The truth is that both sides can be argued correctly, depending on which side you’re trying to persuade someone into thinking. But while SEO might not be the revolutionary strategy it once was several years ago, the fact of the matter is that the marketing practice remains a pertinent, effective, and worthwhile investment, and won’t lose its relevance any time soon.
Here are a few recent statistics that emphasize how applicable SEO continues to be for increasing business’ online visibility:
- 68 percent of online sessions start at a search engine
- 92.96 percent of global Internet traffic stems from Google, Google Image, and Google Maps searches
- SEO generates over 1000 percent more organic traffic than social media
- 60 percent of marketers report that inbound marketing strategies (SEO, blogs, etc.) produce their highest quality source of leads
- Organic searches produce more than 50 percent of all website traffic
- Over 90 percent of web pages receive zero percent of organic search traffic from Google
- Only 25 percent of users visit the second page or beyond of search results (75 percent visit only the first page of Google search results)
What do all these statistics allude to? Essentially, if your business isn’t utilizing affordable SEO, you’re missing out on a nearly infinite number of leads, clicks, traffic, and most importantly, customers.
Learn more about gaining website leads with SEO. Read: What is Inbound Marketing?
But then why do so many companies of all sizes neglect to include SEO into their marketing strategies and budget? Reports indicate that 46 percent of small businesses allocate zero percent of their marketing budget into SEO practices, and 54 percent of them don’t have any budget approximated for SEO, whatsoever.
Is it because they deem SEO an unnecessary expense, despite overwhelming statistics proving otherwise? Or is it because they haven’t encountered an SEO investment model or cost that truly reflects both their budget and their needs?
The latter seems to ring true for many businesses missing out on the possibilities of SEO. There’s a common misconception that beneficial SEO practices are essentially a one-size-fits-all, blanket strategy. That couldn’t be any more inaccurate.
Like any marketing strategy, SEO strategies need to be customized and catered specifically to a business’ needs, goals, and budget. Let’s break down how the price of SEO investment models and costs should mirror all the goals your business is hoping to accomplish from it, as well as how the size, revenue, and outreach of a company impacts the amount of money necessary to facilitate a well-tailored SEO strategy.
SEO Pricing Model Factors: What Affects Affordability?
As previously stated, SEO services need to be specifically customized for every business, based on a wide variety of determining factors. Some of these components include:
- Size of a business / website
- Number of new, optimized web pages
- Local versus national SEO
- Number of targeted services or products
- Number of link acquisitions
- How much content needs development
- Frequency of new, original published content, and more
As you can see, all of these factors play a role in determining a suitable pricing model for a company’s SEO needs. A general rule of thumb is the larger the business, the more expensive the SEO.
But more importantly, choose an SEO agency that will specifically tailor their services to a company’s immediate needs, meaning some of the aforementioned pricing model factors need to be prioritized over others. Here is a general breakdown of what you can expect to pay for sufficient SEO services, depending on the size of your business:
- Small Businesses (100 employees or less) = $500-to-$2500 per month
- Medium Enterprise (100-1,000 employees) = $2,500 to $7,500 per month
- Large Businesses & Corporations (1,000+ employees) = $7,500+ per month
- According to Clutch, project-based SEO typically ranges between $10,000 and $50,000.
We can break these prices down further by exploring exactly what factors dictate the SEO pricing models in relation to the size and needs of any given business.
Pay Only For What You Need & Can Afford
It’s likely that some SEO service companies you come across will try to lock you in on a contract that includes several routine SEO strategies, while in reality, your company only needs to implement a few of those tactics right off the bat.
Small Business SEO Cost
For smaller companies, like a local restaurant, for example, the immediate needs for SEO tend to be focusing on affordable search engine ranking assistance, to help your company’s Google page ranking for relevant and local searches. This type of local, low competition SEO strategy usually involves services such as conducting an SEO audit, incorporating high-quality content, providing authoritative backlinking, and enhancing the overall user website and mobile experience, all of which can fluctuate for anywhere between $100 - $2,000 a month, depending on how much time is necessary to perform such services.
Medium-Sized Business SEO Cost
For medium-sized enterprises, competition tends to drastically increase, meaning more time and resources for implementing SEO strategies is necessary. While smaller businesses can get away with skipping common SEO tactics such as consistent quality content creation, emphasis on optimizing conversions, high-quality link building, optimizing 25+ web pages, or enhancing mobile user experience, medium enterprises investing in professional SEO services shouldn’t be skipping out on these valuable practices. Utilizing these strategies will all but guarantee positive results for improving the traffic of your company’s website, and at a minimum will cost over $2,500 a month or under $7,500 a month.
Corporation / Enterprise Level SEO Cost
Larger corporations have so much more at stake when it comes to their competition, virtual visibility, and online accessibility. These types of enterprise SEO campaigns tend to include all the aforementioned practices, with an additional focus on investing in analytic data and tracking resources to get a better picture of what traffic their website is receiving as well as what target audiences they need to market toward. These more intricate and elaborate SEO traffic measuring resources are what can easily make larger corporations pay over $7,500 a month for tailored SEO services that cater to their needs.
Is Your SEO Affordable? The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that no two businesses’ SEO needs are alike, which means you need to determine what your company’s immediate online goals are before enlisting in professional SEO services.
While you generally get what you pay for, it’s imperative to seek out affordable search engine ranking providers that have experience working with other companies that are relevant to your industry and size. In the end, investing something into sufficient SEO content marketing will generate more leads, traffic, and business than investing nothing.
For Effective, Affordable SEO Services in Minneapolis, Contact Frahm Digital
Are you ready to turn your business to the next level with affordable SEO? Frahm Digital can help develop your company's digital presence. Whether you're in search of technical SEO, creative content strategy or web development services, we’ve enhanced the SEO of Minneapolis businesses and companies throughout the U.S. – and can do the same for you.
Get in touch with our team to discuss how we can improve your small business SEO.