Scaremongers may tell you that SEO investment requires big investment to get real results.
And while it’s true that greater investment can have a higher yield, it’s still possible to give your business a boost on a budget.
There is a stark difference between affordable SEO and cheap SEO. The latter hits you with the invoice later when you’re cleaning up the work of the cowboys. But the former starts by going back to basics, fixing what’s broken before trying to build anything new.
How much does SEO cost in the UK?
Affordability may vary between budgets, but many small businesses start out by investing between £500 and £2,500 into their SEO efforts.
What that includes will also vary depending on who you’re working with. Most agencies usually charge by the hour, which means a more restricted budget will limit the amount of time your specialists can spend on your account.
That said, a good specialist knows how to prioritise. Here is a rough guide of what to expect from your budget:
| Monthly budget | What it includes (and doesn’t) |
|---|---|
| Under £500 | Low commitment. Covers the basics, such as your Google Business Profile and some basic SEO hygiene, followed by some content work and citations, usually rotating service deliverables to stay within budget. Limited time means progress on competitive terms may be slow. |
| £500 to £1,000 | Specialist hours spent on technical fixes and your key pages. Leaves limited scope for regular content, link building and other strategy components. Again, the agency will likely need to rotate the services it can deliver each month to meet the budget. |
| £1,000 to £2,500 | Technical work, on-page optimisation and regular content, with potentially some scope for digital PR and link building. Within this range, there’s much more room to work on multiple deliverables, such as content and link building, in parallel. This means faster delivery and quicker results. |
| £2,500+ | Enough capacity to explore a range of SEO strategies at full pace. More can be delivered in parallel, and more subjects can be optimised for Google and AI visibility at the same time. A bigger monthly outlay should come with crystal-clear reporting from your agency demonstrating value for money. |
What’s the difference between cheap vs affordable SEO?
You’ve probably heard the expression, “buy cheap, buy twice.”
Cheap SEO is designed to win a sale, and once that’s secured, its peddlers don’t care about getting results. They’ll promise the world before bringing in the cowboys. Services may well be off shored or even onshored to an inexperienced team that is less knowledgeable, error prone, and less efficient, often taking short cuts and resorting to cheap methods such as spammy backlinks. Such works often worsen your SEO and can lead to Google penalties.
On the other hand, affordable SEO is designed to meet your site’s needs as well as your budget. They’ll set realistic expectations about what can be achieved within your budget, while striving to get the best results within those constraints. The agency would work on fewer words or subjects at any one time and may have to ration the work delivered each month to one deliverable or one discipline
Here are just a few red flags to look out for:
Guarantees
Google’s own guidance says that no one can guarantee you a number one spot – and certainly not within a matter of weeks. A good SEO agency will give you realistic expectations, and identify low hanging fruit (aka, low-competition, high demand opportunities) to expedite results without cutting corners.
Links
Bulk link packages are a common offering of less trustworthy agencies – hundreds of links offered at a bargain price that seems too good to turn down. But in reality, they will quickly get your site flagged as spam and penalised. A good agency will invest more money in fewer links of higher quality, with target audiences that match your own, to grow both trust signals and traffic.
Reporting
Cheap providers are often hesitant to share insights on their activities and your results. A good agency is one with transparent reporting – they have something to show for their work, and aren’t afraid of a client who asks questions and wants a clear picture of what they’re paying for and why. They’ll explain how things work, and explore beyond rankings to track the metrics that show how your site is really doing.
Who does the work
Cheap SEO agencies often have a revolving door of amateurs, who tend to be inexperienced. A good agency will introduce you to the individuals taking care of your business, so you have a point of contact who understands what you do and truly cares.
SEO on a budget: what should you prioritise?
As a good rule of thumb, your initial SEO campaign should look to fix those things which are damaging your ranking prospects before attempting to target any new areas.
Your priority list might look something like this:
Crawling and indexing problems
If Google can’t find your page, it can’t index it. That means potential customers searching for your page won’t be able to find it either. The first step is to make sure your web pages are indexing, and fix any issues preventing key pages from appearing in search.
Finish your Google Business Profile
This is one of the quickest wins available for local businesses – and the most cost-effective. It’s free to claim your Google Business Profile listing, and by making sure the information is up to date, you make your business more accessible to customers in your area.
Prioritise page-two rankings
A page ranking between positions 11-20 is, in theory, useless, with as few as 1% of users continuing on to page two. However, these pages need much less work to get that push to page one, and a good agency will assess and prioritise these quick wins.
Write content designed to ask questions
Search engines, as well as answer engines like ChatGPT and AI overview tools in search engines gravitate towards content written in a question and answer format. This kind of content gets to the heart of user’s search queries fast, and sites who capitalise on it have a strong chance of ranking for question-based searches.
Worried that cheap SEO will cost you down the line?
A small SEO budget works when it’s spent in the right order, by someone who can show you exactly where the money went.
Start with the problems already costing you leads, and let the results pay for the next step.
If you want to know where to find your quick wins, book your free Search Space Analysis call with Steve and the team.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take for SEO to work on a small budget?
SEO takes time, and while we’ll focus on quick wins, it can take between six months and a year to see substantial results.
But don’t be disheartened – good SEO focuses on building campaigns that have long-term sustainability, giving you results for the long-run.
Be wary of anyone promising results within the month – the truth is that no one can guarantee instant results, or a top spot. Instead, focus on measurable improvements and hard work.
Should a small business pay for SEO or Google Ads?
For a quick increase in leads, Google Ads is a great way to increase your traffic.
However, Google Ads are only successful for as long as you’re paying. SEO builds long-term results over a sustained period of investment.
A combination of Google Ads and SEO can work well together to drive leads and put your business at the top of the SERPs.
How do you know if your SEO spend is working?
Key metrics may vary depending on your business, but there are a few useful signals that can indicate the success of your campaign:
- Enquiries and sales from organic search
- Clicks and impressions
- Rankings for the terms that matter
- Conversion rate from organic visitors
- More searches for your brand name
When should a small business start link building?
Starting a link-building campaign too early is one of the top mistakes you can make.
You don’t need a finished website before you start building links, but you do need the pages those links point to be ready: optimised, clear about what you offer, and set up to turn a visitor into an enquiry.
There’s no point sending people to a site they won’t interact with. A visitor who lands on a thin or confusing page and leaves straight away is a wasted link, however much it costs to earn. Aim your campaign at the pages that already convert, such as a service page with clear details and an obvious next step.
Get your strongest pages into good shape first, then build links to those while you work on the rest of the site.