How Much Does SEO Cost for Small Businesses?
First Published April 1, 2023. Revised September 20, 2023.
For many, when considering the seo cost for small businesses, the real question comes down to:“Is there room in the budget?”
I’m on the board of a nonprofit, and anytime someone has an idea, the Board’s reply, inevitably, is, “Is there room in the budget?” We’d approve almost anything if there were money for it.
It's sometimes a bad habit of a scarcity mindset, that we need to cut back to survive.
But knowing the dollar value of your activities is also the sign of a responsible business owner.
Our duty as small business owners and stewards of donor funds means we always have to look at the bottom line. We make sure our employees are compensated and our bills are paid. Anything else we can invest back into the organization.
But as the adage goes, you have to spend money to make money. Every marketing channel has a return on investment (ROI), but you still have to find the right price point and avenue for you.
So how about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
An effective SEO campaign is an excellent way to grab people when they need you with content that’s useful and interesting, but how much does SEO cost for small businesses?
There are different ways to calculate your SEO investment, for example understanding the conversion rate from SEO efforts to pinpoint your exact SEO ROI.
Those numbers will vary a lot by your industry and your customer lifetime value. One new lead may be equal to 20 at another company.
So when it comes to SEO strategy, you do get what you pay for.
But if we want a simple bottom line number, there are several ways to consider SEO prices.
Let’s look at different ways to meet this goal…
I’m on the board of a nonprofit, and anytime someone has an idea, the Board’s reply, inevitably, is, “Is there room in the budget?” We’d approve almost anything if there were money for it.
It's sometimes a bad habit of a scarcity mindset, that we need to cut back to survive.
But knowing the dollar value of your activities is also the sign of a responsible business owner.
Our duty as small business owners and stewards of donor funds means we always have to look at the bottom line. We make sure our employees are compensated and our bills are paid. Anything else we can invest back into the organization.
But as the adage goes, you have to spend money to make money. Every marketing channel has a return on investment (ROI), but you still have to find the right price point and avenue for you.
So how about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
An effective SEO campaign is an excellent way to grab people when they need you with content that’s useful and interesting, but how much does SEO cost for small businesses?
There are different ways to calculate your SEO investment, for example understanding the conversion rate from SEO efforts to pinpoint your exact SEO ROI.
Those numbers will vary a lot by your industry and your customer lifetime value. One new lead may be equal to 20 at another company.
So when it comes to SEO strategy, you do get what you pay for.
But if we want a simple bottom line number, there are several ways to consider SEO prices.
Let’s look at different ways to meet this goal…
In-house Writers: The Internal SEO Cost for Small Businesses
First of all, you could hire a full-time employee who has, for at least one duty, optimization of the website. Ideally they could handle your marketing strategy and content overall.
A competitive salary for your location can run around $70,000 per year according the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
It can range, depending upon location and exact role, but let’s use $70k as the starting figure. There’s also the benefits appropriate to the position, which may be included in the salary figure or as additional costs.
The benefit for you is that you get someone invested fully in the company. They'll want to keep the customer acquisition cost low. They aren’t balancing other clients and responsibilities. Your employee can and should be focused on making your business shine in all writing.
However, do you know what an effective performance indicator is? Do you know how to hire and onboard an internal SEO provider, or will the duties of content marketing soon become lumped into other 'day-to-day' business?
A competitive salary for your location can run around $70,000 per year according the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
It can range, depending upon location and exact role, but let’s use $70k as the starting figure. There’s also the benefits appropriate to the position, which may be included in the salary figure or as additional costs.
The benefit for you is that you get someone invested fully in the company. They'll want to keep the customer acquisition cost low. They aren’t balancing other clients and responsibilities. Your employee can and should be focused on making your business shine in all writing.
However, do you know what an effective performance indicator is? Do you know how to hire and onboard an internal SEO provider, or will the duties of content marketing soon become lumped into other 'day-to-day' business?
DIY: Is Your Time Worth More than the SEO Cost for Small Businesses?
If your small business can’t afford more staff, you can always “Do It Yourself” – which usually means the owner bearing the burden. (Another hat for you!)
But there are some advantages.
The DIY model allows you to fine-tune your voice and target audience so that – if and when you decide to hand over the work – you can quickly explain what you need. You’ll get enough comfort with content marketing that you don’t blindly follow bad advice.
The expenses, fiscally speaking, will be low – only paying for the tech needed, such as website hosting. That means the marketing ROI is unlimited.
But you’ll also have to do research into best practice. You'll have to figure out Google Analytics to see if your keyword research and conversion rate optimization have been effective at increasing search traffic. The hours of research and content development can be a significant SEO investment. You have to decide what your time is worth, and what it’s best spent doing.
Are you missing chances to close more business spending hours doing SEO? Are you naturally tech savvy or do you sink hours understanding one SEO tool?
Put a dollar sign to that opportunity and know your own worth.
But there are some advantages.
The DIY model allows you to fine-tune your voice and target audience so that – if and when you decide to hand over the work – you can quickly explain what you need. You’ll get enough comfort with content marketing that you don’t blindly follow bad advice.
The expenses, fiscally speaking, will be low – only paying for the tech needed, such as website hosting. That means the marketing ROI is unlimited.
But you’ll also have to do research into best practice. You'll have to figure out Google Analytics to see if your keyword research and conversion rate optimization have been effective at increasing search traffic. The hours of research and content development can be a significant SEO investment. You have to decide what your time is worth, and what it’s best spent doing.
Are you missing chances to close more business spending hours doing SEO? Are you naturally tech savvy or do you sink hours understanding one SEO tool?
Put a dollar sign to that opportunity and know your own worth.
Marketing Agency: A Reliable SEO Cost for Small Businesses
A third option for businesses is to hire an SEO agency or even a full service digital marketing provider. In this case, we're discussing agencies with a full marketing team. Even within the agency model, there’s a broad range of styles, but in general, you’ll pay them to handle the SEO. They use their staff to do great work.
Agencies are perhaps the most cost-effective choice, but that doesn’t mean they’re cheap. Forbes recently reported on the 10 Best SEO Services, and many agencies are not transparent on their SEO prices.
Of the 3 which show a monthly cost, the annual SEO package can range between $3600 - $60000.
That price for SEO agency is lower than the average for an in-house writer, but talk about variety of scale!
The 7 companies that didn’t list prices are likely more expensive -- and, of course, if you're at the level of enterprise SEO, it could be $60k per month for SEO service.
But agencies – as larger businesses – are easier to research for their earlier SEO work, verify, and ask for conversion tracking metrics.
You should naturally beware companies that offer an SEO service -- especially ones with very low SEO prices -- but don't seem legitimate. We know businesses who have gotten burned by SEO experts who had underhanded link building practices to get good traffic on search engine result pages.
But Google knows, and one day, it will affect your keyword rankings.
You can expect a certain level of visibility from an SEO agency that you might not be able to find when hiring an employee, a freelancer, or a smaller agency. Your candidate might not have a website, and that’s normal. But an SEO company with a full team should.
Plus, a team has the advantage of many eyes improving the overall message and strategy of your SEO project.
Agencies are perhaps the most cost-effective choice, but that doesn’t mean they’re cheap. Forbes recently reported on the 10 Best SEO Services, and many agencies are not transparent on their SEO prices.
Of the 3 which show a monthly cost, the annual SEO package can range between $3600 - $60000.
That price for SEO agency is lower than the average for an in-house writer, but talk about variety of scale!
The 7 companies that didn’t list prices are likely more expensive -- and, of course, if you're at the level of enterprise SEO, it could be $60k per month for SEO service.
But agencies – as larger businesses – are easier to research for their earlier SEO work, verify, and ask for conversion tracking metrics.
You should naturally beware companies that offer an SEO service -- especially ones with very low SEO prices -- but don't seem legitimate. We know businesses who have gotten burned by SEO experts who had underhanded link building practices to get good traffic on search engine result pages.
But Google knows, and one day, it will affect your keyword rankings.
You can expect a certain level of visibility from an SEO agency that you might not be able to find when hiring an employee, a freelancer, or a smaller agency. Your candidate might not have a website, and that’s normal. But an SEO company with a full team should.
Plus, a team has the advantage of many eyes improving the overall message and strategy of your SEO project.
Freelance Consultant or Small Agency: Agency SEO Cost for Small Businesses Meets Employee Attitude
If you hire a freelance consultant or small agency, you’ll get the perks of big agencies – outsourcing the SEO plan with varied pricing to meet your SEO budget – with some of the perks of having someone in house – you get to talk to the SEO professional instead of working with someone at an agency who is a liaison between you and the SEO specialist.
A small shop will give your business goals personalized attention as the actual SEO expert.
But it is even more ‘you get what you pay for.’ Large agencies may be hard to verify at times, but a small SEO firm even more so.
Upwork? LinkedIn? Job boards? How do you know where to find people? What’s a reasonable cost?
The 2024 State of SEO report by Search Engine Journal reported that the majority of businesses spend more than $1,000 per month on their SEO budget, with the most common range between $1,001-$5,000.
So the largest group of businesses are spending $12,000 - $60,000 per year on SEO.
An industry report by Ahrefs found that most SEO experts charge around $100/hour or between $501-$1000 for monthly retainer packages, so between $6,000-$12,000 annually.
But the price per project on average was between $2501-$5000.
You can reasonably expect to hire an SEO consultant as a monthly retainer and also to complete several larger projects.
If you are an average business, you should expect an SEO service provider to cost several thousand a month, no matter who you work with.
Before you begin a project, you should have a one-on-one call with any freelancer (or agency!). Be comfortable with them, make sure they understand your business, be clear on what SEO needs they will handle, and decide on a (paid!) arrangement that works for both of you.
A small shop will give your business goals personalized attention as the actual SEO expert.
But it is even more ‘you get what you pay for.’ Large agencies may be hard to verify at times, but a small SEO firm even more so.
Upwork? LinkedIn? Job boards? How do you know where to find people? What’s a reasonable cost?
The 2024 State of SEO report by Search Engine Journal reported that the majority of businesses spend more than $1,000 per month on their SEO budget, with the most common range between $1,001-$5,000.
So the largest group of businesses are spending $12,000 - $60,000 per year on SEO.
An industry report by Ahrefs found that most SEO experts charge around $100/hour or between $501-$1000 for monthly retainer packages, so between $6,000-$12,000 annually.
But the price per project on average was between $2501-$5000.
You can reasonably expect to hire an SEO consultant as a monthly retainer and also to complete several larger projects.
If you are an average business, you should expect an SEO service provider to cost several thousand a month, no matter who you work with.
Before you begin a project, you should have a one-on-one call with any freelancer (or agency!). Be comfortable with them, make sure they understand your business, be clear on what SEO needs they will handle, and decide on a (paid!) arrangement that works for both of you.
Make Room for an SEO Cost for Small Businesses in Your Budget
You and your stakeholders have to make the final call on what your marketing budget is and what price model works best for your company.
Do you want to do it yourselves? Do you want it done for you? Do you want to hire a fleet of freelancers with individual duties?
The most important orientation for your marketing plan isn't which path you choose but your goal. No goal, no goal completion, no matter who you hire.
SEO is going to continue to be a major part of how customers find new businesses. Search volume is only going to go up.
The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll see results.
I can help you strategize about your small business SEO and website conversion. I have been certified in Google Analytics 4 and offer a complementary call to analyze where you are and where you want to be.
Do you want to do it yourselves? Do you want it done for you? Do you want to hire a fleet of freelancers with individual duties?
The most important orientation for your marketing plan isn't which path you choose but your goal. No goal, no goal completion, no matter who you hire.
SEO is going to continue to be a major part of how customers find new businesses. Search volume is only going to go up.
The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll see results.
I can help you strategize about your small business SEO and website conversion. I have been certified in Google Analytics 4 and offer a complementary call to analyze where you are and where you want to be.
Interested in more? Subscribe to my newsletter with the form below for monthly strategic tips and special announcements.