What is the average cost of SEO? If you’ve asked that question while researching ways to improve your online presence, you’re not alone, and the answer can vary widely. Depending on your goals, business size, and the type of SEO services you need, pricing can range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per month.
That kind of range can be intimidating, especially for small and mid-sized businesses. But understanding what goes into SEO pricing can help you make a smarter investment.
In this blog, we’ll break down the average cost of SEO, what’s typically included in those services, and how to decide what level of SEO support makes the most sense for your business.
What is local SEO?
Local SEO is a strategic way to make your business more visible in local search results. It helps people in your area find you when they search for services like “lawyers near me” or “IT services in [city].”
Unlike general SEO, which targets a broad audience, local SEO focuses on a specific geographic area. That’s why platforms like Google Business Profile, Google Maps, and local directories like Yelp are essential for small and mid-sized businesses.
And visibility matters! Over 99% of search traffic goes to websites that appear on the first page of Google. If you’re not ranking high in local results, you’re likely missing out on valuable traffic and potential customers.
Why is local SEO important?
When potential customers search locally, it’s fair to assume they’re looking for solutions now, not someday.
That’s why local SEO is so important. It puts your business in front of nearby customers exactly when they need you. More than 75% of people check out a business online before visiting in person. If your website doesn’t show up or your info is out of date, you could lose that lead to a competitor who shows up instead.
Local SEO also offers more value than traditional ads like billboards, radio, or print. Those methods can reach a wide audience but come with high upfront costs and little control over who sees them. You might pay thousands for a radio spot, but there’s no guarantee the right people are listening, or that they’ll take action.
With local SEO, you’re not casting a wide net and hoping for the best. You’re targeting people who are already searching for your services in your area. That makes your marketing dollars work harder and smarter.
Plus, local SEO results are easy to measure. You can track how many people find you through Google searches, see how often your listing is viewed, and monitor traffic to your website. That kind of insight helps you fine-tune your strategy and build momentum over time—something traditional ads simply can’t offer..
How much does local SEO cost on average?
For most small and medium-sized businesses, pricing typically ranges from $300 to $2,000+ per month. That’s a wide gap, and for good reason. The actual cost depends on your business goals, your local competition, and the level of support you need.
How are local SEO services priced?
Local SEO services commonly have three different pricing structures: monthly retainers, project-based pricing, and hourly consulting. Each pricing model is appropriate for businesses of different sizes, budgets, and SEO needs.
- Monthly Retainers: Monthly retainers for local SEO services are usually priced between $500 and $5,000+. Smaller businesses may pay a lower rate, while larger businesses with several locations may need to pay more monthly. Monthly retainers are best suited for businesses that want SEO services as an ongoing service rather than as a one-and-done operation. They’re also an effective local SEO option when a business wants an agency or an individual to manage content marketing and online performance monitoring.
- Project-based Pricing: Project-based pricing can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $7,500, depending on the scope and time period needed for the project. It is the best choice for businesses that want a very specific problem to be resolved within a short time window. Alternatively, it’s used when businesses have the means to pay for the most experienced consultants and agencies in a given field.
- Hourly Consulting: Businesses may opt for hourly consulting when they have a simple but essential request (e.g., an investigation into dropped search engine rankings or website traffic) that isn’t expected to take long enough for more involved pricing. It’s also preferred by businesses that prefer to manage ongoing work at a more micro level and want to know what they’re paying for.
What goes into the cost of local SEO?
Several factors can influence how much you’ll pay for local SEO, and understanding them can help you choose the right plan for your business.
- Number of locations: Each business location requires its own SEO strategy. That means separate keywords, landing pages, business listings, and citations. The more locations you have, the more work—and cost—is involved.
- Industry competitiveness: Some industries are more competitive than others. For example, legal and medical practices typically face strong competition in search results. That means more aggressive SEO tactics are needed. On the other hand, a snow tire shop in Florida won’t need as much effort as one competing in Colorado.
- Current website health: If your site is already fast, mobile-friendly, and SEO-ready, less work is needed up front. But if it’s outdated or poorly optimized, you may need to invest more to build a solid foundation.
- Content creation needs: Local SEO depends heavily on content like service pages, blog posts, and location-specific landing pages. The more content your business needs, the higher the cost.
- Local link building: Building links from local directories, publications, or community websites helps search engines trust your site. Although this can be time-intensive, it plays a major role in improving your site’s authority.
What services are included in local SEO packages?
Here is a list of standard services businesses usually receive when paying for local SEO services and what they entail. They include:
- Google Business Profile Optimization: Adding basic business info is crucial for local SEO, but there are many other things you can do here from constantly updating available information to responding to reviews, adding photos, detailing services, and creating data that takes into account Google’s algorithm criteria of relevance, distance, and prominence.
- Citation Building and Management: Like your Google Business Profile, it’s important to build quality local citations through places like social media profiles, directory listings, event listings, review profile sites, articles, and other aggregators.
- On-Page SEO for Local Landing Pages: In order to improve your local SEO, an individual or an agency must create targeted landing pages with localized keywords that are specific to your local market. These target keywords then need to be in the main heading, throughout the page content, and in the metadata. That process needs to then be spread out so that different landing pages can include materials like videos, customer testimonials, maps, hours, directions, and educational supplements related to your services and ultimately, the targeted keywords.
- Localized keyword research: Localized keyword research is a process of finding keywords that people use when searching for products or services in your area. By reverse engineering the customer’s thought process and using various tools like Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, an agency or individual can discover keyword strategies that can be leveraged for greater visibility on search engines.
If you’re looking for hands-on support that covers all of the above, plus in-depth keyword research, consistent blog production, and regular content updates, Ranq offers a suite of local SEO services tailored to help your business scale
What should you expect if you pay for local SEO services?
Investing in local SEO doesn’t mean instant results but should lead to steady, measurable progress over time.
Most businesses begin to see traction within three to six months, though that timeline depends on several factors: your website’s current health, the strength of your competitors, the keywords you’re targeting, and how consistent your SEO efforts are.
Part of this delay is due to how search engines work. Google uses automated bots (called crawlers) to scan your site, index changes, and evaluate relevance. This process takes time, especially if your site is newly optimized or hasn’t been updated in a while.
Local SEO also involves building backlinks, publishing content, optimizing listings, and managing reviews. These efforts compound gradually. You might not see huge jumps immediately, but you should notice improvements in local rankings, website traffic, phone calls, direction requests, and other signs of increased visibility over time.
In short, local SEO is a long-term investment. It rewards consistency and quality, not shortcuts. And if you’re working with a reputable provider, you should expect transparent reporting, regular updates, and clear signs of progress month over month.
Red flags to look out for when shopping for local SEO services
As the saying goes, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” That’s especially true when local SEO packages are advertised for $99/month or less. While the price might seem appealing, those rock-bottom rates often come with shady practices that can do real harm to your business.
Black-hat SEO tactics are one of the biggest dangers. These are shortcuts that go against Google’s rules—like stuffing pages with irrelevant keywords, using AI to generate low-quality content at scale, duplicating pages, or buying backlinks. Not only do these tricks fail in the long run, but they can also get your site penalized or removed from search results altogether. If your business disappears from Google, your leads will too.
Other red flags to look out for:
- Toxic backlinks: Cheap SEO packages often build links from spammy or irrelevant websites just to inflate metrics. But Google’s algorithm is smart—and if it sees your site linked to low-quality sources, your credibility (and rankings) can tank fast.
- Fake reviews: These might seem harmless to some, but they’re illegal. Businesses caught faking reviews can face fines of up to $50,000 per review. On top of that, getting flagged for fake feedback damages trust with real customers and can lead to account suspensions from platforms like Google or Yelp.
Cheap SEO can cost you more in the long run. If you’re considering a provider, ask yourself: Are they building something real, or just trying to trick the system? Because Google is always watching – and it rewards quality, not shortcuts.
How to know if you’re getting a good deal on local SEO services
It can be difficult to gauge whether you’re getting a good deal on local SEO services. But one approach to evaluate your local SEO service options is to create a checklist of what you should receive and see with the best services. These can include features like:
- Make sure that your business is being catered to with custom strategies, not cookie-cutter shortcuts that don’t apply to your services.
- The best relationship with an agency or individual needs to have transparent, clear reporting about your business’ performance and progress (or updates about obstacles) that have come with trying to hit KPIs.
- When you hire someone for local SEO, you want someone who can focus on long-term growth. SEO is a process, and you deserve better than hearing about gimmicks.
- Along with local SEO practices, you should also be entitled to regular technical site audits and content updates that will maintain or can improve your search visibility. The SEO pros at Ranq can offer monthly content upgrades, unique targeted blog content and regular SEO health improvements.
Why investing in local SEO pays off
Local SEO may seem expensive for your business, but good local SEO is an investment, not just a cost. With the best SEO services, your business can attract better leads, see better online engagement, build a stronger technical foundation, and see better map pack performance.
For a tailored local SEO strategy, talk to the digital marketing professionals at Ranq who can optimize your keyword targeting, provide you with quality ongoing content, improve your site speed and SEO health, and apply their SEO expertise to bring measurable results to your business and ahead of your competitors.
