SEO Pricing: How Much Does SEO Cost in 2018?

What is SEO?

The term SEO refers to a number of strategies designed to boost your website’s rankings in search results.

Key SEO factors

Here’s a break down of some of the most important SEO factors to pay attention to if you want to increase your site’s rankings in search results.

• Add keywords to your URLs, page titles, meta descriptions, headings, and site content: When search bots crawl your site, they look for keywords to identify the topic of your content. This helps them display your site in relevant search results. Ultimately, when your site ranks higher in search results, more people can find and contact your business.
• Optimize alt attributes: You will also want to add alt tags to your multimedia. Since search engines can’t “read” multimedia elements, you need to include alt tags — text descriptions of your multimedia. This gives helps search engines better understand and index your multimedia content.
• Update your content regularly: Site visitors and search engines alike love freshly updated, quality content. Keeping your site updated on a regular basis will keep visitors and search bots coming back for more. Regular site updates can also help you establish yourself as a leader in your industry.
• Optimize technical site elements: You can also take some time to optimize technical elements of your site like your coding and page speed. Cleaning up your code and ensuring that your page loads at top speeds can boost your rankings in search results and encourage people to spend more time on your site This year, page speed will also become a major mobile search factor, so you need to ensure your site loads quickly across a number of devices.
• Implement responsive design: In order to improve user-friendliness, you’ll want to implement responsive design. With responsive design, you can ensure that your site looks great and performs well, no matter the device a visitor uses to access it. In other words, responsive design allows smartphone, desktop, and tablet users to have the same great experience on your site.
• Streamline navigation: Search engines want to reward sites that provide great experiences for visitors. To make sure people can find the information they need on your site, you’ll want to streamline your navigation. Instead of cluttering your navigation with links, only link to the most important pages. From there, you can link out to other pages deeper in your site.
• Answer users’ questions: You’ll also want to make sure your site provides valuable answers to visitors’ questions. You can do this by creating custom content. Be sure to conduct keyword research to discover trending topics in your industry, and publish fresh content to answer questions and improve users’ experience on your site.

If you want to improve your rankings in search results for keywords related to your business, paying attention to and optimizing these SEO factors is a great place to start.

Why is SEO important?

Why do you want to rank at the top of search results? The answer is simple.

Since 75% of people don’t look past the first page of first results. This means that if you want more customers to find and contact your business, you need to rank in top search results for keywords and phrases related to your business.

Research shows that the first page of organic search results has a 71% click through rate (CTR), while pages two and three have a combined CTR of only 6% — a drastic decline.

Moral of the story? The higher you rank in search results, the more people will find and visit your site. This means that you can reach more customers and earn more revenue for your business.

How much should you spend on SEO services?

The amount you pay for SEO services will also depend on the size of your business and the extent of services you require. While SEO costs vary from agency to agency, it’s important to remember that you often get what you pay for when it comes to SEO services. When choosing an SEO agency, don’t compromise quality for “cheap” SEO services. Like many other professional services industries, ongoing consultation with an industry leader in SEO will be more expensive than with an inexperienced and unproven firm.

While it is tough to estimate typical costs — given the wide range of campaigns — most SEO projects cost between $400/month to $10,000/month depending on level of service. A small business with a 15-page website will typically be on the lower end of the spectrum while an ecommerce store with 50,000+ products should plan on a larger budget for SEO.

In the end, your goals should determine precisely how much you should spend on SEO services. The bigger your website, the more extensive the SEO project will be. This means you should expect to pay more for SEO services. It’s also important to remember that SEO is an ongoing strategy. Instead of investing in one-time SEO strategies, you should think about a monthly SEO plan that will keep your site fresh and allow it to continually rank at the top of search results.

How is SEO pricing determined in 2018?

Unfortunately, there is no industry standard for average SEO prices.

This means any firm can claim they do SEO and charge whatever prices they desire. The burden is ultimately left to the consumer to determine a fair SEO price, especially if there is an ongoing charge for monthly SEO plans.

This fact only furthers the importance of understanding what you will get for your Internet marketing dollars. That way, you can conclude whether it's worth the investment based on the return you expect. Ultimately though, your decision should be based on the overall, long-term value of the SEO services included.

The huge variety of opportunities that SEO provides makes it more important to know how to price SEO.

Depending on the SEO services you choose, the scope of your project, and the agency you work with, you can expect to pay anywhere from $500 - $30,000 for SEO services. When it comes to SEO Pricing, most agencies follow one of these payment models:

• Monthly retainer ($750 - $5,000 per month): Clients pay a monthly fee for selected SEO services.
• Fixed-price contract services: Clients sign a contract and pay a set fee for specific SEO services. Services often include:
  • SEO copywriting: $0.15 - $0.50/word
  • Site content audit: $500 - $7,500
  • Link profile audit: $500 - $7,500
  • Social media site setup: $500 - $3,000
• Project-based pricing ($1,000 - $30,000): Similar to contract-based services, project-based pricing allows clients to pay a determined fee for custom SEO projects.
• Hourly consulting ($100 - $300/hr): Clients pay agencies an hourly fee in exchange for SEO services.

Note: If companies charge less than $750/month for SEO services, you’ll want to be careful. When it comes to SEO, you often get what you pay for with regards to results. Companies that offer “cheap” SEO services often lack the resources and experience necessary to help you earn the highest possible ROI.

It’s also important to remember that no matter what plan you choose, SEO takes time — you won’t see results overnight. That being said, SEO is extremely valuable, and it will position your business for long-term success. You can rest assured that you’ll earn an impressive ROI for SEO services when working with a top agency like WebFX.

What do SEO services include?

As marketing channels continue to expand online, the definition of “SEO” becomes broader.

In 2018, common SEO plans include items like social media optimization, content marketing, conversion analysis, and other avenues of online marketing. Be sure that the SEO company you choose is well-versed in a variety of marketing services that can impact SEO results for your campaigns. Find out why WebFX is the best SEO company for the job.

It's important for firms include multiple services in their professional SEO packages so you can be sure you're working with a full-service provider.

If an agency doesn't offer everything you want to cover, they could be lagging in terms of service offerings or offering monthly SEO services that are lackluster. Every company should have SEO service pricing available for you and other potential clients to detail how they work — and if they don't, it's a good sign that you should find SEO packages prices somewhere else.

In 2018, our SEO pricing is based on a variety of factors. WebFX has broken down SEO pricing into a tiered chart for your convenience, but keep in mind that this SEO marketing pricing only pertains to us. There's no industry standard saying what a corporate SEO agency has to charge — but we think it's important to post our pricing SEO company pricing for everyone to see.

There are never any hidden fees with us. We want you to know, up front, what you get with each one of our SEO pricing plans. This will help you make a well-informed decision and know what to consider when comparing the value of any SEO services package. Comparing an SEO package price with other services is an essential step in the purchasing process, and it can also help you choose the right SEO specialists for your business.

What to look for when researching the cost of SEO

The cost of SEO varies depending on the scope of your project. However, there are a few things to consider when researching the cost of SEO. As an authority in pricing SEO services, WebFX is qualified to educate you in what to seek out — and what a fair SEO service rate is — when comparing vendors, firms, or agencies.

SEO service rates are different everywhere, so learning what they reflect and how they could impact your business is critical to making the best choice for your business.

The process behind a strong SEO campaign include countless methods and strategies, and SEO is constantly being refined to meet the search engines' algorithm updates. You want to ensure that the SEO company you partner with is willing to adapt to the frequent changes search engines make to their algorithm. They should also take a proactive and forward-looking approach to best SEO practices.

Moreover, because each company is unique and should be treated as such, it is important to be vigilant.

Avoid companies that offer a “one size fits all” package, and beware of companies with search engine optimization service prices that are high and set in stone. We know you have unique needs, and that’s why WebFX offers three different plans, and even has custom Internet marketing packages for when your needs just don't fit within the scope of our standard SEO plans.

WebFX has been in the business of SEO for many years and has some of the best Internet marketers in the business. With our history and expert team of SEO specialists, we've created a systematic approach to SEO pricing. We're experts when it comes to search engine marketing, and we know how much effort goes into a successful SEO campaign. That means we also know the best price for SEO depending on a customer's needs.