SEO is not a single process. It is a collection of different on-page, off-page, and marketing tasks. You can choose to do as few or as many of these optimizations as possible, but in general, the more you complete, the higher your site will rank in his SERPs.
Generally, most service providers offer all these costs included in a package deal. This means you only pay a set monthly or hourly rate without seeing the details for each product. However, here is a breakdown of some of the SEO costs:
1. Audit
Before creating an SEO strategy, you need to take a look at the current situation. An SEO specialist can do this by performing an audit of your website. This includes looking at existing initiatives to see how well they are working and identifying areas that can be improved.
SEO audits aren't cheap. They typically start at $500 for a simple backlink check and go up to $30,000 for a full content audit. That said, he's usually a one-time fee.
2. Create content
Content is the star of SEO. This is what search engines crawl to determine if your site provides value to users. With this in mind, you'll need a variety of keyword-optimized content, as well as a compelling meta title and meta description.
If you want effective content, you need to hire an experienced content writing specialist. Experienced specialists charge between 20 cents and $2 per word. This equates to $200 to $2,000 for a 1,000 word landing page.
3. Link building
Google ranks sites based on their authority. To make your site more trustworthy, it helps if other reputable sites link to your content. This is called a “backlink” and can happen naturally if you have high-quality content, but you can pay to have other sites link to you in order to rank faster. You can also.
Obtaining backlinks isn't cheap. Depending on your industry and the quality of your site, it can cost anywhere from $100 to $1,500 per link. There is no magic number of backlinks you need to rank your site well in the SERPs, but it helps to have at least 40-50 on your homepage.
4. Technical configuration
SEO is not just about the content of your site, but also how it's built. Your site should be designed with an easy-to-navigate architecture, including a robots.txt file that Google can crawl. You also need to make sure your site is mobile-friendly.
All of these backend tasks are best left to developers. According to Zippia, this type of professional typically charges between $40 and $160 per hour for his services.
5. SEO research tools
Researching your keywords and competitors will inform your SEO strategy and help you know exactly how to proceed with your content and ads. In this step you will probably need the help of his SEO tools and software. Good examples of these include Ahrefs and Semrush, which start at $99 per month and $129.95 per month, respectively.
6. SEO reporting and monitoring tools
Once you've implemented an SEO campaign, you need to make sure it's working. To do this, you need a reporting tool that helps you track link clicks, paid search results, and other site analytics.
Fortunately, these features are often bundled with research tool subscriptions. You can also use Google Analytics, a free tool to monitor your site's traffic.