If you read this article it means that you have understood the importance of the SEO process and you want to find out what the prices are for SEO optimization services.
Or, you have already run a site optimization campaign, you were not satisfied with the results and you want to know what is the right price to pay and what SEO services should be included in the offer of the agency or SEO consultant. Or you are simply curious to find out how much the promotion costs with the help of one of the newest and most effective online marketing channels!
The genesis of this article comes from the fact that SEO is a relatively new marketing process / service, a process that tries in this period to find its place in the marketing departments of companies, in the portfolio of advertising agencies or even in plans of independent business consultants.
“SEO price optimization” or “SEO price promotion”
These phrases are two of the most searched when it comes to the topic of our article and are very eloquent. Customers want to know exactly what price they should pay for an SEO optimization campaign for their sites.
In the context of SEO process itself being in its early days, we can say that setting a price for this marketing channel is a complicated process. The elaboration of an SEO offer depends, from our point of view, on at least nine extremely important factors. Of course, it is not an exhaustive list, depending on the field, other factors may appear that must be taken into account. However, these nine factors are the starting point in designing an SEO offer.
Factors that influence the price of SEO services
- The category to which the site belongs: presentation / information or online store;
- Competition in the field of interest;
- The number of categories of the site to be optimized;
- The number of products of the site to be optimized;
- The “health” state of the site from an SEO point of view – is established based on an SEO audit;
- Site link history – the number of harmful links;
- Any penalties from Google when applicable;
- The proposed objectives for the campaign;
- The time horizon in which you want to achieve the objectives.
The price of SEO services is, like any other price, subject to the supply and demand mechanism. On the one hand we have the demand, the clients who want to start an SEO campaign. The problem, however, arises from the fact that they do not know exactly what to ask the SEO consultant / agency.
By the way, we can say that this lack of information also results in the fear of many online businesses to start an SEO campaign. On the other hand, SEO service providers also have a difficult mission. They must understand the client’s business and adapt the campaign according to the client’s objectives, budget and the competition in the field.
The resulting SEO campaign must be translated into the resources to be allocated, divided into specific activities, and all these activities to be carried out in a certain period of time.
Types of SEO Service Providers
- Specialized SEO agencies – they offer only SEO services;
- Online Marketing Agencies that also offer SEO services;
- Individual SEO consultants / freelancers;
- Individual marketing consultants who also offer SEO consulting.
Pricing models used for SEO services
Considering the multitude of activities involved in the process, the strong fragmentation of the market as well as the incredible diversity of the clientele typology, several ways to set prices for SEO services have entered the market.
- Keyword based SEO pricing. According to many SEO specialists, helped and encouraged by SEO objectives of this kind – fiercely demanded by clients, simply bringing a keyword to the forefront of search results is a goal by nature. Thus, there was a way to build the price of an SEO campaign by the number of keywords and possibly by how competitive that word is.
Specifically, positioning a word on the first page can cost from 200 to 400 euros to several thousand euros.
We did not intend to comment in this article on how to set the price of an SEO campaign. However, we invite you to estimate how much an SEO campaign could cost for an online store that targets 1000 words!
- Project-based SEO pricing. It is a rather rare option to set a price for an SEO campaign. It is encountered when we have a new landing page for a product launch, a special offer that must be promoted for a longer period of time or when a client wants to carry out only certain parts of the SEO process. Some clients prefer this method because they track their marketing budget better.
Depending on the complexity, an SEO promotion project can start from 500 – 600 euros and reach up to 15,000 euros.
- Hourly payment for SEO services. It is a method used mainly by individual SEO consultants and less by specialized agencies. Depending on the needs of the client, it can be a good choice. It can be indicated when the client knows very well the SEO process and can request a set of specific activities that can be assigned in a rigorous time sheet. At first glance, it seems that this method eliminates additional costs, but in the end it is possible to pay more for an SEO campaign and not benefit from the whole set of activities that make up the SEO optimization process.
But what SEO prices should you expect? In Romania, the rates per hour of SEO consulting start from 10 euros and can reach up to 50 euros, depending on the experience of the consultant.
- Monthly payment for an SEO campaign. It is the most common pricing method for SEO and is mainly used by specialized agencies and online marketing agencies. Given the ongoing nature of the SEO process – the nature that comes from the frequent changes and updates of algorithms imposed by Google, the continuous change in consumer buying / searching behavior and the need to keep up with competition – the monthly payment for SEO is the only way you can have access to a campaign that is consistent with market changes.
The agency will think and approach the site optimization campaign as part of the marketing campaign, integrating in it all the necessary activities to obtain the best possible results. This way allows customers access to a complete, professional SEO campaign that will contain the entire set of activities necessary for the site optimization process.
Specifically, the monthly prices for an SEO campaign in Romania can start from 50-60 euros and can reach up to 1500 – 2000 euros. Yes, the price range is very wide and depends here on several factors. For the client, however, this can make it difficult to choose the right SEO provider and campaign.
If you choose a price option of this kind, you must know what minimum activities should be included in the offer.
7 Activities in the SEO promotion process that should not be missing from the SEO Offer:
- Research and choose keywords for your campaign;
- Complete on-page audit – technical and content audit;
- Off page audit that includes the link profile;
- Building a strong link profile;
- Real-time monitoring of the campaign;
- SEO consulting sessions with the person involved in the process;
- Detailed monthly reporting.
- Prices for specific SEO activities. As we mentioned, there are a multitude of types of activities that are part of the SEO process. Some of them can be treated separately and as such can have individual prices. Large online stores that have internalized the SEO optimization process, entrepreneurs who know SEO very well and want to pay only for certain activities that they themselves later integrate into the SEO campaign or companies that have carried out an SEO campaign and want to do an SEO audit neutral to quantify the results – these types of clients are addressed to these SEO prices, divided into distinct activities.
Indicative prices of the most sought after distinct SEO activities
SEO Audit Prices. A complete SEO audit can cost 250-300 euros and can reach up to 600-700 euros. There are also free SEO audits, these are usually done automatically.
Native Advertising Prices / Link Building Prices. A new online marketing concept that consists in creating relevant content for users, which takes the form of the site / blog / publication where it is to be distributed – more precisely to respect the theme and the rules of the place where it is to be placed. The purpose of native advertising is to create quality links.
Prices for this type of content start at 20 euros and can even reach 1000 euros per item. Of course, the decisive factor in this case is the notoriety of the site where the content will appear.
Content Marketing Prices. Content Marketing is an important part of the SEO process and consists of creating content that gives the user a rich experience about a certain product, service or why not, about a certain industry or any topic of interest. The forms that content marketing can take are: infographics, video content / presentation films, practical guides, news, case studies, email marketing information, articles, etc.
Examples of content marketing prices:
Building an infographic – from 150 to 600 euros
Writing an article (without publishing it) – from 10 euros to150 euros
Practical guides – from 200 to 700 euros
Advertorial Prices. Their importance in the SEO process is declining – Google no longer appreciates as much as in the past the links that come from advertorials because they represent an obvious form of paid advertising. However, if they are published correctly and on well-known sites, they can still be effective.
Prices for such advertorials can start from 50 euros and can reach up to 1000 euros / piece.
Which is better to choose: SEO packages or customized SEO offers?
In the process of purchasing an SEO campaign you will find on the market standardized SEO prices, which take the form of SEO Packages, and you will also find the option of a customized offer, made by the provider, based on a detailed discussion that he wants to have it with the client. There is a whole debate on this subject and yes, the market offers you, as I said above, the possibility to choose between standard packages or offers tailored to the customer.
There are agents on both sides of the barricade and each has pros and cons on how they build their offers or SEO packages. Let’s talk about each one better:
SEO packages. These are monthly paid SEO offers and include a number of specific activities. As you can see from the three examples below, they have a lot of activities to be carried out during the contract period, which is very good. However, if we analyze more closely the three models we will see that there are big differences in activities between them.
Thus, from the client’s position it will be very difficult to make the right decision because you will not be able to compare the offers. Okay, you’ll be contacting an SEO consultant who will try to explain each action to you – it will be like learning a new domain from scratch in 30 minutes, and most likely you won’t understand it in the end. thing. There can also be knowledgeable clients who know what an SEO campaign entails and who could make the right choice based on the activities included in each SEO package.
As such, SEO packages could be a good option for those who have basics about this process, who know what stage their site is in from an SEO point of view and most importantly, who know what they want from an SEO campaign.
To some extent, SEO packages could also be chosen by small, presentation sites that aim to be relevant and properly structured for their clients. Of course, in this case the price of the monthly SEO package should not exceed 200-250 euros.
In all other cases, my recommendation is to choose a personalized SEO offer.
Custom SEO Offer. Personalization of SEO services is what any specialized SEO agency should offer to its clients, by default. There are at least two major reasons why I believe in customized SEO offers: the social responsibility of agencies towards improving online user experiences and respect for diversity – business diversity, diversity of people, diversity of customers!
While in the case of packages, the process starts from the agency that develops its offer according to the resources it has, this type of building a price, a personalized SEO offer always starts from the client, from his business, from his development objectives, from its potential market.
Thus, the first step in the personalized offer will be the best possible understanding of the profile of the site to be optimized. The site is then analyzed from an SEO point of view – a technical and content SEO audit is run and the link profile is audited. Then follows the setting of objectives as well as the allocation of resources to be involved in the SEO Campaign.
In terms of allocated resources, it should be mentioned that each agency has certain resources – its own network of bloggers, contracts with certain publications, certain SEO tools it uses, copywriters and so on. However, all these resources cannot be used as a panacea. That is why a personalized offer also adapts its resources to the site to be optimized. Agencies that offer this price option do outreach for bloggers / niche publications, they can hire copywriters specialized in certain fields and so on.
After completing all these steps, you can build the SEO offer that will be presented to the client.
Conclusions
Setting the price of an SEO campaign by specialized agencies is not an simple process. Likewise, choosing the right SEO provider is not a simple procedure. There are many variables that must be taken into account by both parties involved. That is why, in order to reach the optimal price option for the SEO campaign, an exemplary communication between the parties is needed.
Regardless of what type of SEO provider you will choose, what SEO services you will contract or what price model you will go for, in the end, the most important thing is to meet your goals.
Hoping you got the expected answer to the question – How much does an SEO campaign cost? – we wish you best of luck in any SEO approach you are going to implement.
