My team and I at Ernst Media have worked with small businesses for over 15 years. During my free consultations, I often get asked if there is such a thing as affordable SEO.
It sure is. Most of our PPC clients who understand the benefits of SEO successfully utilize both channels. Now, your next question probably is:
What's the cost of affordable search engine optimization?
Well, the cost depends on many factors. For example, whether it's a Local SEO or eCommerce SEO, if the project needs one-time technical enhancements or ongoing content production.
Here are some estimates based on studies and our work:
According to Nutshell, SMBs can expect to pay between $1,500 to $5,000 monthly on an SEO project. The average cost of our small business SEO services is closer to the lower end.
Let's dive deeper into the topic and talk about:
- What are the basic SEO services you need?
- When should you opt for additional ones?
- How much is it going to cost you roughly?
By the end, you'll know what it takes to make your small business appear on the search engine results pages...and how to spend your SEO marketing budget wisely.
What Do I Mean by Affordable Small Business SEO?
Affordable SEO services are a monthly commitment tailored specifically to your small business goals and aligned with your budget. In other words, paying only for what's needed to gradually increase your website visibility in search engines, drive quality traffic, and convert visitors to customers or leads.
Just don't mistake affordable for cheap SEO services...the latter means automation, and automation equals low quality. You know what they say:
"What is Cheap is Always the Most Costly"
Big SEO companies aren't your best option, either. Yes, they can deliver great results, but in most cases, you'd need to sign up for pre-made SEO packages.
And those packages aren't exactly affordable.
That said, working with a boutique marketing agency or a freelancer recommended by someone you trust is a better choice for small business owners.
Let's get to the basic SEO services you need to enhance your digital marketing strategy.
Essential SEO Services for Small Businesses
These fundamentals are typically for relatively new websites. Whether you delegate them to an affordable SEO company or have an SEO consultant just guiding you, these tasks must be done to ensure nothing stops you from appearing in search results.
By the way...if you're a startup founder, here are 5 SEO Tips to help you DIY a few of these tasks and save some marketing dollars.
Technical SEO to Allow Crawling and Indexing
This means checking if the site has a secure connection (HTTPS), as well as its structure and load times/page speed. Looking at the robots.txt file and XML sitemap(s) to see if they communicate properly with search engine crawlers and a few more minor tasks.
It's a straightforward search engine optimization process that can be tackled in a day unless your site has serious technical SEO issues.
I'd say it's best to have it done from the get-go and avoid common SEO mistakes that will cost you more down the road.
On-Page SEO to Improve Online Visibility
In terms of eCommerce SEO, the key is optimizing product pages. Enhancing descriptions with juicy keywords that'll catch Google's eye, and making sure images aren't dragging you down with massive file sizes or missing alt text.
For service-based business SEO, optimizing titles, headings, and content body of service pages is a must. The right number of relevant keywords should be added at the right spots for SEO purposes. At the same time, when people read about your offerings, it shouldn't sound like a robot wrote it.
Internal linking is another area we pay close attention to when working on client's websites. For some, we had to place them starting from scratch...for others, we had to refine them. The goal is to create a web that guides both visitors and search engines through your site.
These SEO tasks won't guarantee a spot in Google search results without other content on your site. However, they're a critical part of the optimization process...the earlier they get done, the better.
And if you wonder how long it takes...I'd say not more than 2-3 hours per page.
SEO Strategy to Drive Organic Traffic
This is something to be extra careful when paying for search engine optimization services.
All affordable SEO packages will include keyword research and content strategy, but not all providers will do it properly. Let me explain.
You can't compete for high-volume generic keywords as a small business with a low-authority website...It's like racing in NASCAR with your daily driver.
Your only chance to start driving organic traffic is targeting longer phrases that aren't appealing to your competitors who are ahead of the game.
We call those low-hanging fruits.
Next is developing a topical map to organize those low-hanging fruits (keywords) into clusters. It's a strategic way to plan content that covers all aspects of your products or services.
Based on this research and mapping, a list of content ideas is created to address your target audience's needs at the different stages of the digital marketing funnel.
That's how we start a new SEO campaign at Ernst Media. It takes us around 8 hours on average for a 3-month content calendar (12 article ideas).
Affordable SEO Services for Established Websites
Over the years, I've seen plenty of established small businesses that understand the importance of SEO but had to circle back to the basics as search engines never noticed them.
In such cases, the starting point of SEO services is a website audit.
SEO Audit to Discover & Address Current Issues
That's what an SEO expert will do to figure out why your site is underperforming in search results. It's like a health checkup, where the following issues can be identified:
- Technical problems that prevent search engines from crawling your site
- On-page SEO elements that need optimization, like meta tags, headers, etc.
- Content gaps or thin content that's not providing value to your visitors
- Poor site structure, internal linking issues, and unoptimized images
- Slow page load times that frustrate users and search engines alike
- Mobile usability problems that could be hurting your rankings
- Duplicate content issues that confuse search engine crawlers
- Broken links or 404 errors that provide a poor user experience
An SEO audit with detailed recommendations takes 5-6 hours to complete. However, the time needed to address these issues can vary widely depending on what is found.
For clients on a tight budget, we prioritize the most critical SEO issues over the quick fixes to ensure the work done will result in noticeable improvements.
New Search Engine Optimized Blog Content Creation
This process starts by analyzing competitors to understand the content landscape in the given niche and spot good opportunities. Then, your website content must be analyzed to reveal topics your audience is searching for but you haven't covered yet.
These insights are needed to craft a content plan. The idea is to publish new blog posts targeting keywords with the right search intent and attracting quality traffic.
Each piece of content is created with your site's overall structure in mind. Internal linking is very important for SEO, so we strategically link to related blog posts and point back to the new content.
Writing and publishing a high-quality piece of educational content with images and internal links included takes 4 to 6 hours.
Enhancing Existing Content for Better Search Rankings
Creating new content is no longer enough to make search engine algorithms love your site. In my experience, after Google's core updates during the past 18 months, existing content needs a makeover 9 out of 10 times.
In fact, the major reasons SEO doesn't work are often related to old content.
We use SEO tools to compare poor-performing articles to top-ranking pages that target the same keyword and identify areas for improvement.
The most common actions we have to take are:
- Optimize titles to match the search intent better
- Refine headings to include relevant keywords
- Weave in more keyword variations and NLP terms
- Add external links to reputable sources for more value
Similar to optimizing product or service pages, this process takes about 2-3 hours per article.
How Much Should a Small Business Pay for SEO?
I know you want a straight answer on SEO costs, but the thing is...it all boils down to your specific project. Still, I don't want to leave you hanging.
Anything between $75 and $150 per hour is considered affordable SEO services. At Ernst Media, we charge $95 per hour. So, I'll break it down based on the tasks we've discussed and our hourly rate:
For relatively new websites without much content
- Initial technical and on-page optimization: 15-20 hours
- SEO strategy with 3-month content calendar: 8-10 hours
So, for a small business just starting out with SEO, you might be looking at an initial investment of $2,185 to $2,850+ to cover the basics.
Then, you can decide whether to opt for content creation services based on the cost below.
For established websites without major technical issues
- Comprehensive SEO audit: 5-6 hours
- New content creation: 4-6 hours per piece
- Enhancing existing content: 2-3 hours per piece
After the one-time audit (around $550), regular content creation could run you anywhere from $2,280 to $4,560 per month, depending on how aggressive you want to be with your strategy.
As for optimizing existing content, we can talk about cost after determining how many articles must be refined. You can get an idea by finding the poor performers in Google Search Console.
To provide small businesses with cost-effective SEO services, we offer 20-hour monthly retainers, which include:
- Competitor analysis
- Content strategy
- Keyword research
- Four SEO articles
The Bottom Line
SEO isn't something you can throw your entire marketing budget at for a couple of months and expect miracles. It's a long-term investment in your small business's online presence.
I've been doing it for ages and can tell you that a little work done every month brings big returns down the line. Once you start seeing results, they tend to compound.
If you're willing to play the long game...Tell me about your goals and budget!
Founder of Ernst Media. Fifteen years running paid search and paid social for small and mid-size businesses, and still the person who builds the audits by hand. Writes here about what actually moves accounts.