When marketing pros sit down to craft a plan to meet their KPIs, the first thing they do is consider the channels they can leverage to achieve their goals. There was a time not long ago when only a tiny percentage of them would include search engine optimization (SEO) in the marketing mix.
An increasing number of businesses are adding SEO to their marketing plans. But many marketers get tripped up trying to budget for SEO because of the lack of transparency from SEO agencies about how much search engine optimization costs.
How To Budget for SEO
Unleash your true search potential by planning for SEO in your marketing budget. Download our free guide to learn how to budget for SEO.
There’s a lot of general information out there about how much you can expect to spend on SEO services. Some of it’s helpful, and to be honest, some of it isn’t.
At Victorious, we value transparency in our processes and our communication.
So I’m going to pull back the curtain on SEO costs and address some frequently asked questions about the general cost of SEO services.
How Much Does the Average SEO Project Cost?
It’s a fair question, and I hear it a lot. When someone asks me about the cost of an “SEO project,” it’s a tell-tale sign that they think of SEO as a discrete, one-and-done activity.
In truth, any SEO worth paying for is an ongoing process that involves constantly monitoring analytics, making proactive improvements, responding to changes in the competitive landscape, and keeping an eye on whether Google algorithm updates have impacted ranking.
(Fortunately, having good SEO practices in place means that algorithm updates usually positively impact search visibility.)
Is There a Standard Cost for SEO?
In a word, no. You’ll find a wide range of costs in the SEO industry. Most of the variations in how much you’ll pay for SEO boil down to these common factors:
- The SEO cost model.
- What specific SEO services are included (are you getting only on-page SEO with some content creation or a comprehensive strategy that includes link building and off-page SEO?).
- The urgency for results.
- The SEO company structure.
Examples of SEO Cost Models
There are as many ways to pay for SEO as there are SEO services providers. Generally, SEO cost models break down into these categories:
1. Hourly Consultation
You might choose to work with SEO professionals on an as-needed basis and pay for hourly SEO services. While this can look like a cost-effective road to paying for only what you need, it begs the question:
How do you know what you need?
Are you trusting hourly SEO consultants to prioritize SEO activities for you? How much communication is involved in developing a strategic approach to your visibility in search engines? How much does someone getting paid by the hour care about building a long-term SEO plan that will benefit your business for years to come?
2. Fixed Price Contract
Fixed SEO prices offer the opportunity to pay a set dollar amount for specific SEO services. For instance, you might pay for a site audit, 100 backlinks, or 10 pieces of search-optimized content. The SEO agency provides a “deliverable” in exchange for a predetermined amount of your marketing dollars. Much like an hourly rates consulting model, fixed-price contracts might seem like an attractive way to pay for only what you need.
However, a model of picking and choosing from a menu of SEO services presupposes that each search engine optimization activity has value in isolation and that the value of each corresponds directly to the price you pay for them.
More importantly, though, this type of piecemeal approach ignores an essential part of building an SEO campaign that benefits your business objectives — a strategy.
Without a unifying goal that drives each available SEO tactic to the same end, you wind up with nothing except a ticked-off checklist that serves no larger purpose. Plus, you fail to gain the value of ongoing SEO services.
3. Project-Based SEO Services
This SEO pricing model is similar to the fixed-price contract in that the customer pays a set price for a custom SEO “project.” Rather than picking services a la carte, like with the fixed SEO pricing model, the project you pay for might include several different SEO services.
For example, project-based SEO services might apply to a new site launch, which requires consultation about site structure, keyword research, and the creation of new content.
While project-based SEO prices allow more flexibility to address issues with a strategic mindset, the narrow scope of these arrangements limits the value SEO can bring to your bottom line. There’s a tremendous opportunity cost to treating a discrete SEO project as isolated from more significant visibility concerns.
4. Pay-for-Performance SEO Services
Pay-for-performance SEO, or performance-based SEO, is a payment model where customers only pay for SEO once they see results. Agencies that offer this type of pay-on-results SEO service typically focus on setting goals to improve rankings, organic traffic, or revenue. While this sounds great (especially for those who have been burned by SEO agencies in the past), there can be hidden risks to taking this approach.
When an SEO provider is focused solely on making quick gains to get paid, it will overlook essential SEO efforts that take longer to yield results and produce sustainable success. In the worst-case scenario, a results-based emphasis encourages shortcuts that might ultimately damage your brand reputation.
Learn more about pay-for-performance SEO.
5. Monthly Retainer
Monthly SEO services are usually part of a longer-term contract that’s focused on a larger objective. Specific tactics support an overall strategy designed to move the needle on specific business goals.
Retainer contracts can vary in length, but the longer the agreement, the more freedom SEO companies have to recommend sustainable-but-slower-burn, results-compounding tactics like investing in quality SEO content writing services to demonstrate authority in your field and establish trust with prospective customers.
What Does the Average Cost of SEO Services Include?
I love this question because it gets to the heart of what differentiates good SEO from bad. Since hourly, fixed, and project-based SEO pricing models are all specific to a one-and-done approach to SEO, I’ll discuss SEO services through the lens of a monthly retainer.
When you retain an SEO company for long-term SEO, they should include a clearly defined set of SEO services.
Depending your SEO goals, your SEO agency might lean more heavily on specific tactics. Still, all of these SEO services should be offered as options to improve your business’s visibility in search engines’ results.
| Discovery | Strategic Recommendations | Implementation | Ongoing | As Needed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strategic goal setting | Core campaign keyword themes | Content creation or content briefs | Regular site sweeps | Bad link disavowal |
| Competitive analysis | Content opportunities | Implementation of technical improvements | Monthly performance calls | Manual penalty fix |
| Content audit | Backlinking strategy | Placement of quality backlinks | Responsive support for industry changes or product launches | Site migration assistance |
| Technical site audit | Identified technical barriers to search visibility | >Continuous strategic consultation | Additional keyword research to expand organic footprint | |
| Keyword research | Conversion rate optimization | Enrichment of existing content | Robots.txt optimization | |
| Meta optimizations for core pages | Mapping keywords to points of conversion | XML sitemap creation and submission | ||
| Google Analytics setup and goal tracking | Keyword cannibalization / duplicate content audit | |||
| Anchor text research and analysis | Site architecture optimization | |||
| Redirect audit | Featured snippet optimization | |||
| Backlink audit | Schema review and implementation guidance | |||
| E-E-A-T Analysis | ||||
| Google My Business optimization | ||||
| Local citation audit | ||||
| Local SEO services |
The Urgency for Results Drives SEO Costs
Another essential factor in how much SEO can cost is the level of urgency for results and the investment you’re willing to make in the name of a quick lift.
Depending on the current challenges your business is facing, the amount of search optimization you’ve already done, and the competitive organic search landscape in your industry, it may be beneficial to invest more heavily in tactics that can drive results on a shorter timeline.
Let’s back up and dig deeper into the idea of “fast results.”
If Good SEO Takes Time, How Does Spending More Yield Faster Results?
I’m so glad you asked this question! If you’ve been paying attention to our oft-repeated mantra that good SEO takes time, you might be scratching your head, wondering why I’d cite speedy results as a cost factor for SEO.
It’s one hundred percent true that no one can (or should) promise overnight results from a campaign.
That being said…
…when you focus your resources on specific tactics, they can accelerate the accumulation of topical authority in your industry and shorten the timeline within which you hit metric milestones on the way to your goals.
We know these two things about Google:
- Google is a curiosity engine that exists to serve high-quality content that matches the search intent of its users.
- Google assesses both backlink quality and quantity as a signal of its value.
Spending more to create relevant content and secure backlinks from well-respected websites can help you build topical authority and earn top spots in Google search engine results pages (SERPs) more quickly than competitors that don’t make a similar investment.
The good news is, using sound SEO tactics to build authority is a strategy that pays dividends over time. That initial investment not only offers a quick lift but lasting results.
Tiered SEO Plans Can Meet Your SEO Needs
Different SEO companies might offer a specific SEO plan that’s tailored for how quickly your business needs to gain traction in organic search results. Some customers may have goals that necessitate a high spend in SEO, while others can hit their metric milestones with SEO packages that require a lower budgetary commitment.
SEO costs should flex to your needs and budget — to a certain extent.
SEO Costs vs. Results
A 2019 study conducted by Backlinko uncovered a direct correlation between the amount of money marketers invested in SEO and their level of satisfaction with service and results. This study has a limited data set (1,200 respondents) and focuses on small businesses, so the average SEO cost falls on the small side. Still, the trendline holds through to marketers spending several thousand dollars a month for their SEO services.
Why does increased spending on SEO lead to increased satisfaction? While you don’t always get what you pay for, there are economic realities within the SEO industry that make it impossible to deliver a high level of service and results below a minimum SEO cost per month.
If you come upon an SEO consultant who offers to “do your SEO” for $500, beware that there’s no way they can provide you the time and attention that delivers quality results for that amount of money.
The Cost of Cheap SEO
Inevitably, as you research SEO companies, there will be someone who promises to deliver the moon with rock-bottom SEO pricing. Don’t be tempted. Being pulled in by the promise of big results on a small budget will not only not help your search engine rankings but could destroy the credibility of your website and threaten your livelihood.
It’s a common tactic of unethical (or black hat) SEO providers to purchase spammy links for their clients to create quick wins in search results. The practice of placing links, whether purchased or otherwise, without regard to their value to users is a short-sighted SEO tactic that won’t lead to the same long-term gains and sacrifices the authority you could be gaining with high-quality link-building.
Read this cautionary tale about a customer who came to us on the brink of losing their business because of cheap SEO.
So, How Much Does SEO Cost?
SEO pricing for a campaign like the one outlined above usually costs $5-20k/month at Victorious.
What accounts for the broad range? The primary differences between these SEO packages are the number of backlinks sourced monthly, the amount of content needed, and the number of site pages the campaign is focused on.
Often, our customers who started with a smaller monthly budget are able to see the ROI after six months or so and invest an additional budget to get more backlinks and content and turn an additional spend into accelerated growth.
Why Commit To Spending on SEO in the Long-Term
I hope that laying out an entire campaign makes it clear why a long-term strategy works best for lasting SEO results. An SEO company that you’re paying on a project basis won’t be able to amortize the upfront SEO audit cost and investment in the people-hours it takes to do the research needed to create your SEO strategy.
Because we work on a 12-month cycle, we can front-load all that work to build a core strategy that will yield compound results for your marketing objectives.
Talk to an SEO Consultant
Although I’ve tried to pull back the curtain on how much SEO costs and what you should expect from your budget, no single SEO approach works for all businesses at every growth stage.
If you’re at a point where being found in organic search has become mission-critical, reach out to us, and let’s talk about how to get your business the attention it deserves.
