Affordable SEO Services Guide: Small Budget, Big Results

Imagine getting steady customers for your business without spending hefty on marketing costs.

Crazy, right? 

But no, really, this is very much possible. SEO is the one inbound digital marketing strategy that will make this happen for your business. 

SEO does not have to be expensive. Many cost-effective SEO services are available to help your small business grow online.

In this blog, we’ll look at why you need to invest in affordable SEO services & what services they provide, the best affordable tools, & tips on how to hire the best affordable SEO company for your business. 

What Are Affordable SEO Services?

Affordable SEO services are typically aimed at small businesses & startups with tight budgets who want to improve online visibility. Many businesses might not have the resources to hire a big SEO agency. 

Affordable SEO services are those methods that improve a website’s or a business’s online visibility & give better ranking through optimization techniques like website audit, keyword research, on-page optimization, off-page optimization & link building under a reasonable budget. 

These services generally range from $100 per hour or less, depending on the location & experience of the SEO expert. 

Affordable SEO services are generally offered by –

• Freelance SEO Specialists: Many freelance SEO specialists offer their services online at competitive rates. As they operate individually or in small teams, their operating cost is less, & hence, they also charge less for their services.
• Small SEO Agencies: Many smaller SEO agencies cater specifically to small businesses and startups, offering affordable packages because of their budget constraints. 

What Are The Benefits Of Hiring Affordable SEO Services?

SEO or search engine optimization is a set of processes designed to help you rank higher on search engines like Google and drive more traffic to your site.

As PPC advertising can be expensive for small businesses, but SEO can help you reach your marketing goals for a fraction of the cost & give long-term benefits. 

Traditional advertising services can help boost your small business immediately, but SEO is a long-term digital marketing strategy.

SEO takes 6-12 months to show results, and this slow build leads to long-term results. Once your SEO strategy takes hold, you can sustain SEO results for years with minimal upkeep costs.

If you don’t invest in SEO services, it’s up to chance whether your potential customers find you. But with these services, you can increase your visibility, brand recognition, lead generation, and conversion opportunities.

Even with a tight marketing budget, there are many things you can do with SEO, and knowing what to focus on will make all the difference.

As per Google’s search central case study, Saramin, a job platform in Korea, increased its organic search traffic by just fixing canonical errors, removing duplicate content & implementing relevant structured data such as FAQ schema, JobPosting, Breadcrumb, and Estimated salary. 

This is a perfect example of why affordable SEO services for small businesses are crucial. 

How Much Do SEO Services Typically Cost?

Today, SEO service agencies can create a customized SEO campaign for your small business. The average cost for an SEO package for a small business is between $500 to $1500 per month.

If you’re looking for an in-house SEO plan, use the many affordable SEO tools available today.

But if you want to outsource the hard work. Agencies and freelancers typically offer three different pricing options:

• Hourly rates
• Monthly retainers
• One-off projects with agreed-upon fees

Your choice will depend on your needs, budget, and chosen SEO service provider.

What makes an SEO service affordable?

It’s important to note that the cost of a service does not always reflect the quality of the work. Most of the time, the pricing of a service will depend on the provider’s location. 

According to Ahrefs, the average hourly rate for an SEO freelancer based in India is less than $30 per hour, while those based in the United Kingdom and the United States charge an average of $75 per hour.

Image Source: Ahrefs

9 Must have Affordable SEO Services for Small Business

• Website Audit

An SEO Audit effectively assesses your website’s performance regarding search engine indexing (SERPs) and ranking. It helps you understand your website’s behavior, identify optimization issues or problems, and more.

An SEO Audit can help you:

• Identify technical website issues
• Identify potential on-page SEO (internal content) issues
• Identify off-page SEO (external) problems and opportunities
• Review the audit results and identify ways to improve or change your website’s performance.

For instance, making small changes to your on-page SEO can help search engine algorithms find, index, and improve your ranking.

• Keyword Research

Keyword research for an SEO campaign is identifying and analyzing the keywords your target audience types into search engines. This lets you personalize your content and drive more traffic to your website. 

The most important thing to remember here is to consider what people are searching for. If your site isn’t ranking as high as you want, ensure it matches what people seek.

For example, is your page a step-by-step how-to, but all the most popular articles on your site are listicles?

Then the next step would be to tweak your content strategy.

• On-page SEO optimization

On-page or On-site SEO means looking for optimizations relevant to your site that can help your site rank higher in search engines.

Agencies use the target keyword in your page’s title, URL, and description. They also use related terms to your keyword in the content of your page.

How does On-Page Optimization Work?

On-page optimization is the practice of making your site load faster.

Affordable SEO services migrate your site to an up-to-date hosting platform and use a caching tool that helps your site load faster for visitors.

They also modify your site’s web design as per core web vital and compress your site’s images to provide better & faster loading time.

• Local SEO

Local SEO is improving your online presence to increase local search results. This should be your top priority if your business operates in a local area. Search engines appreciate providing users with local answers to their questions.

You must hire an affordable local SEO services provider to ensure you are one of the local results.

Here are some of the ways you can do this:

• Create and update a free Google My Business profile.
• Get customers to post reviews.
• Utilize social media marketing.
• Ensure your NAP (name, address, phone) citations match across all platforms.
• Partner with other local businesses for promotions or backlinks

• Content Marketing

As search engine algorithms continue to emphasize the importance of content that meets the user intent to rank higher, it’s essential to have high-quality, value-added content on your site with back-to-back updates to Google’s helpful content system.

High-quality content speaks for the industry you’re in. It’s essential to your website’s E-E-A-T strategy and will help your site rank higher for relevant online searches.

After in-depth research of your target customer, their behavior, and habits, affordable SEO agencies offer a comprehensive content marketing plan that can help boost your website’s online visibility for more leads and customers.

Efficient & affordable SEO providers determine the type of content to publish for each page, such as blog posts, landing page content, videos, and so on.

Many agencies can also provide pay-per-click (PPC) and social media marketing to amplify your content reach. They create and post ads on your pages on social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

• Technical SEO Optimization

Technical SEO optimization helps improve the backend components of your website so that search engines’s crawlers can understand and rank it.

For instance, Google has stated that speed is one of the ranking factors for a website on both desktop and mobile. So, faster loading times will help your website rank higher. 

Without technical SEO, search engines cannot crawl and index a website’s pages. Search engines cannot navigate your site and understand the content.

A visual representation of how search engines operate is shown below. This means your pages will not appear in SERP, and you will lose out on crucial organic traffic. 

An affordable SEO  package can help you resolve all of your site’s technical issues, including fixing –

• Indexability issues.
• Improper redirects.
• URL structure.
• Rel=canonical.
• Lacking mobile optimization.
• 3xx and 4xx error detection and repair.

If visitors come to your site and leave quickly, your website does not provide a good UX to search engines. The more frequently this occurs, the more likely your search rankings will drop. 

So it is best to hire an SEO service provider to help you fix technical issues & help you rank better. 

• Video SEO 

With over 3 billion internet users watching or downloading videos at least once last year, according to Statista, video SEO should be at the top of your to-do list. 

When you hire a professional & affordable SEO service agency, they can make your video rank higher by

• Creating eye-catching thumbnail images.
• Linking the title tag to the video’s content.
• Optimizing your video’s description with context.
• Implementing schema markup to webpages with embedded videos
• Uploading your video with a transcript along with it for SEO and UX.

An affordable SEO service provider with video SEO expertise, whether a freelancer or an agency, can help you increase views, subscribers, and website visitors (if you have a website).

• Link Building Process

Link building is the process of getting other sites to link to your pages on your website. Backlinks are one of Google’s most powerful ranking factors 2016, according to Google’s Andrey Lipatssev; check out the video below.

If you want your site to rank high on SERPs, you need quality backlinks. The most popular link-building techniques are competitor link-building, guest posting, and digital PR techniques.

5 Best Affordable SEO Tools/ Software

Several SEO Tools/Software can help you improve your website’s search engine performance at an affordable price. 

Here are the five best SEO Tools/Software to optimize your site’s SEO performance.

Look at some of the most popular yet affordable SEO Tools/Software available today.

• Google Search Console

Google Search Console or GSC is a free tool by Google that lets you track and manage your site’s ranking in Google search results. It provides visibility into how Google perceives your site, troubleshooting, and suggestions for improvement.

Features:

• Monitor your website’s performance in Google Search results, including clicks, impressions, and click-through rates.
• Identify and fix issues with Google’s indexing of your site’s pages.
• Get detailed data about how Google views a specific URL on your site.

Pricing: Free

• Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a popular SEO plugin used by WordPress-based websites that help you optimize your website for search engines.

You can get the Yoast SEO plugin for free, but if you want to get the most out of Yoast SEO, you must upgrade to the premium version (paid). 

The premium version of Yoast offers additional features such as Internal Link Suggestions, Content Insights, and more.

Features:

• On-page optimization: Helps optimize your content for search engines by providing suggestions for meta tags, readability, and keyword density.
• XML sitemap generation: Generates XML sitemaps to help search engines crawl and index your site.
• Content insights: Provides recommendations for improving your content based on SEO best practices.

Pricing:

• Free version is available with basic features.
• The premium version of Yoast SEO starts at $89/year for a single site and includes additional features like internal linking suggestions, content insights, and priority support.

• Answer The Public 

This tool helps you find what people are looking for online by giving you insights into search queries that are relevant to your topic.

It has a limited number of free daily searches, but its cost-effective pro plan allows you to access unlimited searches and other features.

Features:

• Provides insights into the questions and search queries people ask about your topic or keyword.
• Presents search query data in visually appealing formats like word clouds and comparison charts.

Pricing:

• A limited free version is available with a restricted number of daily searches.
• The pro plan starts at $99/month (billed annually) or $119/month (billed monthly) and unlocks unlimited searches, location-based data, and other advanced features.

• Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a website crawler that helps you analyze and audit your site’s SEO. While its free version has limitations on the number of pages you can crawl, its affordable paid version removes these limitations.

It offers additional features like advanced configuration options and integration with Google Analytics.

Features:

• Website crawling: Crawls your website to identify technical SEO issues such as HTTPS, broken links, duplicate content, and missing meta tags.
• Data analysis: Provides detailed insights into various SEO elements of your site, including page titles, meta descriptions, and header tags.

Pricing:

• Free version is available with limitations on the number of pages you can crawl.
• The paid version starts at £149/year (approximately $200/year) for a single license and removes crawl limits while offering additional features like Google Analytics integration and customizable reports.

• KeywordTool.io

KeywordTool.io is a keyword research tool that helps you discover relevant keywords for your content.

While its free version provides basic keyword suggestions, its affordable pro plans offer additional features like search volume data, competitor analysis, and more keyword suggestions.

Features:

• Keyword research: Generates keyword suggestions based on a seed keyword or topic, including long-tail keywords and question-based queries.
• Search volume data: Provides estimated search volumes for each keyword suggestion.
• Competitor analysis: Analyzes keywords used by your competitors to identify potential opportunities.

Pricing:

• Limited free version available with basic features.
• The pro plan starts at $79/month (billed annually) or $99/month (billed monthly) and includes search volume data, competitor analysis, and additional keyword suggestions.

How to Hire an Affordable SEO Services Company?

Searching for the perfect affordable SEO agency can be overwhelming, but we’ve compiled a list of top factors to help you sort through the hundreds of companies claiming to be ‘the best.’ 

Analyze Their Communication Style 

Suppose an agency’s or freelancer’s communication appears fishy from the start. Then it’s likely to worsen as time passes, and nobody wants to waste their time chasing updates. No SEO service provider will tell you their “secret sauce” in a discovery call.

They should give you a general idea of what they’ll do for you. If they just say they’ll “build links” and won’t tell you their strategy or approach, run for it. You need a provider who knows their stuff and can give you consistent results.

Most SEO agencies will have a list of brands and companies they’ve worked with on their website. This gives you an idea of how good their clientele is. Most well-known companies won’t work with people who can deliver high-quality results.

Don’t Limit Yourself To The Top-Ranked Agencies

Sure, you might think that because they came out on top, they must know what they’re doing, but you’re running the risk of missing out on other top performers that may be smaller, easier to work with, and closer to you in terms of location.

Many great SEO service providers don’t rank for highly competitive keywords; most of their business comes from recommendations. 

Take A Look At Their Case Studies

It’s common for reviewers and testimonials to highlight their experiences with SEO service providers, which is essential. However, it’s also important to look for case studies that detail the specifics of their success.

Case studies are helpful because they get to the heart of the matter and show whether or not the SEO company can deliver on its promise.

This way, you can quickly identify & analyze a company’s strengths and weaknesses by spending a little time reviewing their case studies. The results speak for themselves.

Check Reviews & Testimonials

Let reviews and testimonials speak for themselves, and don’t trust businesses that say they’re experts in SEO but don’t have references, ratings, or statistics to back up their claims.

Let the testimonials and data of the top-performing SEO agencies speak for themselves, and you should include them on your list.

Check If They Have Any Specialties

While choosing a company that provides everything is tempting, you may find that you’d rather work with a company that specializes in a particular sector or service.

Becoming the best at everything related to SEO is a challenging goal that only a handful can reach. Look closely at the service providers you’re evaluating to see if they possess knowledge relevant to your industry, such as finance or law, issue areas, or niche.

Increase Your Business Revenue With Affordable SEO Services 

Cost-effective & affordable SEO services can help your small business reach its marketing objectives for a fraction of the price of traditional advertising. With a 95% client retention rate, Digital Guider is the go-to choice for small and medium-sized businesses looking for cost-effective SEO services.

Our digital marketing experts provide competitive, results-based SEO campaigns to help your business grow its revenue. Get started today by contacting us online to learn more about SEO services! 

Or, email us at [email protected]  and speak with an expert strategist to discuss your business, budget, and goals!

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