How much does SEO cost in the UK, and what should you get?

If you run a trade, you’ve probably had the calls and the emails: “We noticed your website isn’t ranking on Google.” Some offer it for £99 a month, some want a few thousand, and none of them explain clearly what you’d actually get.

So here’s what SEO costs in the UK, the ways it’s charged, what you should see for your money each month, and the warning signs, several of them straight from Google.

The ways SEO is charged

There are three common models. Most firms use one of them, or a mix.

A monthly retainer

You pay a fixed amount each month for ongoing work: your Google Business Profile, your website, reviews, links from other sites, and a monthly report. This is the most common model for local businesses.

Good for: ongoing work, which is what local SEO mostly is. Watch out for: long minimum terms, and a monthly report that doesn’t show anything you can check.

A one-off project

A fixed price for a set piece of work: an audit of your website and listing, a new set of service and town pages, or setting up your Google Business Profile properly.

Good for: getting the foundations right, after which you keep it going yourself. Watch out for: an audit that’s a long, automatically generated report with no clear list of what to fix first.

Hourly or by the day

Some freelancers and consultants charge for their time.

Good for: small, clearly defined jobs, or advice. Watch out for: open-ended hours with no agreed result.

What it costs: one UK price study

Prices vary hugely, and most firms don’t publish them. The most useful dated UK figures we found came from Whito Research’s UK Marketing Cost Index 2026 (last updated 2 July 2026, data checked July 2026), backed by 128 published prices from 47 UK providers. It reports the middle 60% of the prices it found, leaving out obvious outliers, excluding VAT:

Type of SEO	Whito’s range
Local SEO	£300 to £800 a month
National SEO	£1,000 to £2,000 a month
Mid-market SEO	£2,500 to £5,000 a month
One-off SEO audit	£500 to £2,500

Source: Whito Research, UK Marketing Cost Index 2026, last updated 2 July 2026. Whito describes itself as an independent UK research publisher. Treat these as one survey of published prices, not an official figure.

For a trade working in one town and the villages around it, local SEO is the band that matters. You don’t need national SEO to get work in Swindon or Chippenham.

What you’re actually paying for

For a local trade, SEO is mostly about the three things Google says it ranks local results on. From its Business Profile help pages:

• Relevance: “how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for”. Your categories, your services, and a website that says clearly what you do and where.
• Distance: “how far each business is from the customer who’s searching”. Nobody can change this, so anyone honest will focus on the area around where you’re based.
• Prominence: “how well-known a business is”, which Google says includes “how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have”.

Google’s guide Do you need an SEO? lists the kind of work SEOs do, including a “review of your site content or structure”, technical advice, writing content and keyword research. For a trade, in practice, that comes down to:

1. Your Google Business Profile set up properly and kept active.
2. A steady flow of new Google reviews.
3. A website with a page for each service and each town you cover, fast on a phone.
4. Links to your website from other genuine sites: local suppliers, trade bodies, community pages.
5. Checking where you stand, and fixing what’s holding you back.

And one thing worth knowing before you pay anyone: Google says it “never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results, and it costs nothing to appear in our organic search results”. You’re paying for someone’s time and skill, not for a place on Google.

What you should see every month

This is the part most trades never get. Whatever you pay, a monthly report should show you:

1. What was done, in plain words. “Added 12 photos to your listing, wrote the Highworth page, asked 9 customers for reviews and got 4.”
2. Where you stand on the searches that matter, checked the same way each time: your trade plus your town, from the same point, on the same date each month. Google Maps results change depending on where the searcher is standing, so a ranking checked from somewhere different each month means nothing.
3. Calls and website clicks from your Google listing, from the Performance screen in your Business Profile. You can see these yourself.
4. Enquiries actually received: calls, forms and messages, counted.
5. Ideally, jobs won and what they were worth.

What we have seen

On 19 September 2026, on Google’s list for each search from the town centre: SimplyShine (our own business, a mobile valeting firm) was 1st of 20 for “car valeting” in Swindon, Swindon Surface Cleaning was 1st of 20 for “driveway cleaning” in Swindon, and Wiltshire Junk Busters was 2nd of 14 for “rubbish removal” in Swindon. See the work.

That’s the kind of measurement you should get: the search, the town, the position, the number of firms, and the date, checked the same way every time so the next one can be compared. What it isn’t is a promise. Positions move, and nobody controls them.

Reports to be wary of: pages of graphs with no calls in them, “impressions” with no clicks, or a count of “keywords ranked” that turns out to be searches nobody makes.

The red flags Google warns about

Google’s own guide to hiring an SEO is blunt. Its warnings, word for word:

• “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.”
• “Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a ‘special relationship’ with Google, or advertise a ‘priority submit’ to Google.”
• “Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.”
• “Avoid SEOs that talk about link popularity schemes or submitting your site to thousands of search engines.”
• “Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that email you out of the blue.”

And for the map, Google’s Business Profile help says: “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.”

From what we see in trades, add these:

• They set up your Google listing or website in their name. Your listing, your reviews, your website and your domain should be yours. If you leave, you take them with you.
• A 12-month contract before they’ve shown you anything.
• Fake reviews, or a fake address in a town you want to rank in. Both break Google’s rules and can get your profile suspended.
• Reports that never mention calls. If it isn’t bringing in work, what’s it for?

The questions to ask before you pay

Google’s guide lists “some useful questions to ask an SEO”, including:

1. “Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?”
2. “Do you follow the Google Search Essentials (previously known as Webmaster Guidelines)?”
3. “What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe?”
4. “How do you measure your success?”
5. “What’s your experience in my industry?”
6. “How can I expect to communicate with you?”

For a trade, we’d add:

7. Who owns my Google listing, website and domain if I leave?
8. How long is the contract, and how do I cancel?
9. Will you count my calls and enquiries, and how?
10. Can I speak to a trade you work for?

Is it worth it? Do the sum

Work it out on the back of an envelope:

• Your average job: say £450.
• Your profit on it: say half, £225.
• The monthly fee: say £600.
• Jobs a month needed to cover it: £600 ÷ £225 = 2.7, so three extra jobs a month.

If your SEO can’t show you at least that many extra enquiries turning into work, it isn’t paying. If your jobs are worth thousands, one extra job a quarter might cover it. Our guide to how much a tradesman should spend on marketing goes further into the sums.

If you’d rather do some of it yourself first, start with how to rank higher on Google Maps, and for a realistic timescale, how long it takes to rank on Google Maps. And if you want calls faster than SEO can bring them, read are Google Ads worth it for a trade.

How we do it, and why it works

We don’t charge for SEO up front. You pay nothing until you’ve won £500 of work through us. After that it’s from £500 a month, and any month the work you win through us comes to less than £500 is free. No contract, 30 days’ notice.

For that, you get the three parts, not just the SEO:

• Found: your Google listing set up and worked every week, a review asked for after every job, and a website built to be called. We show you where you stand, checked the same way each time, and change what can be changed. We never promise a position, because Google says there’s no way to pay for one.
• Answered: calls ring you as they always have. A missed call from a mobile gets a text back in your name, every form and message gets a reply in your name, and every quote is chased to a yes or a no.
• Counted: after each enquiry a text asks whether you won it and for how much. Once a month, one page: what came in, what you won, what it was worth.

It works because you only pay when it’s bringing in work, and the monthly page shows you exactly what that work was worth. The free check shows who Google lists for your trade in your town and where you sit today.