Whether your business involves retail, manufacturing, home remodeling, or e-commerce, search engine optimization is essential. It helps your target audience find your website and convince potential customers to choose your products. How much does SEO cost for your business needs?
How Much Does SEO Cost?
The average cost of SEO services depends on your marketing goals, the target audience, and the amount of work required.
Simple local SEO for small businesses costs at least $500 a month. Large e-commerce SEO campaigns usually cost north of $5,000 per month. The more online competition, the more effort is needed to meet search objectives.
What Is the Average Cost of SEO for Marketing Campaigns?
There are several ways your business can approach SEO services. Each type of SEO project offers different pricing options.
SEO Setup Fees
If this is your first experience with SEO — or it’s been a while — your website needs in-depth assistance to bring it up to speed. The SEO setup phase focuses on correcting mistakes and prepping your website for increased page visits. It can take several months to build a solid foundation of optimized content.
This stage of SEO is like a grand opening for brick-and-mortar stores. Everything needs to be just right to make a great first impression.
How much does SEO cost during the setup phase? Some professionals charge per hour;
the average SEO cost for experienced consultants is $100-$150 an hour.
Other SEO businesses charge per project. In this case, pricing varies significantly depending on the scope. Sometimes, this type of project requires as much work as building a brand-new website.
Monthly SEO Services
Once you have an excellent foundation for your SEO, the next step is to enhance various areas of your digital marketing. Monthly SEO packages usually start at $2,500+ a month and include many valuable services, such as:
- Keyword research
- Content creation
- Page optimization
- A/B testing
- Google Analytics
- Technica SEOl fixes
- Link acquisition and digital PR
Our team at Digital Neighbor works hard to meet your objectives every month and continually improve your SEO results. For example, we keep tabs on your Google Analytics data to see which keywords are performing best and which need some tweaks.
SEO Sprints
Like microchips, smartphones, and payment software, SEO is constantly evolving. Modern search ranking techniques can deliver results more quickly than ever before. SEO sprints are one of these state-of-the-art digital marketing trends.
SEO usually takes four to 12 months to see results. That’s how long it takes to consistently attract your target audience across a range of keywords and activities.
But what if you only need to rank for one key search term during a short time? With SEO sprints, you can hit page one of the search engines in a few weeks instead of months.
How much does SEO cost for this type of targeted marketing campaign? You can expect to pay about the same as monthly SEO services. The difference is that your marketing efforts go toward one specific objective instead of a complete SEO suite.
How Important Is Your SEO Budget?
When it comes to pricing, SEO is surprisingly simple to understand. The more you spend, the better your results:
- More clicks from search engines
- More visibility for your brand
- Higher page ranking for search terms
- Greater volume of website visits
- More leads
If Business A invests $3,000 a month on SEO and Business B has a $10,000 SEO budget, you can expect B to get roughly 200% of the clicks and web traffic. Why?
Put simply, Business B can focus on more keywords. That means more opportunities to rank and more chances to attract clicks.
Why Is SEO Worth the Cost for Small Businesses?
As a small business owner, you may be concerned about overhead costs, so you need to use your working capital wisely. SEO is a wise investment. Over 50% of all website visits come from web searches, so SEO is essential if you want to reach online customers.
Optimizing your website for searches provides real benefits:
- More website traffic
- Valuable leads with purchase intent
- More local customers for store
- Increased brand recognition and trust
All of these things help your small business bring in more revenue. You need to spend money (on SEO) to make money (from B2B leads and online clients).
How Can You Save Money on SEO?
By following SEO best practices with your online marketing, you can get more bang for your buck. That’s why working with digital marketing pros is always better in the long run. Here’s what to look for.
1. Start With the Basics
If you only have the budget for the basics, that’s OK. Start with SEO optimization for your website. As you start to see the results — and reap the sales benefits — you may be able to invest in monthly SEO, too.
2. Go for Long-Form Content Marketing
Long-form articles include product guides, how-to guides, in-depth blog posts with FAQs, and other helpful content. Longer content gives you many opportunities for keywords and grabs attention online. For example, a 1,500- to 2,000-word pillar piece can cover a topic with a full range of search terms.
3. Take Advantage of Internal Links
When considering how much SEO costs, keep in mind that each piece of content helps your website in multiple ways: bringing in clicks, answering questions, impressing visitors, and keeping readers engaged.
Internal links help you take full advantage of your content. When visitors click, they visit other pages on your website. The more time people spend browsing your content, the more likely they will make a purchase or contact you.
4. Focus on Your Target Audience
Instead of advertising to everyone, put your budget toward your primary audience. For many small businesses, this means focusing on local SEO services. Local SEO helps you attract the B2B or B2C customers in your area who will most likely buy your products.
5. Set Clear Goals
When driving, you can reach your destination faster if you have a map. The same principle can save you money on digital marketing. To achieve your objectives ASAP — valuable leads, e-commerce sales, etc. — you need a smart strategy and specific SEO objectives.
What About $99 a Month SEO “Deals?”
If you ask a business how much SEO costs and the answer is “$99,” stay far away. These businesses use gray-hat SEO techniques that promise to save you money but will end up costing you big time:
- Keyword stuffing
- AI
- Web page templates
- Do-it-yourself SEO
- Mass-produced articles
Low-quality content doesn’t do your company any favors online. In fact, these techniques can seriously hurt your SEO efforts. Google can penalize your website, which massively reduces your search visibility for a long time.
At best, these offers are a waste of money. At worst, they’re a scam that can come back to haunt you.
How Does Our Pricing Work?
We provide a wide range of foundational and monthly SEO services for companies of every size, from small businesses to legendary brand names.
Foundational SEO
When you partner with our SEO experts, we dedicate the first two months to foundational SEO, including:
- Website quality audit
- Technical SEO audit and fixes
- In-depth keyword research and on-page search optimization
- Google Analytics audit and implementation
- Complete Google Business Profile and local SEO setup
- Thorough content audit and strategy
- Competitor audit and keyword gap analysis
This phase focuses on intensive SEO repair and website development.
Monthly SEO Services
Our monthly SEO services cover a range of digital marketing and search optimization tasks:
- SEO technical monitoring and fixes
- Local SEO management
- Professional content creation
- Conversion Rate Optimization
- User Experience Improvement
- Digital PR
We customize our services depending on the goals you set for your SEO campaign.
Total SEO Cost for Your Business
How much does SEO cost when you do things the right way? Our premium SEO, website development, and content packages start at $3K. The total cost depends on your website and project objectives. Whatever your marketing budget, our services deliver maximum value for your investment.
Choose High-Quality and Affordable SEO
The most important thing to remember about the cost of SEO is that you get what you pay for. High-quality SEO costs more than cheap “deals,” but it delivers results you can measure: clicks, website visits, business leads, and revenue. When you work with SEO professionals, your entire online business benefits.
At Digital Neighbor, we provide cost-effective SEO solutions for national brands, local companies, and small businesses. How much does SEO cost for your business? Contact us for a custom consultation today.
