1. Look for SEO agencies that are flexible. Don’t let SEO Packages box in your business strategy, so look for custom solutions based on your business goals.

SEO costs can be structured to fit your market sector and business goals, rather than boxing you into a standard SEO Package that over complicates or oversimplifies your campaign. Although we list our standard SEO packages in this article , every interaction with our clients is of course customised to suite the client’s business goals and KPI’s for the particular SEO Campaign. No two SEO campaigns are alike and costs should differ accordingly. Just because your service or product has few searches on Google, does not mean that there is not another keyword-group which you could use to get your product in front of your target customer.

2. The quick answer to SEO costs in South Africa(also check out other frequently asked questions at the end of this article):

SEO costs in are based on the experience of your SEO company and the difficulty of your market niche. SEO costs in South Africa can vary from R5000,00 monthly to R50 000,00 depending on a variety of factors so our advice to potential clients is to know why agencies charge what they charge for SEO. Cheap SEO often provides results of low value, but paying top Dollar(Rand or Euro) doesn’t mean you get brilliant quality SEO service either, so there a few SEO price-point top tips to keep in mind (which we have shared on this page) on how to find a professional digital marketing agency in South Africa to provide SEO services at the right price.

3. Know who you are dealing with. Explained: Why SEO pricing in South Africa is set up like it is, and what to look out for.

You have two camps really when it comes how pricing works in the SEO industry in South Africa.

The standard SEO Package (one size fits all) and the Custom SEO Packages(bespoke SEO packages based on client industry).

Both these camps work out costing based on price per hour for SEO(which could be anything from R450 per hour to R1500 per hour), but not many digital marketing agencies in South Africa will ask you to pay them by an hourly rate. Rather, agencies ask a monthly fee for SEO as part of the SEO process based on SEO experience. Cost is also affected by competitiveness of the industry that the client offers services/products in.

The two camps can be further broken down to Generalists SEO Service Providers and Specialist SEO Companies.

Specialists in SEO obviously have SEO as a core focus of their business, while Generalists have SEO as one of many services like web design, graphic design, PR, social media advertising etc.

If you Google SEO Services, you will find a mixture of both Generalists and Specialists, make sure you know which one is which.

4. A larger number of team members at an SEO Company in South Africa does not mean you will get quality work. Sometimes, the bigger the SEO agency’s client list gets, the more likely it is that your project will become one of many to juggle, and even to some extent, fall through the cracks.

There is no right or wrong choice and whether you pay a Specialist or Generalist SEO agency, you still need to do your homework on the quality of work they provide. Some Generalists will be one-man bands while some Specialists will be 30 team member strong agencies. Generally, the amount of staff is not an indication of quality or experience in SEO.

Why? Well marketing agency employee cycles often mean the most promising SEO experts at top SEO agencies leave these agencies to strike out on their own and start agencies, taking their years of experience and a string of clients with them, while leaving their former 30-team agency without senior experienced guidance etc. That same Senior SEO Analyst then becomes a one-woman band or small agency with 2-3 staff, that provides excellent SEO quality of service, but to a limited amount of clientele. Large agencies also often sit with too many clients, and too few staff to handle all the work which results in quality of services issues, and in some instance clients are even forgotten for a week or two due to lack of planning and structure at these start-ups that have just simply grown too fast struggle to keep up organizationally, a classic start-up growth issue.

Blue Cabin SEO falls somewhere between these two extremes. Our Founder Michael Smit helped to start SEOpros in Nelspruit way back in 2016, in a little 2 bedroom flat above a hardware shop and helped steer the company alongside Louis Schoeman to become one of the top SEO Agencies in South Africa from 2016-2019. At Blue Cabin SEO we take on only two to three clients per month so we can provide only excellence of service to our clients. SEO is a very involved process and our boutique SEO agency client list keeps us plenty busy, so we don’t know how large agencies can provide our level of service to a client list of 100+ businesses, for example.

5. Cost of SEO is often directly related to level of SEO experience

Most specialist agencies in SEO provide a cost on their services based on their experience, so check that they provide contactable references. Specialist in SEO at Blue Cabin SEO for example have been working with some of our clients since 2015 so we suggest you also ask your potential SEO agency for a reference of both new clients and older clients to gauge experience so you will know if the price fits what the agency can provide.

Check that the senior SEO consultants have years of experience in the industry, no matter if they are specialists or generalists. This is easily done with the tip above of requesting solid contactable references.

6. Trust your gut, if it sounds to good to be true, and there is no solid data, be wary.

Trust your gut when dealing with SEO consultants. Our industry is unfortunately not controlled by an industry body and many fly-by nights are making it in the SEO world simply ‘hustling’ and sales-skills and misdirecting clients with technical terms etc. Any SEO agency worth their salt will provide you with solid KPIs and a data-driven strategy (data which they will show you) set to a timeline, as part of an SEO campaign. They will also align your business goals with their SEO strategy, and provide solid data on keyword targets, and the searches and subsequent traffic these keywords can generate to your website.

7. Ask for three contactable references from an SEO agency and their three clients’ top ranking keywords, and check these rankings on Google, yourself.

A great tip is to ask for a list of clients, maybe just three, and ask for three keywords each of these clients are ranking for on a national level. Then you as a potential client can just check that these clients indeed rank on Google and assure yourself that this agency can at least rank websites. (Secret tip here: every keyword has a number of monthly searches, check those in this tool: Google Keyword Planner as some below par SEO agencies rank clients on keyword that get little to no searches, meaning the clients do rank on Page one of Google, but this ranking generates no traffic to the website as there is no searches for that keyword(shocking we know). Every keyword you rank on Google for, should be driving traffic to your website.

Need help on how to get solid feedback from an SEO agency.Here is a: SAMPLE QUESTIONNAIRE EMAIL TO SEND TO AN SEO AGENCY AFTER YOU HAVE RECEIVED AN SEO Estimate or quote:

Hi there,

We value your time in quoting us on your SEO Services.

As part of our process of considering your agency as our SEO service provider, please can you get back to us on the following:

Please provide us with three contactable references of clients you are currently ranking, since when you have been working with them, and 3 keywords you rank each of these clients on currently on Page One of Google Search Results. These clients should have national ranking in South Africa on google.co.za.

See an example of what Blue Cabin SEO references of 3 current clients would be:

BunduDakke.co.za (roofing contractor)

Working with this client since 2015.

Client ranks nationally for, harvey tiles, thatch roofing and thatch roofs prices (and a myriad of other keywords) and has grown from a small business in Lydenburg to a national business wfor branches in Cape Town, Pretoria and Hoedspruit. We easily outrank Bundu Dakke against giants like Cashbuild and Builders Warehouse, and for years we actually outranked their supplier.

Getlion.co.za (app)

Working with this client since May 2020.

In three months, we ranked this client internationally for ‘best business app 2020’ while our goal was just to rank them in South Africa alone, their website now pops up on the first and second page of Google where Forbes is also listed. We helped increase the digital assets of this website to the point where its value could be leveraged by the owner to secure and strengthen the business even further. Please let us know if you want to chat to the client for a reference and we will provide contact details.

Check our clients’ rankings by searching: best business app 2020 South Africa, best incubators in south Africa and small business tools 2020 south Africa.

FCMedical.co.za (medical supplier)

A proud moment for our founder Michael Smit who used this project to complete all aspects of SEO work himself, as part of sharpening his myriad of SEO skills. This client was outsourced to Blue Cabin SEO by SEOpros.co.za in December 2019 when Blue Cabin SEO as concept of a new SEO specialist agency for South Africa was being formed by Smit. Since that time FCMedical has leaped into First Page Google ranking positions that regularly shocks both our client and ourselves. FCmedical ranks for numerous keywords on the first page of Google and has recently begun dominating the medical oxygen market sector. Check our clients rankings by searching: cpap machine prices, medical oxygen suppliers and portable oxygen concentrator .

Please let us know if you want to chat to the client for a reference and we will provide contact details.

8. Work with experienced SEO specialists, or risk losing your digital marketing assets, like Google ranking. Cheap SEO costs business owners more in subsequent fixes, than a professional SEO agency would have cost them in the first place.

Some generalist agencies that offer SEO as one of their many services have a very strong SEO department, but some agencies may have only recently added SEO as a service, so they may have a very limited understanding of SEO and are still finding their way. SEO isn’t done without risk, and for agencies unfamiliar with how SEO works, we have seen client websites completely lose Google Rankings due to actions like rebuilds, or large-scale site and database changes. This often happens by accident when a web design company or graphic design agency starts offering SEO as a service and offer to rebuild a client website which already has existing ranking. Clients often end up sitting with newly rebuilt websites that suddenly have no leads and in desperation end up looking for a solution that their current agency can’t provide. These clients then end up contacting The Blue Cabin SEO Agency with questions on how to fix (and avoid) traffic and sale drops after a website redesign or rebuild. Often a look at traffic drops showing on Google Search Console and Google Analytics, and a complete loss of ranking, point to things like 301’s not being correctly actioned in a website’s SEO migration, which can cause a website its Google ranking positions. There are many other factors that contribute to Google ranking loss, but when it comes to large scale changes, tread with care and ask a professional SEO company in South Africa to manage your SEO website migration.

9. SEO pricing will be mostly connected to the experience of the SEO practitioner in the SEO industry as well as the scope of the project and industry competitiveness.

So, what if I opt for a cheap SEO package in South Africa?

Clients new to the concept of SEO often prefer a low budget SEO company when they have not heard about SEO marketing as a service and are comparing this to other forms of advertising in terms of cost. By securing SEO at a cheap rate, the client gets exposed to the SEO field by often dealing with a lower quality, less experienced SEO marketing service provider. This action by a client new to SEO as service, means that their experience might be unsatisfactory in terms of ranking or client service. This ‘cheap-SEO’ approach often taints SEO as a service for many business owners and effectively removes them from the market, allowing their competitors who understand the value of professional SEO, to harness the power of SEO for their business growth. We specifically screen our clients for this to ensure our clients are aware at which level our SEO services are at and how we differ from other SEO agencies. We have seen numerous clients regret the decision to go for a ‘cheap’ option when they started with SEO and web design, as the damage caused by an inexperienced SEO service provider could require serious fixes that only experienced SEO consultants can fix. So, clients often double their costs if they choose to go the cheap SEO route. Most business owners learn this less the hard(expensive) way.

10. The more competitive your industry, the more work and time will be required to rank your URL on Google, and that means more expense over time.

Some industries are heavily competitive in terms of Search Engine Marketing. Industries like insurance, car and house sales and accommodation etc have become increasingly difficult to rank for on Goolge as big industry players(think Property24, Tripadvisor etc) dominate first page rankings. That being said, every market niche provides opportunities to generate traffic with keywords these big players often overlook.

11. Cheap SEO often has low value in terms of lead generation, while more expensive SEO packages point to an experienced agency (in theory).

Thus, in both examples of the Generalists and Specialists, and Standard SEO Package or Custom SEO Package, if someone is charging a higher price for SEO, they are declaring they have serious experience and can demand a higher SEO consultancy rate due to the fact that they can provide leads to your business due to their experience, much faster and with more accuracy.

SEO experts gain their knowledge and valuable experience over the years by hit or miss “in-process” participation on client projects which they are assigned to. SEO that is expensive is often provided by experienced SEO consultants and not newbies still learning the ropes. Our SEO consultants have between 3-5 years’ experience in an SEO agency environment and their work is vetted by senior SEO analysts.

In essence you want an experienced SEO specialist to manage your project, and if you happen to have agency staff member working on your project who is still learning the SEO craft, they need a senior consultant to oversee their work.

With experience connected to the cost of SEO in South Africa, you can easily determine what you can expect based on pricing.

How cheap SEO packages can cut your business profits.

To simplify: Cheap SEO packages point to less experience and less focus on SEO as speciality of the service provider, while expensive SEO packages often point to an SEO agency in South Africa claiming to be highly skilled and experienced in SEO and who have the opinion, that their work is worth the cost incurred. Notice that we use the word ‘claiming’ here. There are some exceptions but our understanding of the SEO landscape in South Africa generally points to this consistently being a rule rather than exception. In SEO you mostly get what you pay for. So pay for the best service and receive the best service, get an SEO Quotation from Blue Cabin today.