Although different in structure from brick-and-mortar companies, the principle of "spending money to make money" counts as much in the virtual business world as anywhere else. The amounts spent may differ, but will still need to be properly addressed in a solid SEO business plan. The big question is how to allocate a business budget in a way that will make your revenue grow.

1. Tools

A home-based start-up company does not need much more than a computer and an Internet connection. Depending on the type of business you are conducting you may also need other equipment, such as a phone, fax machine, printer, or postage scale.

2. Staff

It is every business owner’s dream to be successful and when that goal is in reach, you may need to hire staff or contractors. Paying yourself is easy, dealing with payroll and invoices, not so much. Accounting and administration take time away from important business transactions and do not generate revenue. For that reason, hiring an accountant would be a smart solution. Their familiarity with tax deductions can save you bundles of money and their fee can be included in next year’s expenses.

Hiring personnel entails more than wages and insurance. Your overhead will increase substantially, because employees need office space, equipment, training, travel, non-productive vacation days and whatever other benefits you want to offer. So, before hiring staff, carefully compare the possible revenue staff members can bring to the overall cost they generate. If the revenue numbers are favorable, start drafting job requests.

3. Marketing

Never rely on "Word of mouth" alone to get your business known. An integrated advertising campaign should include ads in trade papers, infomercials and other media approaches, as well as a detailed Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy.

Whatever promotion techniques you finally decide on, remember to keep checking the result of your efforts. Not all marketing venues may be right for you and you may be wasting valuable resources. In addition, balance your marketing budget and do not overextend it!

4. Marketing budget

Determining an appropriate budget level is vital to any great marketing strategy. In general, companies will assign advertising funds depending on their sales. They will take their total sales figures for a specific time period and allot a certain percentage of those numbers for their next publicity time slot. Coupled to the sales figures, advertising funding for each assigned period will then either increase, diminish, or remain stable.

One formula for retail businesses, as well as SEO, is to take 10 % and 12 % of the projected annual, gross sales and multiply each by the markup made on average transactions. Then deduct annual cost of occupancy or rent from the adjusted 10 % and 12% of sales numbers. The result represents the minimum and maximum acceptable ad budget for a year.

This particular formula is only a guide and it will be up to you to decide how much money and time you actually want to spend on your marketing and SEO. Important for you to remember is that advertising usually moves in tandem with sales.

Unfortunately, newly launched businesses won’t have any sales figures to work with and will have to project sales. They can try figuring out how much competitors are spending on advertising, or keep adjusting their marketing budget until they have real statistics.

5. Objectives

Planning detailed marketing strategies and budgets is crucial to any company success. Maintain realistic objectives and divide your goals into manageable sections. Smaller targets are easier to realize and will not overwhelm you, especially if you are an SEO novice.

Today’s economy is always in motion and every successful business owner or manager knows that staying informed about innovative SEO marketing possibilities is undoubtedly as valuable as any other aspect of doing business. Follow the changes and adapt. Just think about social networking services and websites, such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Use them to your advantage and before you know it your profits will be shooting through the roof!