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How Much Does SEO Cost in Canada?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an old concept that has become the backbone of digital marketing. Organizations are always trying to find new ways to enhance their SEO operations while reducing their marketing costs, especially when it comes to outsourced seo. Since SEO encompasses many aspects, any marketing operation must know the cost of launching and maintaining a successful SEO marketing strategy.
So, how much does SEO cost in Canada?
Monthly SEO
Monthly SEO might involve services that are part of an on-going campaign or more complex projects. It offers the advantage of letting you know exactly what will be done, at what cost, and within what period of time, and is the manner in which most agencies will operate. Given that SEO is often conducted on an ongoing basis, clients will often pay an agreed-upon amount each month. This is the most popular and successful way to run SEO campaigns.
Monthly SEO typically costs between $650 (low end), $2000 (average) to $5000+ (high end) again depending on a number of factors.
- The number of businesses that are trying to promote the same keywords
- Your target location
- How many pages you are trying to promote
- The popularity of your competitors’ websites
Hourly SEO Costs
Hourly and monthly SEO pricing models have some benefits. Both models have their advantages, so your actual cost will be determined by your particular needs, but to give you at least a baseline to judge by, the average hourly rate in Canada is $150 per hour, with individual services ranging from $100 to $300+.
Hourly SEO is often appropriate for those times that you want only a specific task to be accomplished. If your business is a startup with little content on your site, hourly SEO is probably a good option. It may also be useful if you have a specific deadline to launch a product or website and it can make it easier for you to predict costs when you are working with a tight budget. Work with your consultant to reach an agreement about the estimated number of hours required to complete the job.
Several factors will determine the ultimate pricing of SEO per hour. For example, the type of services provided, the skillset, and the experience of the consulting agency will determine the ultimate cost. Consulting agencies with decades of experience and a host of technical equipment and skills will definitely charge a higher price. That is because you’re not just paying for your SEO needs — you’ll also be paying for their advice and access to advanced technical tools. SEO pricing per hour is popular among freelancers, but established SEO agencies tend to avoid this pricing model.
Here are the average SEO prices in Canada.
| SEO Service | Cost per hour in CAD ($) |
| PPC | $150 – $200 |
| Link Building | $100 – $150 |
| Content Management | $50 – $100 |
| Content Creation | $100 – $150 |
| Website Maintenance | $100 – $150 |
| UX/UI design | $50 – $100 |
| Technical SEO | $150 |
| Technical Audits | $150 |
| Keyword Search | $200 – $300 |
| Consulting | $100 – $150 |
One-Time SEO Audit this is a great option to “get started” a one time fee for an agency or SEO consultant to create a detailed audit about your website so you can see what needs to be fixed and optimized. There are some free tools for SEO audits that give you about 10% of the data or you can pay an agency or SEO consultant to manually create a detailed SEO audit. The cost for a manually created audit varies from $1,500 to $10,000, with the average cost in Canada being $2,500.
You may be tempted to consider the cost of SEO as just another expense, but it will be one of your best investments. When you have a well-optimized website, you will increase your ROI and attract more clients.
Avoid Cheap SEO
Like anything in life, you pay for what you get. There is no such thing as “cheap SEO” due to the nature of what has to happen to optimize a website. There is a level of skill, time, and customization that is unique for every single website. Cheap SEO simple doesn’t provide any of the three. Cheap SEO in Canada is considered to be anything less than $650 per month, with some companies advertising $200 or even $150 per month. Sadly there is very little any SEO consultant can do in this time to optimize a website. So you typically don’t get anything more than a couple of tasks completed per month, which is not enough to compete online. That’s the best scenario, at worst your SEO tasks are either outsourced overseas (level of quality is now lost, and security is an issue) or it’s automated SEO (now a cookie-cutter process, lacking real impact or results).
Getting Started
If you want to improve your SEO prospects in Canada, you must work with a qualified agency. This should be an agency that provides experienced SEO services at affordable prices. You can contact us for more information.
