How much does SEO cost for a small business? The cost of SEO campaigns can range from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. It depends on the site, market, and desired results.
In this article, I’ll outline some important factors that affect your SEO costs. Plus valuable tips that will help you get the most for your money.
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- Small business SEO costs often range from a few hundred dollars per month to several thousand dollars per month, depending on your website, market competition, and goals.
- Many sources cite an “average” SEO campaign cost of around $3,000 to $5,000 per month, but pricing varies widely by scope and provider.
- The biggest cost drivers are keyword difficulty, the number of targeted keywords, on-page optimization, and off-page link building.
- On-page SEO work (titles, headings, content improvements, site fixes) usually shows progress sooner than off-page link building, which can take months or longer.
- A realistic small-business SEO retainer is typically $500 to $2,000 per month, depending on the amount of work included.
How Do Search Engines Work?
First, it’s helpful to understand how search engine optimization works. Next, you can make informed decisions about how much effort and expense are reasonable for your situation.
Search engines use complex mathematical algorithms to rank websites according to hundreds of variables. These are pulled from a website’s code, structure, content, and backlinks.
The goal of every SEO campaign is to increase positive ranking factors while decreasing negative ones.
Website Rankings
And of course, rankings are subjective; Google has more market share, but there are many search engines, each with its own ranking methods.
While the time required to achieve high rankings varies by niche and website content, in general, SEO campaigns that focus on off-page optimization take longer than on-page optimization.
This includes backlinks from other authoritative websites linking to yours.
An SEO campaign focused on backlinks can take months or even years to see significant, sustainable results. This means you need business and personal loans to sustain your project during the initial stage of building authority.
What is the Average Cost of an SEO Campaign?
How much does SEO cost for a small business? Nobody really knows the average cost of an SEO campaign.
Some think it is $3,000, while others think it’s $5,000 or more. Low-cost plans often include limited deliverables (few pages, limited reporting, little to no link outreach).
Factors That Affect Small Business SEO Costs
Let us look at some of the factors of an SEO campaign below:
1. Keyword Difficulty
The more hard-to-rank keywords, the more it costs.
That means if you have many highly competitive keywords, you can expect to spend more on average.
These keywords are highly competitive and require significant time and effort. Time is spent creating the right content, links, and other factors that help a page rank higher.
2. The Number of Keywords Matters for How Much SEO for Small Businesses Costs
As mentioned above, the higher the number of keywords placed in your campaign, the more expensive your monthly SEO services are.
This is because of two reasons: first, you have more work to do with multiple keywords than with fewer ones. Secondly, you have more things to monitor and optimize, so expect the cost to be higher.
4. On-Page Optimization Factor
The level of on-page optimization will affect your monthly SEO service expenses. The more items optimized, the higher the monthly fee. As there is a need to provide relevant and informative content on every site page.
This also includes using title tags that are 55 characters or fewer (including spaces), using h1 and h2 tags with keywords, etc. All these factors contribute to higher monthly expenses for your campaign.
You need more people who can create engaging content and build links that improve your ranking and conversion rates, which in turn affect your revenue from each sale or lead.
5. Off-Page Optimization Factor
The more links you build, the higher the expectation that it will cost, since many people are needed to do the link building. This means you have to spend more money monthly on this SEO tactic.
However, if you only want to target specific websites with high domain authority, expect the monthly cost to be lower. This involves fewer link-building tasks.
Expect to get these services at low rates from agencies and freelancers specializing in manual link-building campaigns.
Many factors affect how much an SEO campaign costs. But on average, a monthly fee for optimization on a small business website ranges from $200 to $2,000. It all boils down to the factors mentioned above, affecting how much an SEO campaign costs.
If you are not willing to spend that much on your monthly SEO expenses, it’s best to employ someone who can do this job while focusing on other requirements for your business growth.
But make sure that whoever you hire knows what they are doing. They need to know about the campaign’s long-term planning to achieve significant results.
This means that more experts should be knowledgeable enough about search engine optimization tactics, so expect higher rates even if they are just starting in the industry.
AI Updates for SEO Services
AI updates for SEO services are the ongoing tweaks you make when search engines change how they rank and show results because of AI. You’re watching for shifts like Google’s AI Overviews, new spam filters, and updates that reward helpful, first-hand content, then adjusting your strategy fast.
That can mean reworking pages to better match search intent by:
- Tightening on-page SEO (titles, headings, internal links)
- Adding or fixing schema to help your content qualify for richer results
- Refreshing older posts before they fall behind
You also review what AI tools are doing to your traffic, because clicks can drop even when rankings look fine, then you track new targets like impressions, engaged visits, and leads.
The point is simple, you keep your content visible and competitive while search keeps changing.
How Much Does SEO Cost for a Small Business to Work Well?
If you want a successful SEO campaign, be willing to invest some money, as this will help your business gain more exposure and increase its revenue.
- It is highly dependent on both on-page and off-page optimization factors, which affect monthly expenses because many activities are involved in achieving high rankings for specific keywords. This means you have many tasks to accomplish, each with different rates.
- The higher number of keywords included in the campaign means that you also need more people. People who can handle link-building campaigns increase your monthly expense for this SEO tactic.
* Regarding the level of on-page optimization, expect lower monthly expenses if you only need to build one link per month with high domain authority, compared to those who only need a couple of links.
These methods are considered long-term strategies for achieving significant results.
How Might Businesses be able to fund an SEO Campaign?
Ever since the inception of search engine optimization, businesses have sought ways to reduce their campaign costs.
SEO is a very effective method, but due to its ever-rising costs, it has become impossible for many small and medium-sized enterprises to realize its benefits. However, you could purchase an SEO small business and do it all yourself.
SEO campaigns always start with an analysis of where targeted audiences can be found at inexpensive rates. Paid advertisements, such as Google Adwords or Bing Ads, should be put on hold until you get free organic traffic.
Working in tandem with social media and link-building campaigns could be an excellent way to reach out to your target audience.
Instead of contracting the SEO campaign entirely to an external agency, ask your employees if they can help you with aspects such as blog outreach or forum marketing.
Collaborate
These collaborations might revolve around sharing ideas for effective content creation or website design. However, you want to have reciprocal link-building campaigns.
Outsourcing your SEO campaign to a reputable company will significantly reduce costs. Labor is cheaper in India, especially for digital marketing.
This is one of the most popular ways to reduce expenditures without compromising results.
One way to cut costs while promoting the business is to use free or affordable tools. Tools that do not necessarily belong in “standard” search engine optimization packages.
Although this may initially impact rankings, companies could see enough traffic from these free or low-cost promotional methods to cover the initial investment.
What Do You Get For Your Money?
When you hire out for SEO, you get the following for your money invested:
- Audit items
- On-page edits
- Content plan
- Link outreach
- Reporting
Conclusion: Cost of SEO Campaigns
You don’t pay for SEO just to “rank,” you pay for steady traffic, better leads, and content that keeps working after it’s published. The cost of SEO campaigns depends on your goals, your site’s current health, your market, and how fast you need results.
Treat SEO like a monthly plan with clear priorities, solid tracking, and room to adjust, then you’ll see where every dollar goes. If you want a smart starting point, price out a focused audit and a 90-day plan, then commit to what you can keep up.
How much does SEO cost for your small business? Have you done any SEO campaigns for your blog or small business?
Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business SEO Costs
A small business’s SEO can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars per month to several thousand dollars. Many businesses land in the $500 to $2,000 per month range for ongoing work, depending on competition, how many pages need improvements, and how much link building is included.
The biggest pricing factors are keyword difficulty (how hard it is to rank), how many keywords you want to target, the level of on-page optimization needed, and the amount of off-page work required (especially link building). More work and more competition usually mean a higher monthly cost.
Link building often requires more time and more people, and results take longer to show. If you want links from authoritative sites, outreach and relationship-building can increase costs, even when you build fewer links per month.
On-page SEO updates can improve performance sooner, while off-page work like backlinks can take months or longer to create stable ranking gains. Timelines depend on your niche, your site’s current condition, and how competitive your target keywords are.
AI can speed up keyword research, content briefs, outline creation, content refreshes, internal linking suggestions, and FAQ drafting. It still needs human review for accuracy, tone, and brand fit, but it can reduce hours spent on first drafts and repetitive tasks.
She has 30+ years of experience in marketing/advertising with 14 years of experience in content marketing, social media, blogging, and SEO.
Lisa helps her clients with social media, email marketing and some SEO.
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Informative Article! Yes – you are absolutely right. It saves your time to work more in your business and on your blog if someone is doing your SEO for you. But from my experience, I can tell if you find a really skilled individual who could handle your campaign effectively they will be worth every penny.
Hi Donald, welcome to Inspire To Thrive. Thank you. Yes, I would surely agree with you on that. Not only will it bring you organic traffic but will save you a lot of time to do other things for your business. Make it a great day!
Nice breakdown of key SEO factors, Lisa. From my experience engaging in seo, if you find a really skilled individual who could handle your campaign effectively they will be worth every penny. Why? Ample skills go into building your site and off-site in order to rank on Google. Investing money in capable experts to handle all these jobs for you is definitely worth it. But on the flip side, beware people that pitch you via lame emails lol. These folks prove through their silly pictures that they are struggling, failing and can do nothing to get you even on page 10 of Google.
Ryan
Thank you Ryan. Yes – you are right. It saves you time to work more in your business and on your blog if someone is doing your SEO for you. And the flip side is REAL – I can’t tell you how many of those emails I’ve gotten over the years. Craziness for sure. Very unreputable. Thanks for your comment Ryan and I hope you are having a great day.