How Much Does SEO Cost in Australia? How Much Should You Expect To Pay in 2023?

We tell you here.

If you are looking to expand an existing business or have a new business, and want it to get off the best possible start, then one of the primary considerations you will have is ensuring that your business has an online presence.

Mind you, simply being online is not enough because if you want to attract visitors to your website with the hope of them becoming customers, then they need to find it first. In order for these potential customers to find you when searching on Google and other search engines, your website needs to rank high, and that means being on page 1 of the search results.

If you have never employed anyone to do SEO for you before, you may be wondering what it will cost. Truth be told, what you pay for SEO services should not really be seen as a ‘cost’ as such, because costs tend to be things that diminish your profits.

An SEO campaign is something that, if done correctly, will ultimately add to and accelerate your profits, so it should really be classed as an investment. So, if you are prepared to invest in SEO, and in doing so, invest in your business, you need to know what that investment looks like in terms of dollar amounts, and what you can expect in return. View our: SEO Case Studies

Virtually any business, of any size, can benefit from SEO, and that means that there are actually different levels of SEO. Accordingly, the costs involved in employing an agency to implement each of them will vary greatly.

The largest SEO campaigns tend to be those where a business is trying to rank, not just in one local area, but for the entire country. Bear in mind the sizes of companies that operate on a national level tend to be larger, and therefore the resources they have at their disposal are large too.

This means that the level of competition they have is also greater, and thus trying to rank highly for keywords nationally is going to take a lot more effort, than trying to rank within one local town or city. Consider how many businesses might be competing for the keyword, ‘software company Australia’, versus ‘software company Perth’.

The second type of SEO is done for eCommerce companies. These are companies that only sell online, and while many might only ship within a single country, most of them have a worldwide reach and are literally competing for keyword rankings against competition from all over the globe.

The most common SEO, and possibly the type you are looking for, is local SEO. This is where local businesses seek to have their online properties, including their website, rank higher, than the local competition. This applies whether it is a service, such as accounting, or a product, like wedding dresses, that the business specialises in.

Before we cover some of the specific pricing you can expect for SEO, we must warn you of the danger of trying to cut corners and costs. Yes, you will find many SEO services being sold for just a few hundred dollars, and whilst they may seem like a bargain, be aware.

This is the future of your business that we are talking about, and you do not want to put that at risk. That is what you might be doing as cheap SEO services often use so-called black hat tactics. These are SEO tactics that Google has effectively outlawed, and if they discover your website has been optimised using them, it will be delisted. That means it no longer shows anywhere on Google, and to all intents and purposes is the end of your online business.

There is a number of ways in which an SEO campaign may be costed and subsequently paid for. As each client’s needs are different no two campaigns will be exactly the same price, and often it will be a matter of negotiation.

Remember, SEO is not a 5-minute exercise, and a large number of hours will be spent by the agency researching, creating, implementing, and monitoring your SEO campaign.

Fixed Priced Contracts: These tend to be used for individual services that an agency offers. Examples of this could be building a website, implementing a social media campaign, or completing a full SEO audit. The prices of these will obviously be influenced by the amount of work required, but a fixed-priced campaign, for example, is likely to range between $1,000 and $20,000.

Project Pricing: This is where an entire campaign is priced from start to finish. Here we are talking about all stages of a campaign, and all the resources, hours worked, and individual tasks are all costed to arrive at a cumulative total. For an SEO campaign that is costed in this way, you will be looking at between $2,500 and $30,000.

Hourly Rate For Consulting: Some SEO agencies operate on a consultative basis, whereby they are paid for their time, rather than specific tasks. This can be an open-ended arrangement where the client is billed each month for the hours that the consultant or agency has worked for them. Normal hourly rates for SEO consulting can range from $100 to $350 per hour.

Monthly Retainer: Similar to hourly rates but not so much measured by how many hours worked, but instead by the fact that the agency is carrying out all the necessary SEO tasks each and every month. This is done, first to set up and implement the SEO campaign, but thereafter to ensure that the ranking levels are maintained on an ongoing basis. Retainer fees range from $950 to $5000 per month. This would be our recommendation to choose, once you were satisfied you were dealing with experienced professionals.

How To Ensure What You Spend On SEO Is Money Well Spent

This is actually achieved before you even employ an agency and is called due diligence. It involves you ensuring that the agency you are going to employ has a track record and previous clients who will vouch for them.

Look for testimonials and reviews from satisfied customers and clients. Also seek out case studies and success stories that will verify that when you invest with them for SEO, they are certain to deliver based on their previous results.