Most UK business owners know SEO is the best way to grow their business, with 60% of marketers now agreeing SEO generates the highest quality leads.
But what many business owners who haven’t used an SEO company before don’t know is how much they can expect to pay for SEO, and what they can expect to receive for their money.
Whether you’ve been quoted a price by an SEO agency, or you want to know if SEO is suitable for your business – this article is going to give you some highly valuable insider insights into the SEO industry and how much SEO services cost on average.
This is a fully in-depth guide to hiring professional SEO services, so by the time you finish reading this article – you’ll know everything you need to know about SEO costs in the United Kingdom.
Is SEO The Best Use Of Your Marketing Budget?
Being a well known SEO company ourselves, you might assume we would say “yes, SEO is the best use of your marketing budget“, but the truth is it completely depends on your situation.
SEO is a long term investment that can pay off big for many years to come but only if people are searching for your products/services online and you have the budget to invest in professional SEO services.
SEO Is Not The Best For Products/Services People Aren’t Searching For
If you’re selling a product or service people aren’t yet aware of, Google is often not the best use of your marketing budget.
There are of course exceptions where the product or service solves a problem that gets frequently searched for in Google, and we can create content marketing assets to create awareness or change perceptions – but most commonly your marketing budget would be better spent on YouTube Advertising, Social Media Marketing or Influencer Marketing.
This is because there won’t be many (if any) “bottom of the funnel keywords” you can rank for – the keywords people search that frequently result in a sale.
SEO Is Not The Best For Companies With Low Marketing Budgets
SEO costs money, and companies who don’t have the budget for it but want the benefits of getting customers from Google often resort to using cheap SEO services.
These cheap SEO providers don’t have the budget to perform the job effectively, and so they almost always have to resort to using “black hat SEO tactics” which includes:
- Building out PBN’s (private blog networks)
- Spammy/toxic backlinks
- Keyword stuffing
- Bot CTR manipulation
All of which are high-risk SEO hacks that may pay off in the short term but can result in your website getting completely removed from Google if you get caught.
If you don’t have the budget, you’re far better off learning SEO yourself and growing your skills and business slowly than using a high risk SEO service that could get you completely removed from Google search.
Otherwise SEO Is By Far The Best – And We Would Know!
As a company that uses all forms of online marketing, SEO is by far our most preferred way of acquiring new leads and sales for our clients.
It comes down to intent. When someone searches “buy washing machine” in Google, they’re far more likely to be in the market for a washing machine, than a Facebook user who has logged onto the site to see what their friends have been up to is.
That’s why the quality of traffic from SEO is so much better than any other – the intent is perfect and results in a much higher conversion and closing rate.
It’s also a long term strategy that scales with time. Once you rank for a keyword in Google it’ll bring in a flood of potential customers without you ever having to pay per click – making it an actual investment in your business that scales with time.
Plus because people trust the results of Google so strongly, ranking high indicates you’re one of the top companies in your industry and creates a strong sense of trust.
And the best part? The results of SEO are completely trackable through Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
The 3 SEO Pricing Structures
There are 3 main pricing structures when it comes to SEO, these are: monthly retainers, hourly and per project. In this section we will take a look into each of them and discuss the pros and cons of each.
| Price Structure | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly Retainers (Agencies) | Allows an SEO professional to learn your industry and continually discover & implement new customer acquisition channels. | Often requires you to sign up to lengthy contracts |
| Hourly (Consultants) | Allows you to get valuable advice and insights to your in-house marketing department. | Requires project management and SEO implementation. Also doesn’t allow an SEO professional to dedicate enough of their time to your industry for maximum results. |
| Per Project (Cheap Providers) | Fits with almost any marketing budget | Incentive is to complete the project as fast as possible – often resulting in dangerous black hat tactics. |
The Monthly Retainer SEO Price Structure
The monthly retainer SEO service is perfect for companies that are looking to partner with an agency who’ll help them grow their business long term.
By having an established retainer in place, you’ll have guaranteed access to a dedicated SEO professional (at most agencies) who’ll dig deep into what search terms potential customers are typing into Google, identify any new trends in your industry and create in depth plans of action to achieve first page rankings.
You are essentially employing the services of a company who dedicate 100% of their time to SEO and the latest updates in Google’s algorithm to position your business higher online.
Having that sort of resource available to your business on a monthly basis can do powerful things for a company, especially if you’re in a competitive industry where you competitors are dominating most search queries.
The only downside is most SEO agencies lock you into lengthy 12, 16 or 24 month contracts for their services to ensure their employee’s have a high level of job security.
(we don’t do this by the way, we let our results keep clients coming back)
The Hourly SEO Price Structure
The hourly SEO service is ideal for companies with an in-house marketing team that might be a little bit stuck with their SEO and want some advice from an expert who can point them in the right direction to grow their traffic.
This is why the hourly pricing structure is most suited to SEO consultants who’ll often be incredibility experienced and knowledgeable.
The SEO consultation will usually be conducted via a VOIP service like Skype and will typically consist of you explaining what you’re trying to achieve and the consultant advising you on your best course of action.
The hourly fee for a consultant can be very expensive, but the value you can get out of them can be a complete game changer, if you have a team of marketers who can action the advice given.
The main downside to hiring an SEO consultant is that you’ll be fully responsible for project management, meaning you’ll only get out of the session what you can actually action.
And if SEO isn’t your primary job role, an SEO agency will be far more efficient and faster at implementing changes that see results as they do it on a daily basis. This allows your employees to spend less time actioning SEO tasks and more time doing what they’re actually good at.
The Per Project SEO Price Structure
The per project SEO pricing structure is often seen as very attractive by less experienced business owners who are looking for quick hacks to business success.
The unfortunate reality of these services is they’re often very dangerous to your website domain name and business as a whole.
You’ll often find various bad reviews online for companies who offer cheap SEO services where customers have had their entire website penalised by Google for using black hat SEO tactics like using PBN’s or spam backlinks.
The problem is that companies who charge per project need to get the job done as fast as possible, which means they’ll have to cut corners and take big risks to get you results.
If you’re happy to risk getting you website removed from Google, some of these services can increase your traffic – but we wouldn’t advise it for any company interested in the long term results of SEO.
If you’re considering using the lower cost SEO services, you’ll get far more for your money by setting up a Google Ads account yourself and paying per click – there’s no risk involved and you’ll protect your domain name and online reputation for when you have the budget to invest in professional SEO services.
Average UK SEO Costs
| Type | Price | Info |
|---|---|---|
| Agency SEO | £1200 – £9000/month | Professional SEO agency’s typically charge between £500 – £2000 per day for their services. The price will depend on how much time is needed on a monthly basis to improve your website’s organic traffic. |
| Consultant SEO | £100 – £1000/per hour | An SEO consultant’s hourly cost will vary greatly depending on their experience level. They’ll usually know the value they can bring your business and won’t be afraid to charge for it. |
| Cheap SEO | £100 – £400/month | Cheap SEO services utilise less experienced SEO’s to provide a cheaper service. They’ll usually rely on risky black hat tactics or won’t be able to get the results they promised. |
Agency SEO Costs
Established SEO agencies will usually charge between £500 – £2000 per day for their services, and you can expect to pay between £1200 – £9000 per month depending on the amount of time your project requires.
The amount of days your website will need per month will vary greatly depending on the industry and type of website you have.
For example, SEO for online shops (eCommerce) requires more time to be spent working with developers to improve the technical SEO aspects of the website than a B2B or B2C lead gen website does.
Lead generation websites will usually require less time per month, but can require more – depending on how competitive the industry is.
Consultant SEO Costs
Companies who hire consultants will usually use their services for an hour a month to get feedback from an SEO expert who can help guide their marketing team in the right direction.
The price of an SEO consultant will depend on their experience level and specific area of expertise, but you can expect to pay anywhere from £100 per hour to £1000 per hour.
It’s important to establish whether or not the consultant has worked in a similar industry before. They don’t have to have worked for a competitor, but a similar type of SEO is crucial.
Types of SEO include:
- eCommerce
- Business to business
- Local business
- National business
- News publisher
This is not so much of a concern when using an SEO agency, as they’ll have different specialists for different projects.
Cheap SEO Costs
There are companies in the UK that’ll provide SEO services for as little as £100 per month, but the results you’ll get are far from ideal.
Any company that’s charging between £100 – £400 for monthly SEO services will not be able to afford to employ a professional SEO to fulfill their clients needs.
Experienced SEO’s (the one’s who move the needle) earn around £40,000 per year as a base salary, and with an average of 261 working days per year and the added monthly cost of SEO research software – those prices wouldn’t even cover the cost of an employees time for half a day per month.
Any SEO company offering SEO services between £100 – £400 per month will either be completely inexperienced or spending as little time on the project as possible.
This is why cheap SEO providers resort to using dangerous black hat SEO tactics to get your company temporary success in Google. What they likely won’t warn you of is how dangerous it can be to your business in the long term.
With SEO, and any form of online advertising – you get what you pay for.
How To Choose An SEO
This section is going to discuss how to find the best SEO service provider for your business.
Most SEO’s agree there are only 3 viable options when it comes to SEO:
- Hire an SEO agency
- Hire an SEO consultant
- Learn how to do it yourself
If you don’t have the budget, selecting option number 3 than using a cheap black hat service, as it’ll allow you to grow your business slowly, without taking risks
If you’re looking to hire an SEO professional, you’ll need to make sure they have real results through SEO before signing up for a monthly contract.
Just ask the agency or consultant you’re in contact with for “Google Search Console Screenshots from previous clients” – that’ll show you whether or not they’ve been able to grow a companies traffic through SEO or not (as Google Search Console shows only free traffic from Google and Google My Business).
And if they refuse to show you because it’s “not company policy to show client accounts” you’ll know something fishy is up…
Because it’s also our policy to not show client accounts (in case competitors steal our client’s most profitable keywords), but we can still show search console reports by blurring confidential data.
Like These Google Search Console Screenshots:
The truth is SEO isn’t the cheapest service in the world – it costs good money. And if an agency can’t prove they’re able to get real results for other clients – they probably won’t get results for you.
If you’re looking to work with an agency who gets results, is happy to prove it and will get results for you, get in contact with our team today by clicking on the “get free quote” button below.
Get Free Quote
We hope you found this guide helpful, if you did be sure to share it on social media to help other business owners know how much they can expect to pay for professional SEO services and prevent them falling into the cheap services trap.
Frequently Asked Questions
In the UK, SEO typically costs between £1200 – £9000 per month for an agency, £100 – £1000 per hour for a consultant and around £100 – £400 per month for a budget SEO service.
SEO is worth the money if people are actively searching for your products or services. It’s also only really worth investing in SEO if you have a good budget, as cheaper SEO services rarely produce results.
SEO is more important than ever in 2021, as more customers are searching online for products and services.
SEO will usually take between 4-6 months to start taking effect, although results can often be seen much sooner.