SEO Pricing Guide I January 2024
Industry Pricing Determination
In the domain of SEO, a significant portion of the expense is attributed to manual labour. This encompasses various tasks, such as content creation, on-page optimisation, and other essential hands-on activities crucial for effective SEO implementation.
While a part of your monthly SEO budget may also be allocated for acquiring backlinks, either through purchasing or organic methods, the lion’s share is devoted to labour-intensive efforts.
Understanding the pricing structure of SEO services involves considering the number of hours an agency dedicates to your campaign each month.
This calculation includes assessing the number of professionals engaged and the total hours they need to invest to ensure your website receives the highest level of SEO attention.
The objective is to achieve sustainable long term SEO results.
Alongside manual labour, investment in SEO also cover tools, reporting dashboards, and occasionally, web development for addressing on-page and technical SEO improvements.
These components together form a comprehensive SEO strategy designed to produce measurable outcomes.
Key Considerations
Australian vs Offshore Labor
The choice between Australian and offshore labour impacts the quality and cultural relevance of content. Whilst offshore teams offer cost benefits, they may lack nuanced understanding of the Australian market and language.
At Remarkable Digital, we place high priority on quality and elect to use Australian Labour for content, copywriting and SEO strategy discussions.
Business Category Competitiveness
The competitiveness of your business category directly influences SEO costs. More competitive industries require greater effort and resources to improve rankings, leading to higher monthly SEO expenses.
Example would be doing SEO for home loans, the competition is so fierce and competitive, you would need a significant amount of resources and budget per month to get a new home loan website to rank on the first page of Google. It would require a lot of monthly labour over a sustained period of time, as you’re competing against banks and big national financial institutions who have been doing SEO for many years, which is important for Google, they have built trust with that website over a long period of time, which is why SEO is so important to engage with for the long term.
The other side of the spectrum is a Local SEO campaign for a Chiropractor Clinic, you could rank quite quickly with good a website and quality SEO content, the competition would be a lot less competitive and as such, your SEO requires less hours per month, which is the reason why a local SEO campaign pricing structure is a lot less than for the Home Loan campaign.
Remarkable Digital’s Pricing Guide
At Remarkable Digital, transparency in pricing is a cornerstone of our service.
As of January 2024, the below rates should be used as a guide to assist: (ex GST)
– **Local SEO Campaign:** $1,500 – $2,500/month. Includes local listing management, technical SEO, on-page, and off-page SEO, with 1-2 blogs per month.
Example: ‘Electrician Port Melbourne’ is what a local campaign keyword would be, a local campaign would include up to 10-15 surrounding suburbs, or can combine more services within that suburb. ‘Emergency Electrician Port Melbourne’ and ‘Home Automation Port Melbourne’.
**Metro SEO Campaign:** $2,000 – $3,500/month. For businesses targeting city-specific competitive keywords.
Example: ‘Electrician Melbourne’ is what we refer to here, we are targeting a city and surrounding areas, this keyword has more search, and it’s more competitive, the pricing is higher as we need more SEO resources per month to achieve the rankings and results required to ensure a positive campaign and lead generation.
**National SEO Campaign:** $3,000 – $5,000/month. For broader, highly competitive search terms.
Example: ‘Electrician Melbourne’, ‘Electrician Sydney’, ‘Electrician Brisbane’ might form a national SEO campaign if that business has offices or can service all those areas. The key difference here is instead of this being 3 metro based campaigns, we can get efficiencies of scale with the content for the other 2 locations. With National SEO campaigns it’s best to understand the requirements best to price the campaign appropriately, the above is a guide.
**eCommerce SEO:** $1,500 – $10,000/month. Pricing varies based on market competition and search term authority.
eCommerce SEO is quite hard to accurately quote, it really depends on so many factors, if you were wanting to rank for ‘3 Seater Couch Leather’ there is significant competition for such a keyword, you would need a significant investment for SEO, however if it was for ‘Leather Horse Riding Boots Kids’ the competition is less, and you could rank for this much quicker. It is really a price on application pending competition, how many products you have and if there are options to include keyword variations such as ‘Long Tail Keywords’ which have much less search volume, but the desired amount of ‘intent’ that ensures they convert really well. ‘Leather Horse Riding Boots Kids Size 6 Brown’ would be an example.
Monthly Retained Model
Our SEO services are structured as a monthly retainer, ensuring continuous optimization and adaptation to the ever-evolving digital landscape. This approach allows us to dedicate the necessary resources and attention to your campaign, fostering steady growth and sustained improvements in your online presence.
In House Vs SEO Agency
The In House (hire an SEO specialist) Vs SEO agency conversation is always widely debated.
Let’s look at the pro’s and con’s of a direct employee.
In 2024 the average wage of an SEO specialist is $84,000. Monthly this equates to $5375 + Super per month for an SEO specialist with 1-3 years experience.
Pros:
- 38 Hours per week purely dedicated to your business
- Total control over strategy
- Nimble – Want something done immediately you can
- Knows your business – they work in the business, and know your business intimately
Cons:
- Adding another FTE to your business
- Might be overkill – Do you need 38 hours a month for your SEO
- Less flexible than using an agency
- Financial – Hiring an agency is much more cost effective
- More junior SEO specialist vs a senior SEO specialist in an SEO agency.
In conclusion, for most businesses it makes more sense economically to use an agency, providing that agency has the SEO specialists, and actually spend the required amount of hours to ensure you get results. If you’re in a highly competitive industry such as banking, it would make complete sense to have an SEO specialist working internally within your business.
Summary
Quality SEO requires significant investment. Lower-priced services often result in insufficient attention to your campaign. It’s crucial to choose a trustworthy agency, verify their client satisfaction, and avoid lock-in contracts.
Remember, SEO takes time, but flexibility should always favour the client.
For a personalised consultation, contact Ryan for a 30-minute strategy call.