The question of how much SEO costs is not exactly one that has a definitive answer. However, there are many different factors to examine to determine the cost of SEO in Australia and how much you should be paying. It's worth investing in an SEO campaign, but you don't want to spend too much and dedicate all of your marketing budget to it. When you are trying to find the right SEO agency to help you improve SEO for your website, you should keep a few key things in mind. It's important to understand what an SEO campaign involves, as well as the different ways SEO experts charge for their services.
Quick Summary
How Much Does SEO Cost?
- An SEO campaign is an in-depth process that involves a number of important steps.
- 3 pricing models are available for SEO:
- Monthly Retainer
- SEO Audit
- Hourly Consultation
- Several factors affect the cost of SEO. These include
- The age of your website
- The quality of your website
- The industry you are in
- Your target market locations
- What your competitors are doing
- Any previous SEO work completed.
- Typical pricing points are:
- Local small business looking to rank in google Maps = $300-$500 per month.
- Small business offering services to a whole city or state = $500-$1500 per month.
- eCommerce shop selling goods to a National market = $1000-$1800 per month.
- Larger business marketing to an International market = $1500-$3000 per month.
What Is Involved in an SEO Campaign?
An SEO campaign is an in-depth process that involves a number of important steps. The first task that needs to be completed is establishing the types of keywords that should be used to bring more visitors to your website.
Keyword research requires finding out which keywords relating to your brand are popular, which ones have a lot of competition, and which ones will be easier to rank for in search engine results. Finding the right keywords involves getting a balance between substantial search volumes and competition. It's difficult to rank highly for a keyword with a high search volume and lots of competition. When choosing the best keywords, SEO experts will look for different types of keywords, including short-tail keywords, consisting of one or two words, or long-tail keywords, which are longer and more specific.
An audit of your website is the next step in an SEO campaign. The purpose of an SEO audit is to examine your website and where it is currently placed for the keywords that you want to rank for in search results. The audit presents a starting point, identifying the things that need to be improved to help your site get to where you want it to be. There are many issues that could prevent your website from performing as you want it to, from technical issues to not using the right keywords.
Next, changes are made to your website to ensure it follows Google's best-practise guidelines. Google sets out rules that it wants site owners to follow if they want their site to rank well in search results. If you want to learn about SEO, Google's Search Engine Optimisation Starter Guide can be a useful resource to read. Changes made to your site will help Google to find your content, and let the search engine know what your site is about, so it shows up in the right places.
It's also essential to optimise your branding and social accounts. SEO isn't just about what's on your website. Off-page SEO is also important, and this includes your social media accounts. Getting your brand consistent across your social media pages and other locations, such as online directories, helps to improve SEO for your site. Social media doesn't directly contribute to SEO, but it does indirectly have a positive effect.
Good SEO is ongoing, and this includes the sourcing and placement of backlinks to your website from third-party sites. Google takes links into account when deciding when and where to show your site in search results, and looks at both internal and external links. When it comes to external links, they need to come from quality sites. SEO professionals use a concept called "link juice" or "link equity" which is the value passed around between pages and sites. Quality links from other websites can provide more value for your site.
What Pricing Models Are Available for SEO?
SEO services can be offered with a few different pricing models. The options that you are likely to see include a monthly retainer, a one-off fee and hourly consultant rates. These all use different methods to determine what you pay and what you get for your money.
Monthly Retainer
A monthly retainer is the most common pricing model for SEO services in Australia. When you choose to pay someone on a monthly retainer, you receive all of the steps detailed above to improve the SEO on your site. It provides you with ongoing SEO services, keeping your website up to date by securing quality links, and more. When you pay a monthly retainer, you will be told exactly what you will be paying each month, as well as what you can expect to receive during that month. It makes things simple, keeping everything clear for both you and the SEO agency or consultant that you choose.
SEO Audit
A basic SEO audit covers just the website audit step of the process above, rather than a full SEO campaign. It might be an option that you want to choose if you are confident about making SEO changes to your website by yourself, but you're not sure where to start. The audit will incur a one-off fee and will give you guidelines on which actions you should take to improve your website SEO. An SEO audit is only really half the job if you want to boost SEO for your site. Once you have the audit report, you need to either get to work making changes to your site yourself, or you will have to pay again to get someone else to make the alterations.
Hourly Consultant Rates
Another pricing model possibility is hourly consultant rates. When you choose this option, your SEO expert will charge by the hour. You will know their hourly or daily rate upfront, but it might be difficult to determine the final cost of your project. The cost you pay per hour depends on what the SEO consultant thinks they're worth. This can start very low, but the less you pay, the lower the quality you receive will be. You could be paying tens of dollars per hour, but you could equally pay hundreds of dollars per hour if you're looking for the very best.
What Factors Affect the Cost of SEO?
Finally, the cost of SEO is not something that is the same for everyone. There are various factors that affect the cost of SEO, including the details of your website and even how your business works. Let's take a look at a few of the factors that can make a difference in how much you could pay for SEO services.
The Age of Your Website
How old is your website? You might pride yourself in having been online since the late '90s, but have you kept your website up to date? A website having an established presence can be helpful, but an out-of-date site can take a lot of work to update. If your site is brand-new or doesn't even exist yet, you could also have a lot of work to do to get established.
The Quality of Your Website
No matter how old or new your site is, the quality of your website will affect how much you pay for SEO. A modern, up-to-date, high-quality website might not need a lot of work, and so you might be able to save money on SEO. However, if your website is lacking in everything that's required to get Google to rank it well, it will take more time and effort to correct those problems.
Your Industry
You might not realise it, but the industry your business is in can affect the cost of SEO too. This is because some industries and keywords can be more difficult to rank for. Take the fashion industry, for example. Getting your website to rank for many of the popular fashion terms can be difficult because there are so many big fashion brands out there. It takes expert skills and knowledge to identify the right keywords and apply the right changes.
Local, National or International SEO?
When you work on an SEO campaign, you might be targeting customers at a local, national or international level. Local SEO is often used for local businesses, such as those with brick-and-mortar locations, that rely on customers within a certain physical distance. You might also target national customers, whether because your business has several locations or you operate online. International SEO targets several countries, and might even require SEO in different languages.
Your Competitors
Every business has competitors, even if they are not offering the exact same product or service. Your competitors need to be taken into account when calculating prices for SEO. If you have a lot of competitors, this will affect how difficult it is for you to rank for your chosen keywords. It's also important to consider what your competitors are doing. The keywords they are using, for example, make a difference to the SEO approach that your campaign needs to take.
Previous SEO Work - and Its Quality
If you have had any SEO work previously carried out for your website, this can change how a new SEO consultant approaches your SEO. In addition to whether you have already had SEO work on your site, the quality of that work is also important. If it was poor, it will take more work for your new SEO expert to correct it for you.
A variety of factors affect how much SEO costs in Australia. The best thing to do if you want to know how much you might pay is to get in touch with an SEO agency that you like to ask them about their pricing.
Examples of SEO Costs
At Evolve SEO Agency we have been working with various sized clients, in a variety of industries for a number of years. Therefore, we are well placed to show you some examples of SEO costs.
In the video below I show you specific clients, and how much they pay. I encourage you to watch the video.
To give you a better idea of SEO costs, my clients pay in the range of $300 to $2800 per month.
Pricing Points
Here are what we would charge you if you had an aged, well-designed website, without and previous bad SEO work:
- Local business (florist, landscaper, glazier etc) looking to rank in google Maps =
$300-$500 per month.
- Small business offering services to a whole city or state = $500-$1500 per month.
- eCommerce shop selling goods to a National market = $1000-$1800 per month.
- Larger business marketing to an International market = $1500-$3000 per month.
ROI
The important part of SEO cost is not actually the cost. It is whether you make a positive ROI on the expenditure, and how that compares to other marketing methods.
If you spend $800 per month on SEO, and that brings you $2000 per month in profit, then its a no-brainer. However, if you spend $800 per month and the profit is only $1000 per month (or less), then there may be better options for you.
So, Is SEO Worth It?
In most cases SEO will give you a positive ROI. Some industries are notoriously hard to get good results from, and other marketing methods are better.
SEO is a medium-long term marketing method. You need to have patience, and work with a trusted agency who is keen to help you grow!