Can Small Businesses Afford SEO Services?
Tags: seo, beginners
Published: 2023-04-20 10:22:39

The pandemic has made a dent in the world economy and has affected a lot of businesses worldwide. As people stayed at home, buying habits began to change as well. 

E-commerce began to boom and those who didn’t invest in a good digital marketing campaign prior to the pandemic found themselves in a tight spot. 

According to reports, [online sales increased by $244 billion](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/04/ecommerce-sales-surged-during-pandemic.html) or 43% in 2020 alone. Those who benefited from this growth are either e-commerce giants, like Amazon and eBay, or businesses who had the foresight to build up their websites and invest in digital marketing.

## Can Small Businesses Afford SEO Services?

By now, there's no question that SEO services can be beneficial for small businesses. After all, optimizing your website for search engines can help your business attract more visitors, which can in turn lead to more customers and sales. 

However, the big question is: can small businesses afford SEO services?

The simple answer is yes. 

Even though it’s also true that SEO can get expensive depending on the size of the business and workload, you can outsource your SEO needs without breaking the bank in a number of ways.

So let’s talk about how much SEO costs for small businesses, what SEO services are, and how you can find a reputable SEO company to work with. 

Search engine optimization is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies. Although it is a science and follows a data-based process, each business requires a different approach and strategy. Therefore, SEO tasks that worked for one business may not work for another. It follows that SEO prices will differ depending on the size, goals and needs of your business.

## How Much Does SEO Cost?
Many factors affect the price of SEO services. This includes the SEO plan, keyword research, SEO company, services, size of the business, goals and more. 

This is why you’ll find different ways companies tend to price SEO. In general, SEO campaigns can cost between $1000 to $50,000 per month.
Pricing Models and SEO Prices
Hourly Rate
This pricing structure mostly applies to SEO consultants and freelancers. Some agencies apply this pricing model for projects that require very specific SEO work like SEO audits, keyword research and content creation.

Hourly rates may range from $150 to $300 per hour, depending on the requirements and coverage of the job. Highly skilled SEO experts may charge more for their services.
Project-based Pricing Model
A project-based structure is applicable when multiple activities are involved, but there’s no recurring work, which is typically the case with a monthly pricing model (more on this a bit later).

Project-based SEO prices can go as low as $500 to as high as $10,000 or more if the project requires more time and resources.

Pricing isn’t the same for all agencies and SEO companies. Those with more experience and reputation in the industry may charge in the tens of thousand.

Although some agencies charge more, their approaches may not be that different from agencies that charge less. So it’s best to do your research first before partnering with a company. 
Monthly SEO Pricing
SEO agencies that provide services to businesses that need to maintain their SEO campaigns provide this pricing model. This monthly structure can sometimes be  referred to as “[SEO packages](https://www.seoreseller.com/seo-packages).”

By subscribing to monthly SEO packages, you have total control over your marketing budget and have access to professionals who check your website and create your content every month.

Prices for SEO packages may range from $500 to $10,000 — depending on the SEO agency. Costs will also vary as agencies with more experience might price their service higher.
A la Carte Pricing
If you already know about SEO or need specific services, you can choose to pay for only the services that you need. 

For example, if you only need content or keyword research done and don’t need other services that are usually included in a package, like an SEO audit or link building, then go for this model.

Some of the common SEO services you can buy on their own are:

SEO Audit
Content creation
Citations
Keyword research
Site speed optimization
Backlink clean-up

## What are the Factors that Affect SEO Pricing?
SEO agencies, companies, freelancers and specialists offering different prices for their services isn’t something new. However, it’s important to know what affects SEO pricing because it’ll help you get the most out for your budget.

Website size. Different websites for different businesses need different optimization strategies. For example, a dental clinic with a website containing a dozen service pages will require e-commerce optimization and more time to build with its hundreds or thousands of pages. Whereas a freelance professional’s website may not need as much time, but may benefit from landing pages to generate leads.

Goals. Your goals will indicate the kind of services you need. Some businesses require basic site maintenance, and others demand more complex work that will require more resources, expertise and time.

Competition. The industry that you’re in, location and keywords will also play a critical part on SEO cost. The driving force of SEO are keywords and ranking them will depend on many things like your industry and competition.

Service structure. The service structure or model that you choose will also play a big part on how much you’ll spend. You will be basing your service model on your marketing plan. Your SEO consultant or account manager can help you decide what’s best for you.

Make sure to communicate your goals, needs and budget so that the campaign you’ll get will fit all those factors.

## Is Paying for SEO Worth It for Smaller Companies?
Absolutely. Most businesses are holding off on SEO because they’re not aware of its value, or don’t know how it works and how it can benefit a company. 

SEO is absolutely necessary to remain visible, relevant and competitive online. About 63% of all purchases now begin with an online search– even if that purchase ultimately leads to a braick and mortar store. 

By hiring an SEO agency, you’re basically taking on an entire marketing team, with the potential to drive significant ROI. Getting your online search and marketing done by  experts and professionals are an efficient way to scale up your marketing, without having to hire, develop, and retain the talent in-house. Compared to paying the salary of an SEO specialist in-house (currently pegged at about $33k a year on the lower end), the cost of an SEO agency will quickly be outweighed by the benefits they provide. 

## How to Choose a Reputable SEO Agency
Cheap SEO isn’t much better than no SEO at all. Although price will always be a determining factor to choosing the services you use, it doesn’t always get you the results you want.

Finding a full-service SEO agency is easy, but finding an experienced one requires a bit more research. Choosing the right SEO company for your business at a price point that fits your budget is even harder – but not impossible.

Here’s what to look for in an SEO agency:

Case studies, online reviews and references

First, do your research. Once you find an SEO agency, you want to check the reviews as well as their body of work. 

See what previous clients are saying or writing about them. Go further and look into their client’s websites. Note that some agencies might not display their client history because of privacy reasons so you can just reach out to the agency itself and ask about campaigns similar to yours, or if they have experience with clients in your industry.

Experience

You will know that an SEO agency is packed with experience if they can explain their processes in a manner that’s easy for a non-SEO to understand. 

Read about their processes and check the resources available on their website as this will show you that they know what they’re doing and that they’re transparent with what they do.

If you have further questions, you should be able to book a consultation and ask them yourself.

Never feel intimidated when asking questions. It’s normal for a business to know nothing about SEO. It’s the company’s job to explain what’s going to happen in a project and expand on details about the process so that you’re clear about what you’re getting or what progress has been made.

Compatibility

When selecting an SEO agency, a company’s experience, performance and knowledge trumps factors like location and price. 

Location isn’t really the main consideration when it comes to choosing an SEO agency because everything will be done online. When it comes to price, a good SEO agency will offer packages and pricing models for every business out there. So what really matters is partnering with an SEO company that knows what it’s doing and you feel comfortable working with.


A good SEO agency should be transparent. SEO isn’t magic and although it’s normal to set ranking and optimization targets, any company that guarantees results in sales and conversion is a company that you should probably stay away from.

Results
Ultimately, you want an SEO company that will get you results, preferably in the form of customers– whether they’re actual purchases, leads, or other business goals, it depends on what your business needs to generate more revenue. 

So make sure that the basis of every conversation with your SEO partners from the get-go is tied to tangible, business-impacting results. Don’t get drawn by terms like impressions and engagement– useful metrics for measuring brand awareness, or getting customers to notice you. 
You want to have a digital marketing strategy that covers every stage in your customers’ purchase process: to get customers to notice (awareness), find out more about what you offer (consideration), and eventually turn into a sale (decision). 

Make sure from the start that you and your agency set very clear goals about what you need to accomplish as a business and which SEO metrics will drive those goals. Basing your strategy on these goals and metrics is a good way to show the campaign’s progress (or lack thereof)  and keep everyone aligned on what expectations and outcomes you’re supposed to drive.
                                                                                                                                                                 

## SEO Tips to Help You Get Started
When it comes to looking for an SEO company to partner with, it helps that you know a bit about SEO yourself. 

Learning basic SEO tactics can help you understand strategies that companies may present to you. Knowing how to do them yourself can also help you improve your rankings and save money later on.

Of course, there are technical SEO techniques that require resources and coding skills. However, the tips below are easy enough to understand and implement.

Do keyword and competitor research
Keyword research is an important part of SEO. Some businesses do it a couple of times a week whereas some do it once a month. This is an important task that needs to be done repeatedly to stay competitive.

The keywords you choose must be relevant to your business and the topic of your content.

With various SEO tools, you can do the job much faster. 


Google also has its own keyword research tool called [Keyword Planner](https://ads.google.com/intl/en_ph/getstarted/). It’s made for paid advertising campaigns, so you’ll need to have a Google Ads account. After that, you can access the planner for free.

You can also use Google Trends to look for trending keywords. Hundreds of keyword research methods and tools are available at your fingertips, you just have to find the one that’s easiest for you to use and deliver the data you need.

Target low competition keywords

If you’re new to SEO and ranking your website, target low competition keywords. This will help you rank easier and faster even while you’re competing with big businesses that have been doing SEO for years.

For example, you’re in the shoe business and you would like to target the keyword “black shoes” and have it rank on Google. Sure enough, this will be a difficult challenge because there will be pages from Amazon or top companies, like Nike and Adidas, that will be dominating the top spot.

The best thing for you to do is to target long-tail keywords. These are keywords made up of 4 to 6 words. They are more specific and targeted. 

So instead of having a keyword that mainly targets “black shoes,” do “black leather shoes for women” instead. You can also add a location for it to be more specific. Google will understand this and your page will rank higher for these types of searches.
Write longer posts

Google loves new and fresh content. It likes longer and highly-informative content even more. The best blog posts are comprehensive, and cover all the information a user might have about a certain topic. 

Take your time creating your content and make sure that it’s educational, authoritative and trustworthy; that it follows the “[EAT principle](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2019/08/core-updates).”

So optimizing your posts aren’t just about making them longer. They should also deliver value for users.

It’s not enough to stuff words into the page. This is why Google developed its own search [quality guidelines](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf) so that content creators can understand how Google rates the content and what factors will make a page rank.

Choose keywords that your target audience is looking up

Another keyword tip is to use keywords that are based on your target audience’s actual search history. Target keywords that are semantically related to your chosen keywords and insert them strategically into your page.

Use internal and external links

Internal links are links that come from a page in your own website and are connected to another page inside your website. External links direct users to another website, one that’s reputable and useful. Both serve a valuable purpose to your SEO efforts.

Google uses links to help them crawl and evaluate a page’s reputation. Internal links keep people on your website, allowing them to find the information they need and providing them with a positive user experience. It’s a good signal to Google that your website is helpful, and therefore valuable.

External links from high-quality sites, on the other hand, may improve your website’s trustworthiness. They raise your credibility as a source of information, which is yet another indicator for Google to push you up on the search engine results pages.

Small businesses that want to dominate the digital space undoubtedly need SEO. SEO services are affordable and if you partner with the right SEO agency, the results could be lucrative.
SEO is a lot cheaper than other digital marketing strategies like paid search and social media ads. The best thing about investing in this digital marketing strategy is that it’s not only a solution that takes on current challenges. Done right, and you have a long-term strategy that may continue to bear positive results for years to come.