has a decent amount of revenue, thus targeting these potential customers will be worth the investment.

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Conclusion:

We can conclude that B2B SEO is the best strategy for outsourcing firms to reduce paid search costs. On average, SEO is 16.25x cheaper than SEM. Additionally, investing in SEO dramatically increases conversions by building brands. While results typically start appearing after six months, investing in B2B SEO is the wisest decision for long-term goals because it becomes more cost-effective over time.

The analysis also reveals that IT and software development outsourcing are highly competitive with high search volumes and CPCs. Logistics and finance outsourcing present lower SEO challenges due to their lower KDs. High-competition sectors should prepare for higher advertising costs, while less competitive sectors should leverage SEO strategies.