I’m just going dive right in. You’re here because you want answers about how much SEO marketing costs in 2024. I’ve got the answers. You may not like them, but I have them. The TL:DR version is, it depends. Super not helpful, I know, but at least it’s honest. Deloitte’s recent survey shows small businesses spend between 1 to 21 percent of their revenue on marketing, depending on the industry and up to half of that amount goes toward SEO. Cracking the search engine optimization code is mandatory if you want to stand out from your competition. Otherwise, it’s like standing in the middle of the Rose Bowl at halftime, with a full crowd, and expecting anyone will hear what you’re saying. SEO is the PA system that cuts through chatter and gets your point across. Forget about throwing money down the drain with flashy ads that don’t convert and putting all your resources into improving vanity metrics that do nothing for your bottom line. We’re talking about making a real investment in your company’s future. SEO isn’t just some fancy marketing mumbo jumbo, it’s a precision tool that gives you the tactical advantage you need to succeed. You’re gonna spend money on marketing, that’s a given. Make sure you’re spending it the right way. Make every dollar count. Stick with us here and we’ll show you the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes into SEO pricing and give you strategies you can use right now, regardless of what your budget looks like. I put this guide together to help businesses understand how to build a realistic SEO marketing budget that will fund a solidly built SEO project. It’ll also help you identify SEO service providers who will be a good fit for your business. [FIG 1] What the Heck is SEO, Exactly? In a nutshell, it’s a toolbox full of strategies that make it easier for the search engine algorithm gods to reward your website with high rankings and better visibility. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) marketing is all about getting your website to be one of the first things people see when they’re searching for your product or service. Here’s how it works: Keyword Research: SEO starts with figuring out which keywords and search phrases your target audience uses when they’re looking for products and services like yours. Accurate keywords form the foundation of a solid SEO strategy. They’re everything. On-Page Optimization: Your website is basically a framework of widgets that need to be optimized so when search engine web bots come crawling by, they have exactly what’s needed to understand what your page is all about. This involves working on meta titles, meta descriptions, headings, and content to align everything with your keywords. Well-optimized pages get higher SERPs (search engine results page) and do better with your target audience. So it’s a win for humans and a win for the machine. Content Creation: Content is still king. It has to be high-quality, relevant, and helpful to your reader. What kind of content counts? Basically, everything. We’re talking about blog posts, articles videos, infographics, and social media. And if you fall down the AI rabbit hole, you’ll need someone to go over the hot mess AI spits out, humanize the content, and make sure it’s factually correct. Link Building: Backlinks (links from other sites back to yours) go a long way toward making your bones with search engines. They take backlinks as votes of confidence that give your site higher authority and relevance. That being said, any old backlink won’t work. It has to come from a reputable site that’s related to what your site is about. Local SEO: If you serve a specific geographic region, you need local search optimization in the worst way. This involves creating and optimizing Google My Business listings, local citations, and managing reviews. You also need to develop a fair amount of written content specific to the region you’re targeting and your keywords. This might come in the form of region-specific explanations of what you do, product summaries, blog posts, and long-form content. Technical SEO: It’s like tuning a racecar. Get it right and you’ll dominate the field. Get it wrong and you’re stuck on the side of the track watching everyone else speed by. We’re looking at things like site structure, crawlability, user experience, indexing, and schema markup. Technical SEO makes sure your site is technically sound and helps search engines rank your site better. It also makes sure your site works well for the people you’re trying to reach. Analytics and Monitoring: SEO isn’t a one-and-done. It’s an ongoing process, like mowing the lawn. We need baseline numbers for everything we track, and then we need to monitor the whole operation, to make sure we’re on track to hit measurable targets. That’s how we keep clients from throwing money away on strategies that don’t work. SEO marketing is about taking proven tools and using them to build a strategy that gives you serious results. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. [FIG 2] Real Talk: How Much Does SEO Cost in 2024? Your cost is going to depend on what you want or need. It’s important to note that want and need are two very different beasts. Want is generally tied to vanity metrics that might look impressive on paper but never translate into meaningful sales. Need will get you results that improve your sales, traffic, and conversions. Responsible SEO marketers steer clients away from tactics designed solely to boost vanity metrics. Another thing to keep in mind, SEO projects can be viewed as modular. It’s not hard to break a large, expensive project down into more manageable chunks. Each piece builds on the other and implementing a huge project over a longer timeframe is often easier on your budget. You’ll end up in the same place, it just takes longer. So, what affects SEO cost? Things like how much content you need, how fast you want to go, and your industry. Also, small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have very different needs than an enterprise-level operation. Going into any marketing project, but especially SEO, it’s crucial that you’ve got a clear idea of what you want to get out of your marketing investment. You should know how much that amount of work generally costs. Being clear on the scope of your project and knowing what a fair rate is will help you avoid scope creep (drives up the price of your project) and make it less likely you’ll be overcharged. General SEO Price Ranges Every project is different, true, but we can still pull key trends out of the data and get an overview of what SEO costs. We polled 1,500 SMBs and enterprise-level businesses to get a realistic idea of what people are spending on SEO right now. For projects with an hourly rate, small businesses spent between $35 to $150 per hour. Enterprise clients shelled out around $110 to $315 per hour. On average, SMBs spent $175 - $300 each month for automated SEO services, while larger companies paid between $325 and $675. Small-scale SEO projects and monthly service packages came in at $500 to $1,500 for small businesses and $1,750 to $2,500 for enterprises. Comprehensive SEO service packages cost SMBs $2,750 to $3750 a month and large operations are paying between $3,000 and $5,000 every month. 73% of businesses pay a monthly retainer for ongoing SEO service packages vs. paying for piecemeal work. By industry, we found the monthly spend breaks down like this: eCommerce: $2,500 - $5,000 Home Services: $1,500 - $2,500 Healthcare and Medicine: $3,000 - $5,000 Law: $2,500 - $5,000 Software & IT: $3,000 - $5,000 Tech: $3,500 - $5,000 To get decent results that give you actual sales, experienced SEO marketers recommend you spend at least $1,500 per month. Less experienced contractors or offshore agencies charge lower rates but may struggle with designing effective strategies. [FIG 3] How Do SEO Marketing Specialists Build a Budget for Your Project? To get an accurate picture of what your project is going to cost, marketing specialists need specific information about your company. This helps us gauge what you need, how much work it will take to accomplish your goals, and how long the project will take. Some of the things your SEO professional will ask about include: The current state of your website What your search results (SERPs) look like right now Website traffic statistics Your average revenue per sale What percentage of leads turn into sales Your campaign goals How fast you want to see results How you allocate your current marketing budget (percent of gross sales is a common method) Don’t be surprised if your SEO pro has additional questions. The more data we have to work with, the more accurate and effective our strategies are. What Do Businesses Spend on SEO Services in 2024? Judging from our internal survey and the Search Engine Journal’s State of SEO Agency Report in 2024 (SEJ), most businesses have a monthly marketing budget that starts out at around $500 and tops out at $10,000. The research also shows that nearly 50% of agency professionals expect their clients’ budgets to trend slightly upward over the coming year. SEJ also found that businesses with budgets less than $5,000 per month spent more on SEO-specific services than any other type of marketing, including things like social media, influencer marketing, and paid search. Expect to pay up to half of your marketing budget for SEO. What is the Fair Market Price for SEO Services? Don’t reach for the bottom of the barrel. Companies that offer services for $150 or less are pointing you toward strategies that cater to vanity metrics over actual results. They can even hurt your company by using shady methods that hurt your SERPs and don’t give you leads that convert. It’s worth noting that freelance SEO marketing specialists in 2024 make up to $70,000 a year. On average, a fair market price for large projects or ongoing services will cost between $1,500 and $5,000 per month. Hourly rates will run you anywhere from $100 to $300 per hour. These numbers are only ballpark figures and will be affected by things like the complexity of your project, where you’re located, your industry, and what your timeline looks like. One last thing to keep in mind is that clients who pay more for SEO services report an overall higher level of satisfaction with their results. With search engine optimization, you get what you pay for. No matter how good the marketer is, they can’t get you the sales you’re looking for if their budget is rock bottom. There’s simply too much competition for your customers’ attention. Are Monthly SEO Services the Right Option? Most companies who outsource their SEO marketing think so. They might start with one or two small projects to see if they like working with the SEO agency, but eventually, most find it more cost-effective to carry out projects over many months, using a monthly retainer. SEO is fundamentally an ongoing process, not a one-time thing. If you want positive results that drive growth, you need to think of it as a long-term investment. Effective SEO requires regular attention and monitoring. You’ve got to develop and add new content, make updates to existing content, check links, analyze how everything is progressing, and adjust your strategy to fine-tune results. If you’re tech-savvy and have the time to put into DIY SEO, that’s fantastic! However, if you’re time-strapped or unsure what you should be doing, it’s well worth your time to have a conversation with a pro. [FIG 4] How Much Does Local SEO Cost? Less than trying to reach a global market. Your audience is smaller and there’s not as much competition. The proximity trust factor is also in play with local marketing. People are more likely to place their trust in brands that friends and family recommend or companies that are close to them instead of located on the other side of the country. Many successful local SEO campaigns cost only around $300 per month. In general, you’re looking at three kinds of local SEO: Automated Local SEO ($300 - $500 per month) Automated Local SEO is your least expensive option. It helps make sure your business information gets in the right local directories, which helps people find you better. Optimizing for automated local SEO involves making sure your contact information is correct, like phone, email, and website URL. By itself, automated local SEO won’t boost your search ranking; it only makes sure Google’s geographical search results are accurate. It doesn’t involve any type of content marketing or social media. Automated local SEO marketing is good for businesses that operate in one location and want to target customers in a particular city or state. Like regional, national, and global SEO marketing, the amount you pay is directly tied to how much work you need to achieve the results you’re looking for. The shorter your timeline, the higher the cost. Small-Scale Local SEO ($1,500 - $2,500 per month) Small-Scale Local SEO extends automated local SEO efforts with advertising and content. It’s designed to help you get deeper market penetration, better brand recognition, and higher conversion rates. Time-limited advertising campaigns target very specific groups of people in particular geographic areas. These campaigns give you a laser-focused approach to exposing new customers to your business, giving you more qualified leads than a scatter-shot method. Pay-per-click ads and social media campaigns work well, here. Also, you’ll see a very basic content marketing strategy, content writing, remarketing, and local service ads. Small-scale local SEO marketing is great for businesses that serve a limited market and only need to reach customers in their service area. It keeps costs reasonable, while still getting good target engagement. It’s a good starting point but won’t have the depth of strategy needed for strong growth. Comprehensive Local SEO ($3,000 - $5,000 per month) What it says on the tin. Comprehensive Local SEO handles everything you need to keep your business front and center for customers in your area. It includes the accuracy checks you get with automated local SEO, the laser-targeting of small-scale local SEO, and the robust strategies you need to boost sales and drive growth. Look for packages that have: An integrated marketing plan that includes strategies for content marketing, social media marketing, paid ads, partnerships/influencer relationships, and link building. Website audits that check for flow, how good your site looks to customers, and looks for problems with SEO. Technical SEO audit Ongoing improvements for on- and off-page SEO Social media marketing SEO content marketing Blog post optimization Local ad management Paid search management Google Business profile creation/management Online review management Detailed analysis of your competition Brand and reputation management Monthly reporting Monthly meetings to report results and fine-tune strategy Expect to pay at least $1,500 per month for this level of service. Most reputable agencies charge between $3,000 and $5,000 a month for comprehensive local SEO packages, especially if virtual meetings and monthly reports are included. At a minimum, you need to touch base with your SEO marketing professional on a quarterly basis, but monthly check-ins are best. You should always get transparency about how your money is being spent with a marketing agency. It’s normal to get detailed analysis reporting on tracked metrics, like website traffic growth, conversion rates, and search engine rank. Other important metrics include backlink growth, Google analytics, page rank, paid search, competition, website health, Google Business Profile, reviews, citations, and social media engagement. Any agency that doesn’t give you access to this information isn’t one you want to do business with. Comprehensive local SEO marketing packages are best for companies that are serious about growth. This type of marketing costs more but offers robust marketing strategies and campaigns that drive sales and broaden your customer base. [FIG 5] Other Things That Affect SEO Pricing Besides differences like freelance vs. agency and local vs. global pricing, there are a couple of other factors that have a significant impact on how much SEO marketing will cost your company. Industry Geography Type of Service Brand Visibility Website CMS Existing Content Business Goals and Objectives Timelines Google’s EEAT Criteria Is There a Cost Difference for Small Business SEO? What Do Generative AI and Machine Learning Mean for Marketing in 2024? What is the ROI (Return on Investment) of SEO? Investing in the Right SEO Agency Will Boost Your Revenue Conclusion