How much should we be paying for SEO?
Introduction
Most businesses now recognise the importance of investing in SEO (search engine optimisation).
After all, if a business isn’t online, and isn’t investing in white hat SEO, then you can bet that the businesses direct competitors may well will be.
So, by not investing a business may well be leaving the door wide open for a competitor to form a strong competitive advantage over their business.
Now that’s blooming obvious part out of the way! However, what’s less obvious is what a business should be paying every month for SEO.
And this is where things get mighty confusing for a lot of business owners. The reason things can get confusing is prices can vary massively between the various digital marketing agencies.
Also, some marketing agencies may try and pull the wool over a business owners’ eyes as to what represents a good deal. This means not using the best white hat seo methods, and instead cutting corners to save on costs.
Cutting corners when it comes to seo is a bad idea, the reason being is that a website can incur a penalty.
A Google Panda, or Google Penguin penalty can come from seo being implemented poorly. This can sometimes mean expensive bills in order to rectify and fix the SEO issues that have caused the penalty.
So, we had a bit of chat here with our marketing team, and we have come up with some words of advice for how much a business should expect to pay for SEO.
What should a business expect for less than £500.00 per month?
If you run a small business, and the competition within your business sector is low to medium, and you want to gain more sales within just one city, then a £500.00 pound per month budget is sometimes enough.
However, if you operate in a highly competitive business sector, such you own a solicitors practice or a high-end hairdressers for example, well these businesses will normally need more of a budget.
The reason for this is based on the level of competition, and your competitors may well be investing a lot into SEO. For example you may have a solicitors practice, that specialises in say employment law.
Well, those employment law solicitors may well spending thousands of pounds per month on SEO, so a new business with only say a £200.00 pound budget per month, well, often this will not cut the mustard!
What types of businesses pay £2000.00+ per month?
With a two thousand pound per month budget there’s more meat on the bone to conduct a strong marketing campaign.
This budget should be enough for most businesses that are investing in local seo. With that said, your more established larger marketing agencies may charge nearer to the £3000.00 per month for local seo.
Again if your business operates in a competitive business sector, let’s say you run an employment agency, well they may well be spending upwards of £2000.00 per month.
How much should a business pay for national SEO?
Now, national SEO is a totally different kettle of fish than local seo. The reason being is that at a national level, there will be so much more competition.
For example, let’s say you run a solicitor’s practice, and you specialise in divorce, well locally you may only have say 30 competitors. Yet, if you want to obtain customers from across the U.K because you have top solicitors working for you, well, you may well then have competition from over say a 1000+ businesses, so the cost of SEO will obviously correspond with the increased SEO that is needed.
Also, businesses will be competing with national high street names, or names that have simply massive marketing budgets.
With this is mind, you could pay anything from £3000.00+ per month, right through to £100,000.00 plus per month.
The difference between how much a business pays again will depend on the level of competition.
Car insurance for example is likely to be one of the most competitive business sectors there is, with businesses shelling out hundreds of thousands to be ranked high for keywords such as “cheap car insurance”.
How we can help
We can offer affordable high quality seo. If you would like to receive a no obligation quote, then why not give us a ring?