What it costs, how long it takes, and which terms a small business can realistically win — from a UK agency that will tell you when the budget is better spent elsewhere.
Most small businesses are sold either a package that is too small to work or a programme built for a company ten times their size. Neither is cost-effective. What works is a short list of things done properly, in the right order.
Small businesses do not need the same SEO programme as a company with a marketing department. The work that moves a small site is narrower and cheaper, and most of it happens in the first two months.
Pages that will not index, titles Google rewrites, slow phone loading, broken redirects throwing away rankings you already earned. This is the cheapest ground to gain and the most commonly ignored.
Our full SEO serviceYour town, your trade, the questions your customers type. Less traffic each than the broad terms, far less competition, and better enquiries because the intent is narrower.
One page a month that answers a real question beats four thin posts. Thin content does not sit neutral; it drags the rest of the site down with it.
Google Business Profile, consistent details across directories, and genuine reviews. For a business serving one area this often returns more than anything else on this list, and it shows up in weeks rather than months.
Our SEO starts at $399 a month. That is the published rate, and it is where most small-business engagements sit. A larger budget buys more content; it does not buy a different standard of technical work, because that gets done either way.
Two things worth saying before you compare quotes.
Under about $300 a month, nothing meaningful happens. There are not enough hours in the budget to do the work. An agency charging $99 is sending you an automated report, and you will spend six months finding that out.
Cheap SEO is often worse than none. Bought links and spun content can get a site penalised, and undoing that costs more than the work would have. We have cleaned up after it.
If the budget is not there yet, say so and we will tell you the one thing to spend it on instead — usually the Google Business Profile, which costs nothing but time and often returns more for a local business than the first month of SEO would.
Three to six months before ranking changes turn into traffic you can feel, with everything done properly from the start. That is not a hedge; it is how long Google takes to re-crawl, re-evaluate and move a site.
Technical fixes and content planning. Nothing visible happens. This is the month people lose faith in SEO.
New and rewritten pages go live. Impressions start moving before clicks do — the site is being shown for more searches, just not high enough yet.
Positions improve enough to produce clicks. This is where it starts paying back.
Compounding, if the content keeps coming. Stop, and it decays slowly rather than collapsing.
If you need enquiries this month, SEO is the wrong tool on its own. Run paid search alongside it and shift the budget across as organic traffic takes over.
You will not win “web design” or “accountant”. A national competitor with a content team and a link budget owns those, and the money spent trying is money lost.
What a small business can own is the specific version: the town, the trade, the question. Those searches have less traffic each — and that is the point. Fewer people, but the right ones, and competition you can realistically beat.
We work this out before quoting rather than after. If the terms worth having in your market are beyond what the budget can reach, we will say so.
Our SEO starts at $399 a month, which is the published rate and the one most small-business engagements run at. What changes with a bigger budget is how much content gets written, not whether the technical work gets done. Below roughly $300 a month nobody can do enough hours to move anything, so an agency quoting $99 is sending you an automated report. We would rather say that than take the money.
Three to six months before the ranking changes show up in traffic, and that is with everything done properly from the start. The first month is technical work and content planning, which produces nothing visible. Anyone promising page one in thirty days is describing paid ads, not SEO. If you need enquiries this month, run ads alongside and let the SEO build underneath.
Both, usually, and in that order of patience. Ads buy you traffic today and stop the day you stop paying. SEO costs more up front in time and nothing per click afterwards. For most small businesses the honest answer is ads while the SEO matures, then shift the budget as organic traffic takes over. If your margin cannot carry six months of SEO before it pays back, start with ads only.
Fixing what is broken before adding anything: pages that will not index, titles Google rewrites, a site that loads slowly on a phone. That work is cheap and it is where most small sites lose the easiest ground. After that it is a small number of pages written properly for the terms you can realistically win, rather than a long list of keywords you cannot.
Not on the broad terms, and you should stop trying. A national competitor with a content team will own “web design”. What you can own is the specific version of it — your town, your trade, the question your customers actually type. Those terms have less traffic each and far less competition, and they convert better because the intent is narrower.
No. Four pages that answer a real question properly beat forty that repeat each other, and a thin weekly post can hold a site back rather than help it. We would rather write one page a month that stands a chance of ranking than four that do not.
Tell us the business and the budget. If something else would do more for you this quarter, we will say so — we would rather have the work later than the wrong work now.
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32 Cyprus House, 183 Townmead Road, London SW6 2JX
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