Amid all the very real ups and downs of the last few years for the UK business landscape – particularly the COVID-19 pandemic, but also the cost-of-living crisis and the associated pressures on individuals and organisations alike – it is fair to say that digital marketing has continued proving its worth. Indeed, if anything, the coronavirus situation helped accelerate a process of digitalisation of life in the UK and around the world, that was already in play.
It is very probable, then, that your own organisation will be among the many seriously pondering how much of their finite budgets they ought to be ploughing into search engine optimisation (SEO) right now.
There can be no room for doubt about the importance and relevance of SEO these days. This much is partly shown by data from Statista indicating that digital advertising spending in the UK has been on an upward curve for a very long time, going from a ‘mere’ £2.8 billion in 2007, right the way up to a projected £15.6 billion in 2020.
But in order to answer the question of how much your business “should” be investing in SEO, there are quite a few factors you will need to consider. Those will include not only how much SEO services tend to cost in general, but also the different cost structures used, how your business compares to its competitors at the moment, and what you hope to achieve from SEO.
So, how much do SEO services in the UK usually cost?
You probably began reading this article in the hope of us citing some cold, hard figures – so, let’s do exactly that. Indeed, there are a number of other authoritative sources online that can help give you a decent ‘ballpark’ appreciation of how much you might need to spend on SEO services.
An article published on the website of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), for example, indicates that if someone is aiming specifically for cheap SEO, they can expect to spend around £50 a month on this. A “mid-level SEO campaign”, on the other hand, might entail expenditure of about £2,000 to £4,000 per project. And as for a “high-end” campaign, something around the £7,000 mark might be expected.
It is crucial to educate yourself on the different pricing structures for SEO services
Now, you might have read the above and thought: per month? Per project? These prices aren’t quite comparing ‘like with like’, are they? This brings us onto the next big point: ensuring you understand the typical cost structures for different SEO solutions in the UK.
There’s a good reason why especially cheap SEO services tend to be charged at hourly rates: this is often the favoured pricing structure for SEO freelancers. In fact, this structure – which is based on the amount of time spent on the given work – is rarely used by SEO agencies or digital marketing firms.
It is much likelier that if you are approaching a company to do your SEO for you, they will price up their services as a cost per month. Sure enough, we use this model here at Mr SEO, providing clients with the benefit of monthly rolling contracts that don’t pin them down or require them to pay intimidatingly high sums up-front.
Finally, there’s also the ‘per-project’ pricing structure. This is another structure that SEO agencies or digital marketing companies may use, the idea being that the scope of a given project is decided at the outset in conjunction with the client, and a firm price is quoted for the entirety of this project.
So… how much should your business be investing in SEO?
This is naturally a question that we cannot give a ‘catch-all’ answer to, for the simple reason that it really will be a very specific matter to your business and website. As we stated above, the position of your business right now compared to its direct industry rivals will be one factor determining how much you need to spend, given that SEO success for your brand will mean grabbing some of the traffic and sales that would otherwise have gone to those rivals.
And of course, it will also be necessary to be clear and specific about your firm’s objectives from SEO. If you just want to slightly boost the amount of traffic your brand’s website receives, you won’t need to spend as much as you would if your aim was to achieve first-page Google rankings for a broad range of keywords.
One thing that is certain, is that SEO is a service where you get what you pay for. SEO isn’t something where you can take cost-saving shortcuts – or at least, not without receiving a much less impressive service. This is why, while you technically could spend less than £100 on an SEO package, it is probably better for a serious business to treat SEO as a serious long-term strategy, with the associated spending over time.
Would you like to discuss with our team what your business’s SEO requirements are, and how our solutions and expertise could help meet them? If so, you are welcome to enquire to us today to begin your journey with our SEO agency in Cambridge.
