How much does SEO cost for a small business in the UK?

Our SEO audit and first fixes is a fixed £2,500 and takes about four weeks. Our published band for the audit and first fixes runs from £2,500 to £8,000, depending mostly on the size and state of the site. Ongoing work on content and links afterwards is optional, month to month, with no minimum term.

Those are our prices, not a survey of the market. What follows is what SEO work actually consists of, how it is usually priced, what makes it cost more or less, what cheap SEO tends to leave out, and how to judge any quote you are given, ours or anyone else's.

What you are actually paying for

"SEO" is a label for several different kinds of work. A quote is only comparable with another once you know which of these it includes.

A cheap quote usually covers the first row or two. An expensive one may cover all six. Neither is wrong, but only one of them is the price of "SEO".

How SEO is usually priced

There are four common models, and they suit different situations:

• A one-off audit and fixes. A fixed price for finding what is holding the site back and fixing the most important things. You know the cost up front, and you have something concrete at the end. This is where we start.
• A monthly retainer. Ongoing work each month, usually content, links and reporting. It makes sense once the foundations are right and there is a plan for what the monthly work will produce. It makes less sense as the first thing you buy.
• Hourly or day rate. Paying for time, usually for advice or specific tasks. Flexible, but you carry the risk if it takes longer.
• Doing it yourself. The tools that matter most are free. The cost is your time, and a developer's for anything technical you cannot change yourself.

What our SEO costs, and what it includes

Our SEO audit and first fixes is a fixed £2,500 and takes about four weeks. It includes:

• a technical audit of your site, and the fixes that matter most made;
• the searches worth going after, and the pages that should answer them;
• improvements to your most important existing pages;
• your Google Business Profile set up properly.

Larger or more complicated sites sit higher in our £2,500 to £8,000 band for the audit and first fixes. After that, ongoing work on content and links is available month to month if it is worth it, with no minimum term. Where a fix needs a developer, we write it up so they can make the change, or work alongside them.

What makes SEO cost more, or less

The size and state of the site. A ten-page site on a modern platform is quicker to audit and fix than a few hundred pages built up over years, with old pages, redirects and duplicate content to untangle.

How competitive the searches are. Ranking for a local service in a market town is a different job from ranking nationally against large companies with big content teams.

Local or national. Local SEO leans heavily on your Google Business Profile, reviews and listings, which our local SEO checklist covers. National SEO leans more on content and links, which take longer and cost more.

How much content is needed. If the pages people need do not exist yet, someone has to write them. That is often the biggest cost in ongoing SEO, whoever writes it.

Who makes the changes. If the SEO can make changes directly, it is quicker than writing them up for a developer, especially one who is busy with other work.

What cheap SEO tends to leave out

Low monthly SEO packages are common, and some are fine for what they are. Before you buy one, ask what it includes, because the gaps tend to be in the same places:

• No technical fixes, only a report. An automated audit tells you what is wrong. Someone still has to fix it. Our checklist of what an SEO audit should include shows what a proper one covers.
• Content nobody reads. Short, generic articles published to a schedule rarely rank or bring enquiries. Google's guidance on helpful, people-first content asks whether content provides original information, research or analysis.
• Links that could hurt you. Google's spam policies treat buying or selling links for ranking purposes, and using automated services to create links, as link spam.
• Reports of rankings for phrases nobody searches. A ranking only matters if the search brings customers.
• No connection to enquiries. If the report never mentions enquiries or sales, you cannot tell whether any of it is working.

What SEO work looks like over a year

It helps to know roughly what should happen when, so you can tell whether the work you are paying for is on track. A typical pattern for a small business site:

It is a pattern, not a promise. A small local site with few competitors can move faster; a national site in a crowded market will take longer. What matters is that you can see each stage happen.

SEO for different kinds of business

Local service businesses get most of their SEO value from the Google Business Profile, reviews, listings and a website that says clearly what they do and where. That work is relatively contained, which is why local SEO for a single location can often be done well within a fixed project.

Online shops have more pages, more technical issues (product variations, out-of-stock pages, filters that create duplicate pages) and more competition from large retailers. They usually need more technical work and ongoing content, so they sit higher in any price range.

Business-to-business services often have few searches but high value per customer. The work is less about volume and more about being found, and trusted, for the specific problems buyers research before they get in touch.

Doing it in-house or buying it in

A common arrangement is a mix: someone in the business keeps the Google Business Profile up to date, asks for reviews and writes the occasional piece, while outside help handles the technical audit, the plan and the harder content. That is often the most cost-effective arrangement, because the ongoing work that needs your knowledge stays with you, and the specialist work is bought when it is needed.

If you are thinking of hiring someone for SEO, be clear about how much of the job is ongoing. A small business site often does not need a full-time person just for SEO; it may need a marketer who understands it, with specialist help for the technical parts.

Warning signs in an SEO proposal

Google's own guide to hiring an SEO is short and worth reading before you speak to anyone. It says no one can guarantee a number one ranking on Google, and warns against SEOs who claim a special relationship with Google or advertise priority submission to Google. We would add:

• a monthly contract with a long minimum term, sold before anyone has looked at your site;
• vague deliverables, such as "on-going optimisation", with nothing you could point to at the end of the month;
• secrecy about what was done, or about where links came from;
• your Search Console, analytics or website logins being held by the supplier rather than by you.

Doing it yourself: what it costs

A lot of SEO for a small business can be done in-house, if someone has the time. The core tools are free:

• Google Search Console shows which searches you appear for, which pages are indexed and what is broken.
• Google Business Profile controls how you appear in local results and on Maps.
• Bing Webmaster Tools does for Bing what Search Console does for Google.
• PageSpeed Insights tests how quickly your pages load, on phones and computers.
• Keyword Planner, inside a Google Ads account, shows how often searches are made.

Paid SEO tools can help with research and monitoring, but they are not where a small business should start. The real cost of doing it yourself is time: to learn, to write, to make changes and to keep going for months. That is worth pricing honestly, even if you never pay it in cash.

How long before it pays for itself

Anyone who gives you a confident timeframe is guessing. We set out what moves in weeks and what takes months in how long does SEO take? Google's guide does not give one; it suggests asking any SEO what results they expect and in what timeframe. What we can say is that technical fixes can show within weeks, while new pages and links build over months, and we will tell you which is which for your site.

So judge it the way you would judge any spend: agree a measure and a date before you start, and check it in the right places.

• Search Console: are your pages appearing for more of the searches that matter, and are more people clicking?
• Your analytics: are visits from organic search growing, and are those visitors enquiring? Five reports cover it.
• Your enquiries: ask every new customer how they found you.

Is it worth it?

It is worth doing the arithmetic before you spend anything. Look at the searches you want to be found for in Keyword Planner, think honestly about how many of those searchers you could win and what they would be worth to you, and compare that with the cost. For a local service business, a handful of extra enquiries a month can pay for an audit many times over. For a business whose customers never search for what it sells, SEO may be the wrong first spend, and other channels, or a plan that compares them, may be better.

Comparing SEO quotes

Line any quote up against these before you compare prices. The ticks are saved in this browser.

• I know which of the six kinds of work it includes, and which it leaves out.
• Technical problems will be fixed, not just reported.
• Any content will be written for my customers, and I will see it before it is published.
• It explains how links will be earned, and none will be bought.
• Nobody has guaranteed a ranking.
• Results will be judged on searches that matter, visits and enquiries, not rankings alone.
• There is a date and a measure agreed in advance.
• I keep ownership of the website, Search Console and analytics.
• Any monthly work is optional, or the minimum term is short and clear.
• I know who will actually do the work.

If you would like it done properly from the start, our SEO audit and first fixes is a fixed £2,500. For how SEO fits alongside other channels, and what the rest of your marketing might cost, see what marketing costs in the UK and how much a marketing consultant costs.