SEO for a small business in the UK is usually bought as a monthly retainer, and the price depends on how many hours of work you are paying for each month, how competitive your market is, and who does the work. There is no standard rate. In Ahrefs' published survey of 439 SEO providers, the most common monthly retainer was $501 to $1,000, charged by 20.4% of respondents, and the most common hourly rate was $75 to $100, but those are global figures in US dollars, so treat them as a rough yardstick rather than a UK price list.
What does SEO work actually involve month to month?
"SEO" covers a bundle of jobs, and the price depends on how many of them are being done. Google's own guide to hiring an SEO lists reviewing your site's content and structure, technical advice, content development and keyword research among the services to expect. For a small business, a month of work breaks down into five areas.
- Technical fixes. Making sure Google can find, crawl and index your pages and that the site loads quickly on a phone. Heaviest in the first few months, then maintenance.
- Content. Writing or improving the pages customers search for: service pages, area pages if you cover several towns, and answers to the questions people ask before they buy. Usually the biggest ongoing cost, because someone has to write it.
- Google Business Profile. For a local business this is often where the enquiries come from. Google says you can manage how your business shows up on Maps and Search at no charge, so the cost is the work of keeping it accurate, adding photos and posts, and answering reviews. See our Google Business Profile setup guide.
- Links and mentions. Google says it primarily finds pages through links from other pages it has already crawled. Earning links from relevant sites takes time; buying them is covered below.
- Reporting. Pulling the numbers from Search Console and your Business Profile, explaining what changed, and agreeing next month's work. Search Console is a free service, so the cost is the person's time, not the tool.
When you compare quotes, ask which of these five are included and roughly how much time goes on each.
What are the common SEO pricing models, and what does each hide?
Most UK providers use one of four models. None is wrong in itself, but each can hide something.
| Model | How you pay | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | A fixed sum each month for an agreed scope | How many hours it buys, and whether the scope is written down |
| Project | A one-off price for a defined job, such as an audit | Who implements the recommendations afterwards |
| Hourly or day rate | For the time used | The likely total, which is open-ended until the work is finished |
| Results-based | When an agreed target is hit | Who chose the targets, how hard they were, and whether they relate to enquiries |
With a retainer, pin down what a month buys; without a written scope it can quietly shrink to a report and a phone call. An audit is a list of things to fix, and someone still has to fix them. Results-based pricing sounds fair but rewards easy targets: it is possible to rank for a phrase nobody searches for and invoice for it, so ask who picked the keywords.
Why do SEO quotes vary so much?
Three quotes for the same site can differ several times over and all be honest. The differences usually come down to five things.
- Hours. The biggest factor. Days of writing and outreach each month cost more than a couple of hours of checks and a report.
- Who does the work. A senior consultant, a small local agency and a large firm with account managers carry very different overheads.
- Competition. Ranking a plumber in one Kent town is a smaller job than ranking a solicitor across the South East or an online shop nationally.
- Your starting point. A site with sound structure and decent content needs less than one that has never been looked at, or that a previous provider has damaged.
- What is bundled in. Content writing, developer time, photography and reporting calls are sometimes included and sometimes extra.
What can you expect at different budget levels?
UK prices vary too much to quote reliably, so here is what different levels of spend tend to buy.
A small monthly budget buys a few hours a month: your Business Profile maintained, obvious technical problems fixed, a page improved or written every month or two, and a short report. For a single-location business in a town with modest competition, that can be enough, provided the hours are real.
A mid-range budget buys regular content, ongoing technical work, some outreach for links and mentions, and a proper monthly review with someone who knows your account. This is where most small businesses that take search seriously end up, and the timescales in how long SEO takes apply.
A larger budget is for several locations, a national market or a crowded sector, and pays for a content programme, digital PR, developer time and dedicated management. Most single-location businesses do not need this.
What are the red flags?
Google publishes several of these itself.
- Guaranteed number one rankings. Google's guidance is blunt: no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, and Google does not accept payment to crawl a site more often or rank it higher. In the UK, the CAP Code administered by the ASA requires marketers to hold documentary evidence for claims consumers are likely to regard as objective before publishing them (rule 3.7), and not to use the word "guarantee" in a way that could cause confusion about a consumer's rights (rule 3.55). A promised ranking is an objective claim that nobody can evidence in advance.
- Secret methods. Google says to be careful if a company is secretive or will not clearly explain what it intends to do. There are no secret methods, only work.
- Bought links. Google's spam policies state that buying or selling links for ranking purposes violates them, and that sites which break the policies may rank lower in results or not appear at all. A cheap package that relies on bought links is an expensive way to lose your rankings.
- No reporting, or reporting you cannot check. You should have your own access to Search Console and your Business Profile, and the report should match what you see there.
- Long lock-ins. A long minimum term agreed before any work has been shown to help shifts all the risk to you. A short initial term followed by a monthly rolling arrangement is fair to both sides.
- Cold approaches and borrowed accounts. Google suggests being wary of SEO firms that email you out of the blue. Your domain, Search Console, Business Profile and analytics should be in your name and shared with the provider, never the other way round.
What should you ask before signing?
Google's guide suggests asking for examples of previous work, whether they follow the Google Search Essentials, what results they expect and in what timeframe, their experience in your industry and location, and how you will communicate. To those, add:
- How many hours does the fee buy, who does the work, and how is the time split across the five areas above?
- Will I own every account, and can I see the data myself?
- What is the minimum term and notice period, and what happens to the work if we part ways?
- Which searches will you target, and how did you choose them?
- Can you explain, in plain terms, why my site is not ranking now?
A good provider will also ask you questions. Google notes that your SEO should ask what makes your business unique, who your competitors are and how your customers find you. If the conversation is all about their package and never about your customers, that tells you something.
How do you judge whether it is working?
Use the same free tools the provider should be using, not a rank tracker screenshot. Search Console's Performance report shows the queries your site appeared for, with clicks, impressions and average position, and our guide to checking where your website ranks on Google walks through it. Your Business Profile has its own performance report showing the search terms people used to find you.
Three things should move, in this order: impressions for the searches you care about, then clicks, then enquiries. Google's starter guide says some changes take effect in hours, others in several months, and that you should wait a few weeks before judging whether a change helped, so review monthly and judge over a longer run. If impressions stay flat and nobody can explain why, that is the moment to reconsider rather than renew.
If you would rather not do this yourself
If you are in Kent or anywhere else in the UK and looking for small business SEO, we can help. We do not publish an SEO price list, because the honest answer depends on your site, your market and the hours it needs, so every enquiry gets a written scope and a fixed monthly figure before you commit. Our SEO service page explains how we work, and our guide to local SEO in Kent covers what matters for a business serving a town or a county. We will not promise you a position, because nobody honestly can.