SEO Cost in Australia: How Much To Expect To Pay

How is your SEO?
Is it pretty good?

Are you sure?

SEO has been an elusive part of marketing for quite some time. And while most people know what SEO is, they don’t know enough about it to know whether or not they are doing it right. Therefore, we are going to try to clear up some of that mystery so you will be able to make educated decisions about your SEO and how it should go.

Besides, it’s all about keywords and price…right?

Wrong!

And here’s why…

DO YOU SEE SEO AS AN INVESTMENT?

Unfortunately, many business owners view SEO as an expense rather than considering it an investment. Therefore, they base all SEO related services on the basis of how much it will cost them. But that’s the exact wrong thing to do because SEO can’t be performed or measured by how much it costs. This type of thinking is what leads to opting for and using the cheapest SEO option available. And there are plenty of cheap SEO options out there; however, in most cases, using cheaper SEO solutions will end up costing you more in the long run…sometimes with the long run resulting in permanent and irreversible damage. Yikes!

Let’s talk about that in a little more detail.

SEO PRICING AND THE CHEAPEST OPTION

So, if you’re asking how much your SEO will cost, you are probably getting answers from across the board. That’s because you could head on over to Fiverr and get SEO services starting at A$8.24, or, you could contact a big SEO services company and pay around A$5,000 per month or more.

So what’s the difference? Isn’t all SEO pretty much the same thing?

No—no it’s not!

And we’re going to talk more about why in a moment.

But first let’s talk about why it’s nearly impossible to initially see the differences between good SEO and bad SEO, especially because the motions are almost exactly the same—it’s the how that’s different.

This happens because not everyone who performs SEO or offers SEO services thoroughly understands the process involved and the full extent of the damage if they get it wrong. Then what happens next is several rounds of failed SEO attempts based on price and the use of cheap SEO service and what they think they know.

Do you know what the next mistake is?

After several rounds of failed SEO attempts with no positive results to show for them, most people will begin to view SEO as a redundant expense and give up. Or, they might just go with what they know, or what they have been conditioned to believe regardless of whether it’s right or wrong.

Next, let’s talk a bit about SEO pricing around the world and in Australia.

SEO PRICING AROUND THE WORLD

A 2018 Ahrefs study that interviewed a variety of SEO professionals about how much they charge showed the following results.

• 50% of SEOs charge between US$75-$200 per hour
• 88.28% of SEOs charge between US$100-$150 per hour
• 6.25% of SEOs charge an hourly rate that is US$201 or more
• There are two exceptions, though, and those are India and Latin America which both charge less than $25 per hour.

The SEO pricing models vary, however, about 74.71% of SEOs charge a monthly retainer fee versus an hourly fee for some or all of their services. And the cost of this pricing model will vary from country-to-country. One of the most common monthly retainer fees reflects that 23.08% of SEOs charge between $501-$1,000 per month. Another 19.23% of SEOs charge monthly retainer fees between $251-$500. Interestingly enough, though, 24.23% of all SEOs charge monthly retainer fees that are $2,001 per month or more. The most common monthly retainer fees range between $2,501-$5,000 per month!

So what about search engine optimisation cost in Australia?

SEO COST IN AUSTRALIA

Well, it looks like the cost of SEO is higher in Australia and New Zealand than in other places for the most part. With 40% of SEOs in Australia and New Zealand charging $100-$150 per hour and another 20% charging between $200-$400 per hour.

However, when it comes to those SEOs that charge a monthly retainer fee, almost 30% of Australians are being charged between $2,001-$5,000 per month. About 50% of all SEOs in Australia only charge between $1,001-$2,000 per month.

DOING THE SEO MATH

Now let’s take a look at the SEO math. This will help you understand what you are getting for your money.

Let’s say you opt for a $299 per month SEO package, at this rate, you are probably only getting about three hours of SEO service each month and we don’t even consider profit margins yet.

If you think about it, how much SEO work could three hours a month possibly produce—not much at all! Do you know how long it takes to perform SEO tasks properly and effectively? Well, we can tell you…a lot more than three hours that’s for sure!

And to make matters worse, if you are paying an SEO service $299 per month, the only way they can make a profit is to use cheap labor to perform your SEO tasks for them. That means they are almost guaranteed to be outsourcing your SEO tasks to someone in India or elsewhere who will work for pennies on the dollar.

Remember…you get what you pay for.

Do more experienced SEOs charge a lot more per month than the above example? Yes! They absolutely do.

OK, we know that’s not what you wanted to hear; however, there is a reason a reputable SEO consulting company charges more.

And here’s why.

Keep reading…

THE DISTURBING FACTS ABOUT CHEAP SEO

There are plenty of things that can go wrong when you choose to work with a cheap SEO service. Let’s face it, $299 per month is really cheap because Australian standards are so much higher. Here is what you can expect when you hire a cheap SEO agency in Australia.

You excitedly pay your upfront monthly fee then you wait…but nothing happens. Yep, you heard that right, nothing happens. Why? Because when you pay virtually nothing for a service, you get virtually nothing in return…if you’re lucky?

Wait…what?

What do you mean if I’m lucky?

Well, what we mean by that is when you use a cheap SEO service in Australia, the agency you’re using has probably outsourced your account to an overseas contract worker for A$8.24 or less per hour. That outsourced worker, who may or may not really know how to properly perform SEO services, will most likely NOT do the SEO tasks according to Google or the other search engines best practices which will wreak havoc on your website.

You will know when this happens because suddenly you will have hundreds of new links overnight from irrelevant or low-quality domains. This, in turn, will result in Google’s Penguin algorithm flagging your website and your rankings will drop like a rock—just like that!

So what are we saying? We are saying that while you think you are paying a cheap price for an SEO service, that cheap SEO service is actually going to end up being ridiculously expensive.

Let’s take a look.

CHEAP SEO COSTS MORE

Cheap SEO can be expensive. It may damage your website, your traffic, your brand, your brand’s reputation, and ultimately your revenue and your business overall.

OK, but that can be fixed…right?

Nope! Not always.

Fixing the issues caused by a low-quality SEO service takes time and money if it can be done at all. Sometimes a bad SEO service will do such extensive damage that it can never be undone.

A good SEO service might be able to help you reverse some of that damage. However, undoing the damage caused by the previous SEO agency will take a significant amount of time and money and this is on top of the losses you have already incurred from lost traffic and revenue.

That means the cleaning up tasks will ultimately cost significantly more than if you would have just hired a high-quality SEO service that had a proven track record and knew what they were going, to begin with.

In the end, using a cheap SEO service often may cause you to lose money, rankings, and more importantly—time—time you can’t get back and will never be compensated for!

So if you don’t remember anything else, remember this:

Cheap SEO will almost always turn out to be ridiculously more expensive. Therefore, you should never hire an SEO agency based solely on price.

Why SEO Should be Viewed as an Investment Not an Expense

SEO should never be viewed as an expense but seen as an investment and serious businesses know this. SEO is the driver of your brand and your brand’s reputation, not to mention your website’s traffic which plays a huge role in whether your revenue increases or decreases.

Businesses who thoroughly understand marketing and the benefits of quality bespoke SEO service will strategically invest in both because they know those are the things that could make or break the business as a whole. They also know that obtaining organic traffic is a much cheaper marketing tactic than paying for a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign or any other marketing activity. Just doing this one thing will save loads of budget money and marketing spend and provide you with a much higher return on your investment (ROI). And who doesn’t want that!

What’s Next?
If you want information about how a reputable SEO service can help you boost your website and page rankings, increase traffic, and your business revenue, please get in touch with me today.