Category: SEO Management
“How much will it cost?” is usually the first thing a business owner wants to know about search engine optimisation (SEO), and it’s a fair question. Unfortunately, the honest answer starts with “it depends”, which isn’t much use when you’re trying to set a budget for the year.
So rather than leave it there, this post explains what it depends on. By the end you should have a good idea of what drives the price, what a monthly fee ought to include, and how to spot a package that looks cheap but isn’t.
Why SEO prices vary so much
If you ask three agencies for a quote you may well get three very different figures. Some of that is down to how each agency works, but most of it comes from four things about your business.
The first is how much competition you have. A tiler in Downton is competing with a handful of other tilers for searches in a fairly small area. A solicitor or an estate agent in Salisbury is up against a lot more businesses, some of them with big marketing budgets, for searches that are worth a lot of money. The more competitive your market, the more work it takes to move up, and the more it costs.
The second is where you’re starting from. A business with a well-built website, a complete Google Business Profile and a few years of good reviews is in a very different position to one with an old site that Google can barely read. If there’s a lot of catching up to do, the first few months will cost more.
The third is how far you want to reach. Being found in Salisbury itself is one job. Being found across Salisbury, Amesbury, Wilton, Downton and the villages in between is a bigger one, because each area needs its own attention.
The fourth is how much you can do yourself. Some business owners are happy to write content, take photos and ask customers for reviews. Others want everything handled for them. Neither is wrong, but it makes a big difference to the cost.
What a monthly fee should actually cover
Most SEO for small businesses is sold as a monthly retainer, and that makes sense, because SEO isn’t something you do once. Google keeps changing, your competitors keep working, and your website needs looking after.
Whoever you work with, you should be clear about what you’re getting each month. Good SEO for a local business usually starts with an audit of your website, looking at the content, the technical set-up, the links pointing to it and what your competitors are doing. After that, the ongoing work tends to cover improving the pages that matter most, keeping your Google Business Profile in good shape, building your reputation online, and fixing technical problems before they cause trouble.
At Spire Digital, SEO starts with exactly that kind of audit, covering your content, metadata, backlinks, keyword research and competitors. After that you get a dedicated account manager, regular meetings and a monthly report covering your rankings, conversions, link risk profile and a review of your XML sitemap. You can read more on our SEO page.
The report matters more than people think. If you’re paying every month, you should be able to see what was done and what difference it made, explained in plain English.
What a cheap package usually leaves out
You’ll almost certainly come across SEO offered for a very low monthly fee, often by someone who has emailed you out of the blue. Some of these are genuine starter packages. Many aren’t.
The warning signs are usually the same. The package promises a set number of “backlinks” every month, often from websites that have nothing to do with your business or your area. That kind of link building can do more harm than good, because Google is very good at spotting links that have been paid for, and it can push your website down rather than up.
Another warning sign is a promise of the top spot on Google. Nobody can guarantee that, and Google itself warns business owners to be wary of anyone who does. A third is a lack of reporting, or reports full of figures that don’t connect to anything you care about, such as calls, enquiries or sales.
It’s also worth asking who owns the work. If you stop paying, do you keep the content that was written for your website and the changes that were made to it? You should.
Is it worth it?
That depends on what a new customer is worth to you, and how many of your customers find businesses like yours through Google. For most local service businesses, the answer to the second question is a lot of them.
A fair comparison is SEO against the other ways you could spend the same money, such as Google Ads, local print or social media advertising. Each has its place. The difference with SEO is that the results build up over time and don’t stop the moment you stop paying, which is very different to advertising.
What SEO won’t do is work overnight. For most local businesses it takes a few months before the results really start to show, so it suits businesses that are planning ahead rather than ones that need the phone to ring next week. If that’s your situation, Google Ads may be a better place to start, and the two work well together.
Questions to ask before you sign anything
Before you agree to anything, ask what the first three months will involve and what you should expect to see at the end of them. Ask how they’ll report back, and how often you’ll talk. Ask how long the contract runs and what happens if you want to stop. And ask what they’ll need from you, because the best results usually come when the business and the agency work on it together.
A good agency won’t mind any of these questions. If the answers are vague, that tells you something.
Getting a quote that makes sense
The only way to get a proper figure for your business is to talk to someone who has looked at your website, your competitors and the area you want to cover. Be wary of anyone who gives you a price without doing that.
If you’d like a straight answer about what SEO would involve for your business, the friendly, experienced team at Spire Digital help businesses in Salisbury and the surrounding area with search engine optimisation (SEO). Give us a call on 01722 320 500 and we’ll talk you through it, with no pressure and no jargon.