Ecommerce SEO pricing is influenced by a wide variety of factors that range from the included services and complexity of your website to the SEO agency or freelancer’s experience level and location. On average, ecommerce brands can expect to pay at least $2,000 per month for professional ecommerce SEO retainer services.
Ecommerce SEO Pricing Models
The four most common ecommerce SEO pricing models are: one-time project, hours based, services based, and custom monthly retainer services.
One-Time Project
The one-time project pricing model is an entry-level offer that typically includes an SEO audit, pre-specified technical fixes, a pre-specified number of guest posts, and a pre-specified number of pages of new content or page optimizations.
These packages are designed for small businesses that aren’t ready to invest in monthly retainer services but want to improve their website optimization. Some businesses see small gains from this kind of offer. However, it’s rarely enough to compete with comparable ecommerce businesses that invest long-term in SEO.
Hours Based
The hours-based pricing model is based on the number of hours per month an SEO consultant or agency will dedicate to your campaign. A typical SEO campaign may take anywhere from 20 to 150 labor hours per month, depending on how competitive your niche market is, how many products your business sells, and your long-term business goals.
Package Based
The package-based pricing model involves a fixed package of monthly services, such as 1 SEO audit, 5 product or category page optimizations, 4 blog posts, and 1 guest post. This kind of pricing is very common. However, it’s not necessarily the most effective approach.
Igor Avidon, founder of Avidon Marketing Group agency that specializes in eCommerce SEO, notes “There is simply no such thing as a templated package that can properly address the SEO needs of any given brand and their website.”
Monthly Retainer Services
Monthly retainer services are the most effective approach. Companies pay a monthly cost between $1,000 and $10,000 or more for a completely custom search engine optimization strategy that takes into account their competition’s strength, their current website’s organic value, and more.
It’s not uncommon for ecommerce SEO clients to see a 4000% increase in web traffic with monthly retainer services. The cost of this service—while potentially higher—pays for itself. You may opt to sign up for three-month periods if the agency offers a discounted hourly rate for the commitment. It typically takes six to twelve months or more of ongoing SEO work to generate the kinds of results mentioned above.
Services Included in Ecommerce SEO
The following are a few of the services included in ecommerce search engine optimization campaigns:
SEO Audit
An SEO audit is conducted using free tools like Google Search Console as well as paid services such as Ahrefs or Moz. An SEO audit reveals issues like:
- Broken links (such as 404 errors)
- Duplicate content
- Duplicate pages
- Canonicalization issues
- Orphan pages (such as a product that is not linked to any category)
- Sitemap and crawling issues
- Mobile responsiveness issues
- Slow page loading speed
- Unsecured domain
- Suboptimal site structure
- Poor user experience (UX)
- Missing copy
- Missing schema
Fixing technical issues is essential for helping Google crawl your website effectively so that it can index key pages and serve them to internet users in search results. A slow site or a lot of server errors will cause Googlebot to crawl your website less.
An SEO audit will also reveal how much traffic your ecommerce website is receiving, which keywords your website currently ranks for, and how many other websites link back to your ecommerce site (referred to as “backlinks”).
Technical SEO
Once technical SEO issues have been identified, they need to be fixed. Some of these issues (such as broken links) can be fixed quickly. Others (such as truncated metadata or missing copy) are more of a long-term process and require the expertise of an SEO writer or content specialist.
Technical SEO services also include things like schema markup, which is optional but gives you a higher chance of capturing potential customers’ attention and raising your click-through rates with rich search results in Google.
Image Optimization
Product, category, and banner images present a great opportunity for getting your brand found in organic image search. An ecommerce SEO agency or consultant will optimize these images by adding descriptive alt text and filenames that help Google understand your images and display them in image search results.
Metadata Optimization
Metadata is the text that is displayed in search results. It includes the title tag and meta description. Ecommerce SEO specialists will optimize the metadata for each page to include the page’s target keywords, be the correct pixel length to avoid truncation, and motivate internet users to click through to the relevant product, category, or blog page.
Competitor Analysis
Competitor analysis is a critical part of ecommerce SEO and one that businesses often neglect. An SEO specialist will analyze your competitors’ SEO strategies and target keywords, and help you craft an SEO strategy that will help you keep up with (or ahead of) the pack.
International ecommerce companies, for example, may need to produce more content each month to compete with similar businesses and rank well for their target keywords (increasing their SEO costs) compared to regional businesses that focus on local SEO. However, the higher cost to remain competitive should be offset by the fact that their customer base is much larger.
Keyword Research
Keyword research using free and paid SEO tools identifies the terms internet users are searching for that are relevant to your product offerings. Some of these keywords will have a commercial search intent (customers searching for this term are looking to buy) and others will have an information-gathering search intent (customers are looking to learn).
An expert ecommerce SEO agency will identify the keywords that your brand should target on the home page, category pages, product pages, and blog. These should be terms that have a high-enough search volume that they’re worth your time targeting but are not so competitive that there’s no chance you will rank well for the terms.
Product and Category Page Copy
Product and category pages that have unique descriptions will generally rank (and convert) better than those that don’t. If your ecommerce website lacks copy on its commercial pages or simply copied the product descriptions from your supplier, an ecommerce SEO agency will prioritize writing unique copy for these pages, starting with your bestsellers and working their way down the list.
Content Creation
Much of ecommerce SEO agencies’ time is spent producing onsite blog content. An onsite blog helps to establish your brand as an authority in its niche and provides more potential touchpoints with your target audience.
Depending on your industry, you might need to produce two, three, four, or even five blog articles each month to keep up with the competition. Ecommerce SEO agencies can either produce keyword-optimized blog posts for you or provide you with outlines for writing optimized blog posts in-house.
Digital PR and Link Building
Digital PR and link building help you build a reputation as being a legitimate and respected brand in the eyes of customers and search engines. A good ecommerce SEO agency will:
- Look for opportunities to have your brand included in relevant “best product” roundups
- Look for opportunities to have your brand listed in relevant online directories
- Request other sites that mention your brand to link back to your website
- Write guest posts on relevant topics and pitch them to publications that your target audience is likely to read
- Avoid “black hat” techniques like link buying, which is against Google’s spam policies and leads to these links being devalued by Google
Reporting and Analytics
Ecommerce SEO agencies can’t promise or guarantee specific results. However, a good agency or consultant will show you clearly what they are doing to help your website rank and explain to you how your website is performing. Whether using Google Data Studio dashboards or another reporting tool, the SEO agency may report on things like:
- Technical SEO issues identified and fixed
- Backlinks and mentions acquired
- Copy written (including commercial pages and blog articles)
- Changes in web traffic
- Keywords your website is ranking for
- Competitor and content gap analysis
- Transactions and revenue
Customer Reviews
Some ecommerce SEO agencies will help you establish and monitor a customer review strategy that may include onsite reviews (which is a valuable form of user-generated content) and reviews on third-party websites. Customer reviews are a powerful tool for establishing trust and can be displayed in rich results with the appropriate schema markup. Having onsite and offsite reviews will also help your ecommerce business appear in “brand+review” search results.
Sales Funnel Analysis
Search engine optimization is essentially a form of marketing (as its aim is to make your target audience aware of your existence and products they might like). For this reason, some SEO agencies will provide additional marketing services such as a sales funnel analysis to help you work out strategies to influence interested site visitors to go through with a purchase and consequently improve your conversion rate.
Other Factors that Influence Pricing
The following factors affect the pricing of ecommerce SEO in addition to the pricing models and included services listed above:
- The current optimization level of your ecommerce website
- The number of products you sell
- The complexity of your website
- The size of your business
- The level of search ranking competition in your industry
- The number of keywords for which you want your site to rank
- The geographical area and number of customers you want to reach
- The type of ecommerce SEO service you choose (in-house, consultant, freelancer, or agency)
- The experience level and track record of the provider
- The geographical location of the provider
- The tools and resources the SEO provider uses (and how much they cost the provider)
- Your SEO goals and desired results
Taking all of these factors into account, it’s easy to see why some businesses need to spend more on ecommerce SEO than others. The good news is that the amount you spend on quality SEO services (as long as it’s on par with the services you actually need for your business size and industry), will almost always lead to a significant boost in web traffic and revenue.
Invest Wisely and See the Returns
The price of ecommerce SEO might initially seem high. But once you understand everything that goes into it, the price tag starts to make a lot more sense. The most effective ecommerce SEO strategy will be one that starts with a thorough SEO audit and competitor analysis so that the services provided are those that will be most effective in producing results.
As online shopping continues to grow in popularity and reach, being found among the pack is paramount for ensuring market share and sales. And strategic ecommerce SEO—while not freein Long Island—is the tool that will help you do just that.
