Coming up with an SEO budget can be a tricky undertaking. There are many factors to consider, and the amount you should set aside is not always obvious.

If you’ve decided that you need to boost your visibility in the search engines, here are a few steps that will help you come up with an overall SEO budget.

Work Out Your Current SEO Situation

Working out where your website currently stands in terms of SEO should really be your starting point. If you have never thought about SEO before, there’s a good chance that you will need to do a lot of work at the start – and that will cost you more.

However, if you already have a basic idea of SEO and you have added in meta titles and descriptions, carried out keyword research, started building links and set up a mobile-friendly website, you already have a strong foundation to build on.

Fortunately, it’s quite easy to find out what sort of situation your SEO is in. Many services provide free SEO audits, so even if you have no SEO knowledge, you can get an expert to audit your site and find out more about your organic visibility.

Alternatively, you could use a specialist SEO tool like Ahrefs that can show you how well you are ranking for specific keywords. You could even use Google Analytics to get a better idea of how much traffic you are generating via organic search.

You will then know whether you need to invest heavily in getting your website up to scratch, or whether your focus will be more on building links.

Decide on Your Goals

What are you hoping to achieve with your SEO? To double your search traffic? Get 10 times more traffic? Try to come up with some specific goals, rather than just ‘more traffic’ and ‘more sales’.

Do you just want local traffic? Highly targeted traffic? To get above your competitor for a specific keyword? These factors will all affect your overall SEO budget.

Start Looking for Agencies

Unless you do your SEO in-house, you’ll need to hire an SEO agency. Agencies come in all shapes and sizes, and they will provide a wide range of SEO services depending on your needs. Start speaking to agencies and ask for consultations. Many will be happy to provide you with a free consultation. During the consultation, highlight your specific needs, and get quotes based on the amount of work you will require.

Don’t just go with the cheapest – instead, look closely at what they can provide and how they can help to make you more sales.

How Much Should You Pay for SEO?

As you can see, the amount you spend on your SEO depends on a range of factors. However, you should ideally aim to invest at least £400 a month for a high-quality SEO service. As a general rule, the more you can spend on SEO, the better the results will be and the more keywords you can target.

Adjust Your Budget Based on ROI

SEO is an ongoing process, and it may take a few months before you can find out exactly how much revenue your SEO efforts are generating so you can work out your ROI. Depending on this, you may want to refine your budget further as the months go on by increasing or decreasing it so you can maximise your SEO investment.