How Much Does SEO Cost in the UK?

YOU KNOW YOU NEED IT BUT HOW MUCH DOES SEO COST IN THE UK

How Much Does SEO Cost in the UK and What Influences Price?

Your search engine rankings might be suffering, or you know you need SEO Services and the next step is ‘who do I approach’ and how much SEO should cost you here in the UK. The short answer to this commonly asked question is that there really is no definitive price because all businesses are different, with varying SEO needs, and are struggling to rank to differing degrees. Fundamentally you get what you pay for, but it is important to say there are a lot of poor, low-performance SEO companies out there that will add little to no value. It is important to say that results/performance are incredibly important to track. Due to the nature of SEO, the intangibility can mean companies hide or at minimum only complete the broad tasks without any depth.

To give you an idea of how it should be done, we at Atomic’s SEO and digital marketing agency we take 3 core considerations when planning & quoting our SEO services:

1. What are your objectives?
2. How quickly do you want to get there?
3. What areas of SEO require attention? (A Good SEO Audit will reveal this)

Moz (a renowned SEO tool) conducted research of SEO providers in the UK and found the following disparities in SEO monthly costings;

1. £50-£150 / month — low-end SEO company
2. £150-£300 / month — mid-range SEO company
3. £300-£500 / month — more competitive mid-range SEO company
4. £500-£1,000 / month — high-end small business SEO company
5. £1,000-£2,000 / month — high-quality for a competitive industries SEO company
6. £2,000 or more / month — high-value SEO companies with content-led SEO approach

As you can see from Moz’s findings, there is a lot of variation in prices between low-end SEO firms and high-end SEO firms, which more often than not comes down to quality. Low-end doesn’t mean small and smaller SEO firms are often preferable in our opinion so keep this in mind. Smaller firms tend to have a much more personable approach and subsequent additional dedication.focus into learning about your business, your goals and your market – something very key, especially when establishing a concise, structured and well-researched SEO strategy.

SEO Cost Breakdown

SEO is multi-faceted and there are many areas where attention may be required, with some areas in particular likely costing more than others due to the need for Senior Web Developers and so on. What we can do however is dissect things a little further to give you an idea of prices in relation to particular areas of SEO;

• On-Page SEO – This requires some of the more advanced technical abilities and in some cases requires a firm knowledge of Web Development in order to fix ongoing issues and improve things throughout your website. In particular, this refers to (as the name suggests) all SEO activities on your website and its content. For SEO experts adept and experienced in this area, you would be looking at the upper end of the spectrum, especially if the work needing to be carried out includes any advanced website code alterations. It’s not worth recruiting someone on a shoestring budget, getting someone with high experience is necessary as the potential to cause harm to the website and your SEO is high if they do not know what they are doing.
• Off-Page SEO – this refers to link building, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, influencer marketing, local SEO and so on. This can be done by an SEO professional without many years of experience or web development expertise and therefore would generally come with a cost a bit lower than that of an on-page SEO guru. What you have to watch out for here is someone that would input bad ‘backlinks’ or wasted money on social media campaigns with an incorrect target audience for example. Again the fallout is time, money and your business!
• Keyword & Market Research – this refers to conducting extensive keyword and market research around your business, its products/services and its audiences in order to create an SEO & Keyword Strategy to implement. Your website and off-page SEO strategy will be derived from this research and so it’s paramount that it is conducted holistically, effectively and intelligently. That said, you do not need any advanced web developers or social media experts for this task. Ideally someone with a firm knowledge of SEO and the industry’s relevant tools, a strong analytical skillset and forward-thinking for future search trends and competitor behaviour. For this type of work, you can expect to pay towards the lower-medium range of the price range set out above.
• SEO Audits – SEO Audits are notoriously overcharged so please do not fall foul of this trap. Stating exact prices on SEO Audits is very hard depending on the size of your business & website, both playing a pretty large role in costing. As a general guide, you would expect that a small firm with 5-page site would between £300 to £600 to conduct a full-scope SEO audit with actionable insights (not just a report ran from SEMRush or Ahrefs etc.)

We hope that sheds some light on how much SEO costs in the UK, how these costs are often broken down and levelled depending on SEO activity, but also gives you an idea of what to look out for.

Generally, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Fundamentally SEO should be part of your long-term digital marketing strategy which should be planned, implemented with care with no short-cuts taken. Any company promising you eyebrow-raising results (getting you to rank 1, getting hundreds of backlinks in weeks, achieving 100% optimisation scores etc) should be steered clear of as they often use black-hat SEO techniques which can and most likely will lead to negative SEO results and in a worst-case scenario, blacklisted from the likes of Google.

On a personal note, Atomic Digital Marketing specialises in SEO (and PPC & Web Design) and price our SEO Services at around the midway point of Moz’s findings above. For our monthly SEO services, this ranges between £480-£3,000 and depends predominantly on your objectives, the time frame you want to achieve this in and areas of SEO that require attention.

Atomic does, however, specialise in SMEs and Startups due to our passion and personal success taking companies from infancy through to fruition and being a key market player. Our prices are somewhat more on the affordable side of things knowing all too well the position our clients are in and allowing us to work with you as you grow. We also pride ourselves on our extremely personable service and dedication to learning everything about your team, your company, your goals and for what search terms you would like your company to ideally rank so we can set out what you hope to achieve. With many SEO Agencies, the personal characteristic and dedication to companies and your goals is often lacking, it results in poor meaningless research, a subsequently poor strategy and minimal search engine ranking improvements.

Get in touch with us today to find out how we can help you increase online visibility, boost organic rankings and traffic and ultimately drive more sales through our SEO Services!