Is Paying for SEO Worth it?

What are the alternatives to paying for SEO?

We’ll start with the obvious: if you don’t want to pay for SEO, what are your other options?

DIY SEO

For some business owners, this is a very valid option. There is an endless amount of information online about SEO for beginners, SEO best practices, SEO checklists, and so on. If you’re willing to put in the time upfront, it’s completely possible to self-teach SEO.

Pros of self-serve SEO:

• It can be cheap
• It can produce high ROI if you take the time to learn it thoroughly and track the leads it brings in
• It allows you direct control over the direction of your business’s online presence

Cons of self-serve SEO:

• While the resources are out there, learning it is not always easy
• You’ll have to identify and fix any issues or penalties yourself
• You need to be able to invest a large portion of your time, at least, in the beginning
• Depending on the size of your company and site, SEO can be a full-time job itself

All in all, DIY SEO is best-suited for those who have an interest in learning SEO along with the free time to devote to it.

In-house SEO

This option is definitely “paying for SEO” in a sense, although it’s more of a direct investment in your company than outsourcing SEO work would be.

Pros of an in-house hire:

• You have direct access to, and more control over, your SEO efforts at all times
• There’s none of the ambiguity that can come with outsourced work
• If everything goes well, you’ll have a dedicated owner keeping your strategy current as search changes

Cons of an in-house hire:

• It’s a large expense to take on another salaried employee
• It’s not practical for some smaller companies
• If their strategy doesn’t work, you could be thousands of dollars in the hole with nothing to show for it
• Vetting potential candidates can be hard if you don’t have Internet marketing knowledge yourself, especially for newer skills like AI search optimization

The considerations around paying for SEO

Now that you know the alternatives, let’s get back to the question: Is paying for SEO worth it?

The first thing to understand about third-party SEO providers is that they vary in quality. If you get taken in by a scammy agency, paying for SEO is most definitely not worth it.

In fact, improper SEO work can actually be more detrimental to your business than no SEO work at all. SEO work that breaks Google’s spam policies can trigger a manual action, which can remove affected pages or your entire site from search results until the issues are fixed.

What about SEO from a legitimate agency?

Thankfully, there are agencies out there who provide legitimate strategies for improving their clients’ visibility online.

Working with one of these agencies can most definitely be well worth your money.

These agencies make it their job to provide the best possible SEO work to their clients. They’re always up-to-date on SEO best practices, and ahead of the curve in adopting new strategies, such as optimizing for AI Overviews and AI assistants.

Is paying for SEO worth it?

Let’s ask once more: is paying for SEO worth it? The answer is, “it depends.”

If you have the time and budget to find an Internet marketing agency to partner with, you will get quality SEO work done. You’ll also save yourself time, frustration, and money.

However, if you get stuck with a fly-by-night agency only interested in your budget, paying for their work is absolutely not worth it.

If you’re on a very tight budget, DIY SEO is always an option. If you stick to Google’s guidelines, your results will be better than no SEO at all. But learning will take a serious time investment, and you may be in trouble if something serious comes up that you don’t know how to deal with.

The bottom line: Paying for SEO is worth it if your business is in a position to do so, and if you partner with a legitimate agency that can show how its work drives leads and revenue.

How can you tell if paying for SEO is working?

Paying for SEO is working when you can connect it to leads and revenue, not just a list of keyword positions.

Good SEO reporting also shows where your business appears in AI answers as Google AI Overviews and AI assistants like ChatGPT now answer many questions before anyone clicks.

Before you sign with a provider (or renew), ask how they’ll report on these three areas:

1. Leads and revenue from organic search. Ask how calls, form fills, and closed deals get traced back to SEO. WebFX clients use RevenueCloudFX, our marketing data platform, which integrates with your CRM so you can see which pages and channels bring in revenue.
2. Visibility in AI answers. Ask to see how they measure citations and brand mentions in AI answers. Make sure to also ask about the interval of these updates.
3. Clear deliverables instead of guarantees. Google says third-party tools don’t have access to its internal ranking data, so no provider can promise a position. Look for a monthly plan of specific work tied to the goals above.

If a provider can only show you rankings, you can’t judge whether the fee is paying for itself.

Get an SEO partner that makes SEO worth it

With an integrated solution to AI search and SEO (plus a 91% client retention rate), WebFX is an SEO partner that makes paying for SEO worth it.

Our team of over 750 digital marketing experts has driven more than $10 billion in revenue for clients in the last 5 years, and we prioritize SEO work by its revenue impact.

WebFX’s SEO management pricing starts at $2,900 / month. We know what it takes to execute a proper SEO strategy, and we’d love to partner with you and your business.

Check out our testimonials or portfolio for more information – we like letting them speak for themselves!

Contact us today for more information or a free quote.