How much does SEO cost in the UK?

The short answer: typical UK prices

SEO (search engine optimisation) is the work that helps your business show up when people search Google, and now AI assistants too. It's usually sold in one of four ways:

Most local businesses do best with a modest monthly plan, because the results come from steady work: keeping your Google profile fresh, adding pages, earning reviews and links. One-off work fixes problems, but rarely moves you up on its own.

What makes SEO cheaper or dearer

Two quotes for “SEO” can be very different jobs. These things move the price most:

• Competition. Ranking for “dog groomer Wimborne” takes far less work than “solicitor London”. The more businesses fighting for a search, the more it costs to beat them.
• Local or national. Local SEO focuses on Google Maps, your Google profile and nearby searches. National SEO means competing with big brands across the whole country.
• The state of your website. A slow or badly built site may need fixing before anything else works. A good site lets the money go into new pages and links.
• Content. New pages for each service and town, guides and blog posts are often the biggest part of the work. Writing them well takes time.
• Links. Getting other trusted websites to mention you is slow, careful work. Cheap link schemes can get a site penalised.
• Reporting. A clear monthly report of rankings, calls and enquiries is standard. Detailed dashboards and calls add cost.

Ask any SEO provider which searches they'll target, what they'll do each month, and how they'll show you results. If they can't say, keep looking.

Local SEO vs. national SEO

Most small businesses in the UK need local SEO. Your customers are within a few miles, and they search with a town or “near me”. The work focuses on:

• your Google Business Profile: the right categories, photos, posts and reviews
• your name, address and phone number matching across directories
• pages on your website for your main services and the towns you cover
• reviews, and replies to them

National SEO is a bigger job. It needs more content, more links and often technical work on large sites. That's why it starts at around £1,000 a month and can run much higher for online shops.

Examples from Dorset

Three made-up local businesses, and what SEO would sensibly cost them:

• A plumber in Poole: a lot of competition on the map, but customers only within a few miles. A local plan at £300–£500 a month, focused on the Google profile, reviews and service pages, is usually enough.
• A dental practice in Bournemouth: high-value patients and several practices competing. £600–£1,200 a month, with more pages for each treatment and steady review growth.
• A gift shop in Wareham selling online across the UK: local SEO for the shop, plus national SEO for the products. Often £1,000+ a month, mostly content and links.

Warning signs in a cheap SEO quote

SEO for £49 or £99 a month sounds tempting. Usually it's automated, shared across hundreds of clients, or built on links that can harm your site. Be wary of:

• Guaranteed first place on Google. Nobody controls Google, so nobody can promise it.
• Hundreds of links for a fixed price. Bought links can get your site pushed down or removed from results.
• No clear list of the work. You should know what's done each month.
• Reports with no calls or enquiries. Rankings for searches nobody uses don't help.
• Long contracts with no exit. A good provider keeps you because it's working.

SEO also takes time. Expect early gains, such as Google profile fixes and listings, in the first weeks, and steady growth over three to six months.

Our prices

We do local SEO for Dorset businesses, no VAT to add:

• Local: £295 a month (£249 set-up). Your Google profile kept fresh, Google Maps, your details across 20–40 directories, reviews and a monthly report.
• SEO & AI: from £495 a month. New pages and guides for the searches you're missing, local links, and a monthly ranking and AI check.
• SEO & AI set-up: £1,000–£1,500, depending on your site, one-off, for the website you already have.

Every plan starts with a free audit: where you rank now, who beats you, and the five fixes that matter. Find out more about our SEO in Dorset, or start with your Google profile and Maps if most of your customers are nearby. Want to know whether AI assistants can read your site? Run our free AI check.