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Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) isn’t just about ranking higher on search engines like Google. It’s about driving targeted traffic that grows your leads and scales your sales. It’s one of the best ways to build long-term revenue growth without relying solely on paid ads.
But how much do you need to spend to get these benefits? £1,000 a month? £10,000 a month?
We sat down with Andrew Tuxford, Head of SEO at Exposure Ninja, to gain his expert insights into setting a smart SEO budget for your business.
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Key Takeaways: How Much Should You Budget for SEO?
Your SEO budget will depend on your niche, goals, and how competitive your market is — but here’s a quick benchmark:
- Small businesses looking to scale should budget for £5,000 per month or just less.
- Most businesses spend between £5,000 to £10,000 per month on SEO.
Typical SEO Costs to Consider When Creating Your Budget
Account Management
Whether handling SEO in-house or through an agency, account management will be a main part of your budget — and for good reason. It’s what keeps your SEO strategy focused, your team accountable, and your results moving in the right direction.
In-house SEO management involves the costs of hiring, training, managing, and retaining skilled SEO professionals. On average, you can expect to pay a single SEO specialist £32,000 per year, not including the costs of the tools they’ll need to do their work.
“Even for a small SEO campaign, you’ll need to employ three to four different experts,” explains Andrew Tuxford. “For larger campaigns, you’re looking at five to six full-time employees.”
Agencies, by comparison, are often more cost-effective, especially for mid-sized businesses. You get access to a full team of SEO experts, strategists, and account managers without the overhead of building that team internally. Tools, training, and coordination are all included in your monthly fee.
Tools
If you want your SEO budget to work hard, you need the right tech in your corner. But, the cost of this SEO tech stack will depend on which platforms you choose to use.
At a minimum, your toolkit should include:
- Google Analytics 4 (GA4): GA4 is free and non-negotiable. This gives you insights into user behaviour, conversions, and traffic sources.
- Google Search Console (GSC): GSC is also free. It shows how your site appears in search results, flags technical issues, and highlights indexing or crawl problems.
- Rank Tracking Software: Tools like Semrush* let you monitor your keyword positions, visibility, and competitors. Expect to pay from $139.95 per month.
- Screaming Frog: A powerful crawler used to audit technical SEO issues like broken links, duplicate content, and metadata gaps. It costs around £199 per year.
“You need some form of analytics to see what’s happening on your site,” explains Andrew Tuxford. “Google Analytics and Search Console are free, so there’s no excuse not to use them. Then you’ll want a rank tracker to monitor your progress and something like Screaming Frog for deep audits.”
Technical SEO
Technical SEO isn’t usually costly per task — but it can quickly become a major budget item due to volume and time.
“The work itself isn’t always expensive,” Andrew Tuxford says, “but when you’ve got hundreds of fixes, the time adds up, and so can the costs.”
Even well-optimised sites often have hundreds of small technical issues, like broken links, duplicate pages, or crawl errors. That’s why Andrew recommends handling technical SEO early in your campaign:
“Get the technical things done first before you start focusing on other areas,” he advises. “You could spend all this time improving content or building links, but if technical issues are holding your site back, you’ll never see the full benefit.”
Content Production and Optimisation
Content marketing is where your SEO strategy comes to life. Well-optimised blogs, service pages, and landing content help attract visitors, build trust, showcase authority, and convert traffic into leads or sales.
But quality content creation doesn’t come cheap. It’s often one of the largest ongoing costs within your SEO budget.
Whether you build an in-house team or outsource to freelancers will shape your monthly spending:
- An in-house content writer typically costs around £25,000 per year, depending on experience, location, and workload. This gives you a dedicated resource who understands your brand and can produce consistent content. But, hiring an in-house writer takes time, training, and ongoing management, which will have extra costs.
- Freelancers can charge £100–£500 per blog, depending on word count, topic complexity, and keyword research requirements. This option offers flexibility and access to specialist skills, but quality can be less predictable.
Link Building
Link building is still one of the most powerful ways to increase domain authority and improve rankings — when done right.
You’ve probably seen offers promising hundreds of backlinks for next to nothing. And if your budget’s tight, that might seem like an easy way to cut some costs. But it’s not worth it.
Cheap, spammy links can do more harm than good. They can trigger penalties, damage your domain authority, and set your SEO progress back months.
Instead, invest in building high-quality backlinks through tactics like:
- Digital PR campaigns that earn links from major publications.
- Guest posting on relevant, reputable blogs.
- Influencer or partner outreach to build industry relationships.
- Creating linkable assets like data reports, tools, or in-depth guides.
Each approach varies in cost. Some tactics require more time and planning, while others can be executed on a leaner budget. The key is to align your link-building strategy with your overall growth goals.
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How to Create an SEO Budget
Set Goals and Timelines
SEO is a long-term growth channel. That’s why your SEO budget needs to be directly tied to your revenue goals and the timeline you want to achieve them in.
Most campaigns start with research, auditing, and planning in the first month. Implementation typically kicks off in month two, but meaningful results often take until month three to start showing. Significant gains usually come from month six onwards, and the returns continue to build over time.
To set an effective budget, start by defining what success looks like using a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound).
For example, your goal could be to generate an additional £100,000 in revenue through organic traffic within 12 months.
Once you’ve set your goal, work backwards:
- Estimate how much organic traffic you’ll need to reach that revenue.
- Calculate the number of leads or conversions required.
- Use your average order value or lead value to understand what SEO needs to deliver.
“Set SEO goals the same way you would any other business goal,” says Andrew Tuxford. “Then plan how realistically you can achieve them, and let that guide your budget.”
Audit Your Current SEO Performance
Before setting your SEO budget, you need to know what you’re working with. A thorough SEO audit gives you a clear view of your website’s current performance — and shows you exactly where your budget needs to go.
Your audit should assess:
- Technical SEO: Are there crawl errors, broken links, slow load speeds, or mobile issues?
- Content: Are your pages targeting the right keywords and matching search intent?
- On-page SEO: Are your meta tags, headers, and internal links fully optimised?
- Backlinks: Do you have strong, relevant links supporting your domain authority?
This audit helps you prioritise spending. If your site is technically sound, you can invest more in content and outreach. If there are major performance issues, fixing those becomes your first budget priority. The more issues uncovered, the more time and budget you’ll need to resolve them.
“If you’re using an audit to guide your budget, it needs to output a clear plan of what’s required,” says Andrew Tuxford. “You can then build your budget around how quickly that work needs to be done.”
Prioritise High-ROI SEO Activities
One of the smartest ways to manage your SEO budget is to focus on the activities that will generate the highest return on investment (ROI) first.
But there’s no singular SEO activity that will deliver high ROI for every business. “The SEO activity with the highest ROI will vary between every campaign because every campaign is in a different position,” explains Andrew Tuxford.
That said, most websites can follow a general order of priorities to get the best value from their budget:
- Fix Technical Issues: These are the foundations of your site. If they’re broken, other SEO efforts like content creation or building backlinks won’t perform. Start here to remove roadblocks and ensure your site can be crawled, indexed, and ranked properly.
- Create or Improve Content: Once your site is technically sound, focus your budget on your content. Identify pages where your competitors are outranking you, spot content gaps, and improve existing copy to match search intent better.
- Build High-Quality Backlinks: When your content is in good shape, start increasing your investment in earning authoritative links. This boosts your domain authority and helps push key pages higher in the search results.
Every site is different, and priorities may shift based on your current performance, industry, or competition. But this structured approach gives you a reliable way to align your budget with impact, ensuring every pound you spend is working toward growth.
Maximise Your SEO Spend
A well-planned SEO budget is just the start — how you spend it determines your return. Here are a few strategic tips to help you get the most value from every pound invested:
- Prioritise quality over quantity. One well-researched, well-optimised piece of content will outperform five rushed articles every time.
- Avoid spreading your budget too thin. Focus on a few high-impact channels rather than trying to do everything at once.
- Invest in the right tools — not all the tools. Choose platforms that align with your goals and team capacity. Avoid unnecessary subscriptions that add cost without real value.
- Work with a team that can both plan and execute. You need your strategy and implementation to be strong to deliver the best results.
Want expert support? At Exposure Ninja, our SEO team specialises in building ROI-focused SEO campaigns tailored to the needs and budgets of ambitious medium to enterprise-level businesses. Simply reach out to one of our Ninjas and we’ll talk about growth plans and budget.
*Some links within this article are affiliate links which Exposure Ninja receives a fee for promoting (these links are not sponsored). Exposure Ninja only promotes services we already use within our marketing stack.
FAQs
What percentage of my marketing budget should be spent on SEO?
It depends on your total marketing budget and goals. If SEO is your primary growth channel, you might allocate the majority of your budget. But if you have a multi-channel marketing approach, which is recommended, you may split your budget based on which brings in the highest quality leads or sales.
How much does SEO cost per month?
How much you spend on SEO each month will depend on your business size and niche. Some businesses can spend £3,000 per month on the smaller side, while others will invest upwards of £30,000 per month. On average, most businesses fall between £5,000 to £10,000 per month.
Is it cheaper to hire an agency vs doing SEO in-house?
Usually, yes. Agencies provide access to a full team of experts without the overhead of hiring and training in-house staff.
What’s the average ROI on SEO?
Unlike PPC, which can deliver results almost immediately, SEO delivers compounding returns over time. We’ve seen clients 10x their revenue in 1–2 years, but results vary by niche and budget.
Is it worth paying for SEO?
Absolutely. If you want to compete online, SEO is essential. Done right, it’s one of the highest ROI marketing channels available.
