Interview a few internet marketing companies and hire a company that best aligns with your expectations and needs. If you are grossing $500,000 to $1M annually (I suspect a lot of us with small commercial and electric shops are in that range), $2500 to $4000/month is realistic (that amounts to between 20 – 30 hours/month for a competent professional company, which is the only kind you want. They will have experts on web site development and maintenance (front and back end), SEO, back-linking (incredibly important), PPC, analytics, social media, and a host of other issues you are probably not even aware of.
Buying SEO for Dummies and trying to do it yourself is a fools errand (unless you are just a small shop with a few employees and have low expectations).
If you are running a $1M company, your time is probably worth at least $150.00+ an hour (the value of your contribution to the company). If you spend 10 hours a week messing with stuff you really have no expertise in, not only will that cost your company $6k/month (lost opportunity cost), but the results will likely be sub-optimal. Do what you do best (run your company) and let people with experience and expertise in internet marketing do what they do best!
