Search engine optimization (SEO) is a crucial part of keeping your business afloat in the digital world. With SEO comes time, planning, and most of all, cost.
Creating an SEO budget is one of the most important steps for growing your marketing without breaking the bank. After all, your marketing spend should help you earn more revenue, not act as a detriment to your company.
This page will go through how to create an SEO budget, as well as the following topics:
An average SEO budget plan can cost around $2500–$7500 per month, $50–$100 per hour, or $1000–$5000 per project. In percentages, companies can spend around 5–10% on their SEO budget, depending on your company’s needs and goals.
You should also determine whether you are going to perform SEO in-house or with an agency. An average budget will account for the following processes and services, whether you do them yourself or not:
Like any business process, you need to know how much you can spend on SEO to accurately choose and perform services. Different tools, services, and processes will all have different costs, depending on what you require.
Plus, you want to make sure that you are spending an appropriate amount and earning revenue back. You must plan before investing wholly in one service.
SEO budgeting also offers the following advantages:
You can focus on impactful strategies that optimize your budget.
You can pay more attention to the process instead of worrying about your funds.
You can better measure your success by carefully outlining how much you want to spend.
Before you can start outlining a budget, you must ask yourself what you want to get out of your SEO. Ultimately, the major goal is earning more revenue, but what does that look like in practice? More leads? More traffic? More clicks?
You should also evaluate how much you want to earn from SEO alone, especially if you have other marketing campaigns active. Using your goals and deciding what matters most will help you make the most of your budget down the line.
Consider the following examples:
Company A wants to get more people to schedule appointments online. Their SEO focus should be encouraging people to reach out and making the process simple.
Company B wants to earn more purchases from ecommerce. Their SEO strategy should focus on optimizing their pages.
Company C wants to earn more traffic overall to their site. Their SEO budget and plan should focus on content, mostly.
Expert insights from
Trevin ShireyVP of WebFX Marketing
“Work backwards from how much revenue you’d like to generate from SEO and figure out how many more leads and traffic you need. That can help give you a frame of reference. [For example,] ‘I’d need to increase my traffic by 25% to grow revenue by X.’”
2. Look at your existing marketing budget
Next, look at what you’re spending money on already and see how you can fit SEO into the plan. Some marketing areas you might be using already include:
Let’s say that you spend $5000 a month on PPC, but since your site isn’t optimized for SEO, it isn’t as effective at converting. That means that your $5000 might only earn you back $200 or so in revenue.
Adding SEO can help you optimize your other campaigns. If you pull back on some short-term strategies to get started with SEO, you can still see a higher return on those strategies as you pull in more traffic.
Expert insights from
Trevin ShireyVP of WebFX Marketing
“If you are running PPC, you can also use your cost-per-click data to understand how valuable a visitor is and how much it would be worth getting more traffic like that.”
3. Decide what areas need focus
Every business is unique, just like the campaigns and techniques they use. Your company might need the basics, like creating a website and getting on the map. Or, you might need to start improving your keyword integration and website architecture.
Based on what you know about your current marketing setup, decide what areas might have the most impact. Overall, some basics to cover include:
Keyword research
Content creation
Web development and design
Analytics and reporting
Nailing down your target audience can also make this step much easier. If you already know what your audience wants to see, that can help you narrow your search and better use your budget.
4. Look at your in-house capabilities
If you already have an in-house team, you might not have to worry about adding the extra budget for SEO. However, if you don’t have experts in SEO, you will either have to hire a salaried position or work with an agency.
Ask yourself the following questions to get an idea of your capabilities:
How big is my marketing team as-is?
Do we already use any tools or outside help for SEO?
Would upping the workload increase the risk of overworking employees?
Can we afford to hire another team member?
5. Shop around for SEO services
Once you have an idea of what your team can do, it’s time to shop around for SEO services. There are plenty of SEO companies who all claim to be the best, so it’s important to know what makes them different.
Honesty and personality: You don’t want to work with a company that you don’t enjoy communicating with. They should be honest and upfront with all points and make it easy to choose them.
Balanced pricing: SEO is not cheap, especially good SEO. While it’s nice to save money, it’s also true that if someone is trying to sell you vastly inexpensive SEO services, they likely won’t yield the results you want.
Reviews and case studies: Satisfied clients will gladly share their experiences with a company. Look at the reviews and case studies to see how each company has performed in the past.
6. Evaluate your cumulative results
Finally, once you’ve outlined the previous information, you can create a more specific budget. Here is what you need to consider for your budget as a whole, based on everything we have covered above:
The cost of any new in-house employees
Any services or projects with an agency
Any SEO tools
As you outline your budget, you should have a complete list of the above to help you determine how much to spend exactly. While one company might spend upwards of $10,000 a month, other businesses can get by on less, depending on the exact circumstances.
FAQs on SEO budgeting
Here are a few common questions businesses have when it comes to SEO:
How long does SEO take?
On average, you can expect to see results from SEO starting at six months to a year.
It’s important to remember that SEO is not a one-and-done marketing strategy. You must continue with SEO, and it will keep giving back to you. Think of it more as an investment up front that gives you ongoing results, rather than something you purchase one time.
Expert insights from
Trevin ShireyVP of WebFX Marketing
“SEO is a long-term marketing channel that compounds. So, an SEO investment you make in 2024 will be making an impact in 2025 and beyond, whereas a lot of marketing budget is typically spent during a month or quarter and then you have nothing long-term to show for it. That’s how PPC works and a lot of traditional advertising. So, a lot of people should spend more on SEO, because it has long-term value and doesn’t go away.”
How much should I spend on SEO?
You should only spend what is comfortable for your business on SEO. While the average is between 5–10% of your marketing budget, that also depends on what other strategies you have, and how much you can afford to spend.
Should I pay someone to do SEO?
If you have a sufficient marketing team in-house, they might be able to handle SEO on their own. However, if you don’t have the team, time, or know-how to do SEO, working with an SEO agency is a great option for successful SEO.
These are real SEO results driven for a WebFX client.
Now that you can form your own SEO budget, you can start planning your SEO campaign. If creating your own SEO budget seems like too much work, our team can help you decide what the best course of action is for your company.
Our SEO services include a personalized plan for your business that accounts for your industry, customers, and budget. We will take the work out of SEO while earning you the same results.
Ready to learn more? Request a quote for SEO services today!
