Affordable SEO is relative: what is considered affordable for a large company may be unaffordable for a small business. The goal, however, is the same: to optimize costs while supporting SEO performance.
How much does affordable SEO cost?
Hundreds of US-based marketing professionals shared their SEO costs with us and provided benchmarks for companies of various sizes that pay for one-time, monthly, or hourly SEO support. These rates provide a baseline for the cost of affordable SEO services.
Is SEO affordable for businesses today?
Yes, SEO is affordable, whether managed in-house or outsourced. However, making it affordable requires setting expectations with management, establishing a strategic budget, and periodically evaluating spending and performance.
What are the most affordable SEO services?
The most affordable SEO services often focus on the most effective SEO services. These services focus less on comprehensive solutions than on complementary solutions, such as:
SEO Audit
Average cost: $650 and up for a professional audit
Larger companies often opt for a professional SEO audit rather than a self-service audit through an SEO tool. Most professional audits include the option to implement changes, but at an additional cost.
SEO Consulting
Average cost: $100 and up per hour
SEO consultants can quickly become expensive. Therefore, it’s essential to set expectations (and boundaries) from the start. Focus on the areas that require the most skills or resources from the consultant; reserve the rest for your in-house team.
Technical SEO
Average cost: $100 and up per hour
Technical SEO is a common skill lacking among in-house marketing teams. A consultant or service can help businesses address technical SEO issues and make site-wide improvements to improve rankings and traffic.
Local SEO
Average cost: Over $400 per site per month
Local businesses will greatly benefit from local SEO support. While this can be achieved in-house, businesses with multiple locations often invest in affordable local SEO services.
Ecommerce SEO
Average cost: Over $750 per month
For ecommerce businesses, SEO is essential. With professional help, they can ensure their store and setup are aligned with best practices for crawling, indexing, and ranking key product pages.
SEO Content
Average cost: Over $50 per page
SEO content is essential for gaining visibility in search results. A professional service provider can deliver brand-relevant, SEO-optimized content when your business needs it. They can even update existing SEO content to improve your search rankings.
How to Create an Affordable SEO Budget
Affordable SEO exists, but it requires a more strategic budget approach. Here are our team’s tips, based on decades of experience as an SEO service provider:
1. Know Your Stakeholders
Before investing in SEO (or any other digital marketing strategy), it’s essential to understand management’s expectations for the next six to twelve months.
- The amount of your SEO investment;
- Where to invest your SEO budget?
- Evaluate the appropriateness of SEO for these goals.
Companies often make the mistake of excluding SEO because it requires three to six months of work before producing results. However, keep in mind that investing in SEO now will set you up for success when management sets more ambitious goals next year.
2. Audit Your SEO
You don’t need to be an SEO expert to complete this step. Free tools like Screaming Frog and SEO.com offer free, instant audits to check your site for SEO issues.
This step answers questions like:
- What are the priority issues?
- Are there any issues with our site that require software or services?
- How long, internally or externally, will it take to resolve these issues?
- Where are the opportunities, and what resources do these opportunities require?
- These questions help us begin to think about budget allocations.
In addition to these tools, use Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console to understand your site’s existing traffic.
Note: For more insights, consider a competitive analysis. Although not available in Screaming Frog, SEO.com offers competitive analysis on traffic, rankings, and more.
3. Determine Your Priorities
Your audit should provide a foundation for your SEO needs, such as:
- Troubleshooting technical SEO issues
- Creating a backlink profile
- Improving existing rankings
- And more
Evaluate the potential impact of these areas to determine your priorities. If your SEO knowledge is limited, consider hiring a professional audit. These audits should include recommendations for action based on their impact.
4. Budget Your Actions
Finally, allocate expenses to the selected actions. While some affordable SEO services require a six-month investment, others operate on a monthly or one-time basis, such as purchasing SEO content.
Keep in mind that spending too much on SEO can be detrimental to young businesses, especially if it doesn’t allow the campaign to reach full maturity.
You can always increase your budget as you grow, but you won’t be able to recoup the money invested.
If you spend large amounts of money on services that are outside your budget, you are taking a considerable risk. Company decision-makers, for example, could withdraw their support for SEO or take disciplinary action against your team.
5. Track Your Return on Investment
Return on investment is essential when using affordable SEO services.
With SEO, your business can achieve measurable results. You can see how your optimization efforts generated, for example, a sale, a lead, or traffic to your site. However, your company must have tools to track its performance.
Google Analytics is a (free) way to track your SEO results.
If your budget allows, your team can invest in additional tools to better understand the performance of your SEO strategy. You can even work with an affordable SEO agency that offers marketing technologies for this purpose.
Boost your business growth with affordable SEO services
With a 91% client retention rate, WebFX is a trusted choice for SMBs looking for affordable SEO services. Our team of over 500 digital marketing specialists delivers competitive, high-performing campaigns that can help your business increase revenue.
In the last five years alone, we’ve helped our clients generate over $10 billion in revenue.
Put your business on the path to growth by contacting us online today to learn more about our SEO services.
Conclusion: Making SEO Affordable and Effective
In SEO and digital marketing, “cheap” and “affordable” do not share the same meaning. SEO is not solely the product of cost-volume; rather, when managed both in-house and outsourced, a strategy works within audits, prioritization, budget, and performance tracking, turning SEO into a sustainable investment for companies of all sizes, no matter their scale.
Things like technical SEO, local SEO, content creation, and consulting are more affordable offerings in comparison to the actual value where businesses can experience growth without spending a fortune. While patience and months of waiting might be required to achieve goals, setting clear objectives paired with effective expectation management allows companies to create a strong online presence without straining their finances. SEO is budget-friendly and valuable, and this field is available to anyone with an interest in SEO.
A thoughtfully structured, analytical approach to cost-effective SEO should complement the overarching strategies of your organization. If sufficient attention and resources are dedicated, organizations will safely enhance their market presence and customer sales without risk to long-term growth.
