Key Factors That Determine the Cost of SEO Services

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‘We may look normal, but deep inside, we all wish to rank on the first page of Google.’ I know it sounds corny, but it is relatable.
75% of searchers never scroll to the second page of Google. And Google witness an estimated 3.5 billion searches each day.
These stats pretty much explain the obsession for a coveted search engine ranking. And it also explains the reason why businesses invest handsome fortunes in SEO services.
As we research for the right SEO provider, the challenge that marks our decision is the SEO services cost.
On one end, where a freelancer may charge you $30 per hour, a company may charge you $60 per hour.
Does that mean both offer the same value?
Of course Not.
In most cases, the SEO services cost is directly proportional to the value or the results you expect from your SEO campaign.
However, determining the right cost for your SEO expectations requires some amount of legwork. The price of your SEO varies significantly depending upon a long list of factors.
Understanding these factors would help you reckon and plan a reasonable budget for your SEO requirements. So here we go!

Key SEO Pricing Factors You Need to Know

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1. Quantity of Pages and Size of Your Website

The amount of effort and time SEO personnel invests in your SEO campaign is crucial. It reflects the price he quotes you for his service.
A small website that offers fewer services/products will have a limited number of landing pages. It would require much lesser SEO efforts than a large website.
A small website generally has a simplified architecture, and you can optimize it with ease. With this, less number of products/services also means that you need to rank for less number of keywords.
Therefore, the cost of SEO for a smaller website with a limited number of pages is generally lower than a large website.
On the other end, optimizing a large website can be a tedious walk uphill. A large website is likely to have more pages. Also, it will have a large number of keywords to optimize and a complex site structure.
The SEO company partner or the SEO personnel would have to:

• Optimize the entire user journey
• Optimize the Navigation
  
• Add new landing pages, and
• Create the right internal-linking structure for your website.

These activities demand extensive efforts and add to the SEO quote. For instance, a large eCommerce website will have a comprehensive product range. So, they have to optimize individual product pages for speed and conversions.
The difference in your website size and number of pages can change your SEO services cost by thousands of dollars per month.
The most popular per-project pricing tier in the present times is $501 - $1,000. And, the popular hourly pricing tier is $100 - $150 per hour.

2. Your SEO Competition

When a professional SEO provider quotes you a price, they will consider your competitors’ impact on your SEO performance.
To increase your search engine reach, you need to outgrow your competitors. And therefore, they will do some important competitive analysis, including:

• SEO-rankings of your competitors
• Their social media presence
• The number and quality of backlinks they draw
  
• The quality of content on their website
• Their domain authority
• Their website architecture and user-experience

Your SEO partner needs to analyze your competitors thoroughly. They should utilize their existing network to find the areas where you can dethrone them (in terms of SEO) and find ways to outgrow them.
The tougher your competition is, the higher are the efforts required. And therefore, competition is a crucial factor that will decide the cost of your SEO campaigns.

3. The Current Technical State of Your Website

The extent of fine-tuning required for your website will also determine the cost you need to pay for your SEO.
There is a misconception that smaller websites with less number of pages always involve a shorter fine-tuning process. However, the level of optimization required depends upon the technical state of the website.
Mostly, SEO experts suggest restructuring and fine-tuning a website. But in some cases, they might suggest redeveloping a website. It is usually when the damage is beyond rectification.
On the other end, larger sites generally involve a longer and more complex fine-tuning process.

• It is owing to a higher number of pages and complex site structure.
• It may change the monthly SEO cost by several thousand dollars.

Google updates like Panda and Penguin have hit businesses adversely in the past. SEO experts have to invest additional efforts to fix the penalties stricken by various Google updates.
So, the expertise and time required to get your website high-rank-worthy will be a major factor in determining the SEO pricing.
Experienced SEO specialists will do a thorough site audit and analysis before giving a quote.
Details about the errors and the bug-fixes required will put them in a better position to quote a well-calculated SEO cost.

4. The Value You Expect

As mentioned earlier, the value you expect from your SEO campaigns is a reflection of your SEO budget. Every typical SEO strategy is likely to list or revolve around the same set of sub-services.
The major difference here is the level of services and the value expected from these services.
So, here your SEO budget boils down to the level of aggressiveness you expect from your SEO campaigns.
You might need to ask yourself some questions: –

• Do I want a full-scale aggressive SEO campaign that provides results ASAP?
• Or, I want to establish a decent SEO base slowly, keeping in mind the monthly budget?

These questions will help you define your priorities and expectations clearly. Moreover, you would find it easier to share your expectations transparently with the SEO service provider. It will establish the right balance between the expected value and your SEO budget.
You can choose a slow monthly SEO plan that does not threaten your pre-decided monthly budget. But, the level of efforts invested by your SEO partner would be low as compared to an aggressive strategy.
You can also go for an aggressive plan that brings results to your dashboard ASAP. The level of services offered by your SEO partner would be more aggressive.
In this case, you choose to prioritize value over cost. These service levels can vary your monthly budget by thousands of dollars.
A survey reports, companies dedicate 9% of their marketer’s efforts and time into SEO campaigns and generate average returns of 15%.

5. Choosing Between One-time or Ongoing SEO Services

Your requirements or the scope of SEO services you choose decides the cost you are willing to pay.
You can classify this scope into two types.

• One-time (one-off) SEO services
• On-going SEO services

Many on-page SEO services like website audit, optimizing site architecture, performance optimization, internal linking are one-off SEO tasks.
After completing these tasks, you can move forward with other off-page SEO tasks. However, some on-page errors might reveal themselves later in the campaign. Therefore, it is better to go for on-going SEO support.
A significant part of your SEO strategy lies in on-going SEO tasks.
The following list of the off-page SEO tasks come under the on-going category:

• Link-building campaigns
• Guest posting
• Content production
  

These tasks require producing regular content for the website, social media handles, and analyzing more data.
They help your website grow and maintain an eminent SEO position online. The frequency or extent of your campaign will impact your overall SEO budget.
Keeping cost over value might seem lucrative, but it can delay your SEO success. You need to find the right balance between your budget and the extent of your SEO campaign.

6. The Expertise and Experience You Choose

The experience of an SEO analyst translates directly into the cost he charges with his services.
Usually, SEO experts with more years of experience charge higher than someone who is comparatively less experience.
But does that mean the former offers a higher value? It depends!
On average, SEO analysts with 2+ years of experience charge 40% more per hour than those having fewer years of experience. And the charge is 275% higher when it comes to one-off projects.
Usually, the experience of a digital marketer reflects his expertise. He charges you for this expertise and the time he invests in your project.
A person with a lower expertise level might quote you a lower hourly cost. But at the same time, he might take more hours to complete a task.
On the contrary, an expert might finish the same task with commendable expertise in less number of hours.
On the other end, most of us prefer to shy away from the hourly pricing structure as it feels like being dimed with every tick on the clock. However, time or number of hours remains a major component in deciding the project-based or monthly pricing structure.
Every digital marketing professional calculates the services cost based upon the number of hours he invests in a project. Therefore, whichever model you choose, it is not about the cost you pay but about the value you receive.
Another important choice remains between choosing a freelancer or a professional SEO company.
A freelancer is likely to quote you a much lower SEO price (for the same set of services) than an SEO company. But, they generally fail to offer you accountability and reliable support.
Moreover, the same set of services does not mean the same ‘extent’ to which the services are delivered.
In this case, one should choose accountability over cost-saving. Saving some dollars on your SEO in the initial stage might end up costing you a lot more in the later stages.

7. The Geographical Scope of Your SEO

Where your target audience lives, and what is the competition in that target location?
The cost of your SEO services also depends on the geo-location of your target audience. It decides the number of efforts the marketer has to employ to rank in that location.
In case you are targeting multiple locations, you will need more pages and more keywords to rank in those locations. And this can add several dollars to your monthly SEO pricing package.
Targeting highly competitive locations can also significantly increase your SEO cost.
Based on your business’s nature, you might target a local customer base or a global customer base.
Local SEO services generally cost you low as compared to national or global SEO campaigns.
Moreover, the time required to rank locally is usually lower than global SEO. Local SEO is generally considered a smart business move. The reason is that 72% of all consumers who did a local search visit a store located within 5 miles radius.
On the other end, global or national SEO services might cost you about twice the local SEO services cost. It takes much more effort and time to rank for global keywords and draw ideal traffic.
The overall SEO services cost varies by a significant amount depending upon the location you wish to target.
On average, SEO experts targeting the global market charge 130.4% higher monthly retaining fee than those serving local markets.

8. Current Search Rankings of Your Website

One of the toughest battles for every SEO professional is to help their clients set the right expectations.
SEO isn’t a ‘one-aim and one-bullet’ job. It requires continuous efforts and takes time to display results.
So, your current SEO rankings decide how far you need to go to attain coveted rankings on the search engines.
Is your website ranking low in search engines, and you have almost negligible traffic?
Then, you might need to choose an aggressive SEO approach.
Here you focus on growing your ranks, optimizing the website, and drawing high-quality backlinks. Here you might need to keep value over cost.
The extent of your SEO campaign and its aggressiveness will decide the SEO cost you invest.
If your website has decent SEO rankings, it would be easier to maintain these rankings and growing them with a less aggressive SEO campaign.
In this case, you can reduce the forcefulness of your SEO campaigns. You can save several hundred dollars in your monthly budget.

Your SEO partner can help you target long-tail keywords and find good rankings on less-competitive keywords.

Practice Your Due Diligence

Until you are willing to invest in your SEO without expecting any returns, you can ignore the above points.
But, do you want to do your due diligence and get the best value for your SEO investment?
Then, the above factors can help you decide the right budget for your SEO campaigns.
Moving forward, you must inquire your SEO partner about:

• The extent of services he delivers
• The expertise he offers
• The SEO aggressiveness required to achieve certain rankings, and
• The best approach for the expected results.

With this, if you have a limited budget, your SEO partner should be able to cut down on some less-effective services. They can do it by making necessary tweaks to your SEO strategy.
You need to be quite clear with the factors mentioned above. Else, you might not be able to establish the right value to cost ratio for your SEO campaigns. And it might result in overall campaign failure with less than expected results in the long run.
It is better to:

• Set the right expectations
• Decide the right SEO budget
• Find an SEO provider that best suits your demands.

For more information on finding the right SEO provider feel free to connect with us. We can create a winning SEO strategy for your business at no extra cost.