Episode 24: How Much Should You Invest in SEO? A Strategic Guide for Long-Term Growth
In this episode, we explore how much to invest in SEO, covering the benefits of long-term strategies and the pros and cons of in-house vs. outsourced SEO. Perfect for brands looking to optimize their SEO budget.
“It’s your long-term strategy. It’s building your house, it’s investing in your 401k. It’s something that’s going to give a return down the road, and you’re going to own it.”
Objectives
In this episode, you will be able to:
Determine the right amount to invest in SEO for your business.
Understand the long-term benefits of SEO compared to paid advertising.
Evaluate the pros and cons of in-house SEO versus outsourcing to an agency.
Recognize why SEO is a strategic investment that takes time to show results.
Identify key factors that impact the success of your SEO efforts, such as content quality and consistency.
Transcript
Robbie (00:00):
Okay, Tim, so what you’re saying is you’re actually supposed to invest money in SEO?
Tim (00:06):
As crazy as it sounds, the freemium version doesn’t work.
Robbie (00:09):
The freemium. Freemium. Freemium. I can’t get a freemium. Okay, we’re gonna dive into…
Tim (00:16):
That accent! Can’t even say the word freemium.
[Intro]
Robbie (00:20):
We’re going. This is Tim Lowry and Robbie Fitzwater with the Content Community Commerce podcast. Today we’re gonna dive into a topic that, Tim, I’m guessing you get every once in a while. But this is more of an SEO-focused day, and we’re gonna talk about “How much should I invest in SEO?”
Tim (00:45):
As much of a shocker as it might sound, yes, I have been asked before, “How much should I be spending? Or, it costs how much to do that?”
Robbie (00:53):
Costs how much what?!
Tim (00:55):
It’s interesting because with all our channels, there’s not always the same hesitation. Like, with paid ads or Google ads, there’s not always that same pause. The expectation is there. It’s like, it costs this much per click, and I’m gonna spend this much. SEO is viewed a little differently at times.
Robbie (01:11):
SEO has to be put through the paces a little bit more, and we’ll unpack some of that reasoning and thought process today. But from the perspective of someone who’s worked in SEO, why would I invest in SEO?
Tim (01:24):
We’ve said this before. It’s your long-term strategy. It’s building your house; it’s investing in your 401k. It’s something that’s going to give a return down the road, and you’re going to own it versus—I’m not trying to beat up on ads here—but ads are purely rent.
Robbie (01:41):
Let’s beat up on ads. Let’s beat up on ads.
Tim (01:44):
Sure. They’re not part of this podcast, so I wanna beat up on them.
Robbie (01:47):
Yeah. Ads. Yeah.
Tim (01:48):
So, you know, you’re spending every month on that, but the moment you turn that faucet off, it’s over. You don’t get any more clicks to your site; it winds down, it’s closed. Whereas, the investment you put into SEO will have a long-term return. You’re building an audience that you—well, I don’t want to say you own them because obviously, they’re still coming from the search engine—but it’s a consistent audience. If you’re showing up and ranking consistently for the right keywords for your business, you’re driving the right eyeballs to your site. And that’s something that’s ongoing. That piece of content that’s performing well doesn’t just stop once the SEO finishes writing the article. It lives on until a few years down the road when another site creates something better. But if you’re investing in SEO, you’re paying attention to that and making sure that if somebody gets in front of you, you’re fixing yours to get back in front of them. So, it’s building a long-term, stable foundation. You’re building a home.
Robbie (02:51):
Okay, so again, it’s that longer-term mindset, which isn’t always easy to maintain. We work with a lot of e-commerce groups, and it’s not always easy to have a really long-term lens on growth in marketing because ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is so easy to maintain and keep an eye on. It’s such a north star for many groups in terms of how they look at their marketing investment. They don’t always get the chance to really look and understand, “Hey, where can I optimize what I’m doing? Where can I really grow in different, meaningful ways that aren’t just through paid?” And SEO, in terms of those opportunities, is probably one of the more straightforward and important investments you’re going to make, whether you’re running an e-commerce site or any site in general.
Tim (03:31):
You don’t want to be the e-commerce site with zero organic clicks a month and have everything come through paid. That’s a bad business model. That’s not sustainable. Whereas, an investment in SEO and organic traffic growth will help your ad spend because now you can be retargeting and funneling traffic to your email list. You’re growing other parts of the business that feed off of that. You’re also creating content that will keep users more engaged. So, rather than just landing on a product page and that being it, you have other ways to build relationships and establish your brand. Over three to five years, that becomes a high-performing channel, and you’re just growing year after year.
Robbie (04:20):
So again, it’s more relational than transactional. It’s longer-term as opposed to shorter-term. And especially with businesses that have a certain level of expertise or authority in-house, that’s a perfect fit for those types of businesses.
Tim (04:35):
A hundred percent. And when we say “relational, not transactional,” there’s still a transactional element. We can optimize for those, but ultimately relationships win out. If you build a good relationship over time and people trust you and trust the brand, they’re going to stick with you. They’ll come to you because they see you as more than just a place to buy the product. You’re where they go to get solutions, learn more about how to use it, and find everything that works with it. So it’s like what this podcast is about: we’re creating commerce through the community.
Robbie (05:09):
Yeah, decommoditizing what could be a commodity product, giving you a chance to charge more for the same products and differentiate yourself. For so many reasons, SEO makes so much logical sense. As marketers, this makes sense. So, if I’m thinking about whether SEO is a path I want to start going down, what are some of the things I need to unpack? How much should I invest? What should I think about if I am going to invest, and what are the next steps I should consider—whether to do it in-house or invest in an external resource, or maybe a bit of both?
Tim (05:45):
Yeah, it’s going to depend on the size of the brand. If you’re a small to medium-sized brand, bringing SEO in-house to do it well can be a daunting task. It’s not just about bringing in one person who can do everything. You’re going to bring in an SEO who can create the strategy and know what to look for, help with technical items, but they may not necessarily be the person who will sit and write every last article. So now you’ve got the salary of an SEO, and then you bring in a content writer for the SEO to direct. So, before you know it, you could be sitting at $175K a year for two people. Are they going to move the needle as much as needed? It depends if the SEO is lead or entry-level versus someone experienced, who knows all the strategies. Going the external route typically allows you to produce a lot more. I’ve had these discussions with clients at different stages of growth. Some wonder if they should bring this type of person into their team. It’s a case-by-case decision for each brand. I work with brands that have in-house copywriters and SEOs to some extent, but they still work with me because they want that gut-check level to keep them moving the needle. They don’t want to detach from that partnership. So, they keep the external partner because it’s a big investment.
Tim (07:21):
The other part of bringing in-house is the big shocker—you’ll start sucking those people into meetings. The copywriter that’s supposed to help the SEO might get pulled into writing copy for sales flyers, emails, and other things that aren’t SEO-focused. The SEO might get looped into working with a developer or assisting with paid campaigns, which are entirely different worlds. Now, they aren’t experts in either lane, and you’re pulling internal resources away from the original SEO focus. Then, there are brands large enough to build a dedicated SEO team. I’ll throw out names like HubSpot and NerdWallet, where they’ve got teams 30 deep in content writers and 5 deep in SEOs, ranging from their global head of acquisition down to lead SEOs who are doing the trenches work. At that stage, they’re big companies and won’t pull all their people into unrelated meetings, but they’ve got enough bandwidth and budget to keep an executional team in place.
Robbie (09:05):
As entities, their SEO functions more like media roles than just a marketing growth opportunity. HubSpot is producing content to drive organic search traffic. The same with NerdWallet—they’re earning an audience and monetizing it.
Tim (09:27):
A hundred percent. That’s their business model. They need that, and they have the size to sustain it. But where I’m going with this is, if you’re a business that can only bring in one SEO or one content writer, and you start pulling them into other things, you’re now throwing over $100K at something that might not actually yield the outcome you want. Another model I call the “Frankenstein model” for in-house…
Robbie (09:55):
Franken-SEO.
Tim (09:55):
Yeah, Franken-SEO. It’s like, “We can get an SEO for cheap on Fiverr to do this one-off thing or write this piece of content.” But there’s no strategy behind it because someone on the team just decided, “We need an article on this.” It’s not part of a bigger puzzle, so there’s no depth to what you’re doing. It’s like having a retirement account where, once a year, you remember, “Oh yeah, I’ll throw a few hundred dollars in that account,” and hope there’s something there when you retire. You need that consistent, automated investment to see long-term results, and with SEO, that means content creation or fixing technical issues monthly—not sporadically writing an article and hoping for results.
Robbie (10:54):
Random acts of content.
Tim (10:57):
I’ve seen brands, even big ones, follow that strategy. Recently, I’ve talked to people on their teams, and it’s like, “Oh, we saw a competitor write this article, so we decided to do one too.” But you don’t have any basis for it. That competitor’s article might be performing horribly. There might be zero traffic going to it.
Robbie (11:22):
Looking at a competitor for growth can be dangerous. Like you said, that competitor could have a horrible strategy. They may not have many things going for them. Making decisions based on what a competitor does can lead you down the wrong path, especially in a world where the blind lead the blind.
Tim (11:42):
Exactly. I heard a great point on another podcast recently, it was a UX focused. They said companies often look at Nike and say, “Well, Nike is doing this, so I want to do it.” But at any given time, Nike might have over 100 A/B tests running on different parts of their site. You don’t know if you’re in the bad group or the good group of that A/B test. You could be looking at the version that performed the worst and thinking, “If they’re doing it, I should do it too.” It’s the same with content—your competitor might write a piece, and you decide to copy them, but a good SEO will analyze that and suggest something better, or even tell you, “Here’s how we can outperform them.” All of a sudden, you’re all over the topic, like a rash, and your competitor won’t know what hit them.
Robbie (12:45):
Fun Irish analogies.
Tim (12:47):
Rashes are always great to talk about. But if you just decide to imitate your competitor without thinking, and then you hire someone from Upwork or Fiverr to write cheap content, you’re going to get a $30 article that performs like a $30 article.
Robbie (13:09):
Yeah, it’s not worth the time and investment you’re putting into it. And you’re not really serving anybody by half-doing this. It could be almost detrimental to you as a business owner or marketer because of the opportunity cost—what does it prevent you from doing? If I’m writing articles, what else could I be doing?
Tim (13:30):
Yeah, if you’re a business owner or in a marketing role, and you’re spending time writing content—which isn’t your expertise—what else could you be doing better? Let’s say it takes you 10 hours to research, write, and post it. What could you do with those 10 hours? You could be closing leads or opening opportunities instead of writing an article that may not perform because there was no research or planning. I’m not trying to beat up on the in-house route or the Frankenstein model—sometimes something is better than nothing. But other times, something is not better than nothing. You’re putting stuff out there for nobody to see.
Robbie (14:22):
You’re creating a bunch of trees that fall in the woods, and no one’s around to hear them. It’s almost self-serving. You feel warm, like wearing a dark suit—it feels nice and warm, but nobody can tell.
Tim (14:37):
Exactly. When you’re investing in-house, you could be spending over $100K a year, and you have to ask, “Am I really achieving the goals?” The Frankenstein model without a strategy is like pure investing—it’s not methodical, consistent, or diversified. You’re either going high risk, like Bitcoin, or zero risk, where you’re not seeing growth. Another option is to work with an SEO agency. You’re probably not going to spend $175K a year on an SEO agency if you’re a small to medium-sized brand, so that’s already saving you money. Plus, you get someone who creates a strategy, a roadmap, and executes it. They won’t get pulled into unrelated meetings. The plan is in place, and each month, content is consistently added to your site. It’s researched, and they know what they’re targeting. And if it’s a good SEO, you’ll see those improvements. We talk about it as an investment because it’s a long-term thing. If an SEO promises you ranking for competitive keywords in the first three months, run away! You may get quick wins, but it could be a quick loss if it’s done in a shady way. You want a long-term approach—build the foundation and do things well.
Tim (15:26):
And then the other option is, you know, okay, I’m going to work with an SEO, I’m going to work with an SEO agency, and odds are, for less than what you would spend on the salary for a year, you’re not going to spend $175K with an SEO agency if you’re a small to medium-sized brand. So that’s already going to cut it in half. But all of a sudden, you’ve got somebody who can create a strategy, a roadmap, a direction for it to go, and then they can execute it without getting pulled into the weeds of all those meetings. The plan is in place, it’s put in motion, and each month, content is added to your site. It’s consistent, it’s researched, and they know what they’re targeting. If it’s a good SEO, you will see those improvements. And it’s something we talk about as an investment because it’s a long-term thing.
Tim (16:15):
It’s not, you know, if I always say, if an SEO promises you that in the first three months, you’re going to be ranking for a host of competitive keywords and number one for this, run away, run fast—do not spend there. You may get something, and it might be a quick win, but it could also be a quick loss if it’s done in a really shady way. So you want to make sure that you’re doing that longer-term approach, like, we’re going to do things, we’re going to do them well, we’re building the foundation. But again, I’m biased. I feel like going external has a lot of advantages for a brand, and even when a brand grows, having some level of investment in someone outside can really benefit them because, all of a sudden, you’ve got somebody who has eyes on a number of other brands. They can tell you, like, “I’ve tried that and it worked,” or “I’ve done this and it didn’t work.”
Tim (17:07):
“Hey, this client has tried this thing. Have you ever thought about doing that?” And suddenly, you’re getting that outside advisory type of input. Again, it’s like working with a great financial planner. They can tell you, “Hey, somebody else invested in this and it worked really well. However, I wouldn’t, because our researchers, who look into this all day, every day, are saying that this will be trending down in the next couple of months.” They can help you avoid those pitfalls. So even if you have an in-house team, having somebody who can look at the market from a broader perspective and give you insights into what’s going on—or just to gut-check things—I think it’s always worth that investment. Your investment level is going to look different depending on the situation. Whether it’s something like that or something where you’re saying, “Hey, I need you to drive this lane for us, build this, and create a great plan,” the investment will be different. But it’s going to be a lot less than what you would spend to bring an in-house team in, and it’s also going to perform better than that Frankenstein methodology of, “Hey, I’ve got an idea, I want you to write this.”
Robbie (18:10):
Like, yeah.
Tim (18:10):
Then you’re like, “English is my third language,” which, not hating, but if your site is going to the English-speaking world, you want somebody who can write well, grammatically correct, and knows how to structure for that.
Robbie (18:23):
It seems like you’re not just paying for the service you’re getting on the other side. It seems like in a lot of ways, you may be paying for confidence, knowing that you’re definitely going in the right direction. And that consultative confidence, or that confidence that you know you’re making decisions for the long term, goes a long way in helping you grow. You’re not constantly questioning yourself, asking, “Could we be doing better?” That insecurity in the back of your head as a marketer plays a large role in how you make decisions. If you can get SEO off your plate, you can make better long-term decisions in areas where you feel more expertise, or where you can make a bigger business impact.
Tim (19:06):
Yeah, and if you have a board or a leadership team that you’re accountable to, and you don’t know how to explain that channel or what to do with it, those are hard conversations to have as a head of marketing. But if you’re a head of marketing and you have a resource that can help you understand why you’re doing this and what to expect, it allows you to talk to stakeholders with much more confidence. We’ve talked about three things to consider when you’re investing: impact, speed, and quality. If you work with an SEO who really knows what they’re doing, you’re going to see a much greater impact than with other strategies—unless, of course, you can stack your team with many people.
Tim (19:49):
So even if some get pulled into meetings, you’ll still have actionable people, and you’ll see a greater impact. It’ll be a strategy that’s planned out, with clear direction, and it will be executed. And then the speed of that strategy—you know, “Here’s what we’re going to do over the next 12 months.” That speed will happen. Things won’t get delayed because, “Oh, such and such couldn’t write this because they were busy doing something else,” or, “We didn’t get that posted this month, so we missed it.” Things get done when they’re supposed to. And again, when you’re working with a good agency, those are the expectations. I don’t think that’s unrealistic to expect. But then there’s also the quality. If SEO is what you do all day, every day, you know how to structure the content, how to write it, what types of pages to optimize and add to the site. You know which things are noise and aren’t going to add anything. So you’re going to get some real benefits from that side of it.
Robbie (20:46):
Okay, so can you walk through what they’re going to see on the other side? What is that investment going to get them? We’ve talked about in-house costs versus outsourcing costs, the opportunity cost of inconsistency, lack of structure, and lack of focus. At the end of the day, Tim, what should be a ballpark range? Like, if I’m a marketing director or VP of marketing, how much should I actually start thinking about investing in this? How much, in actual dollars, should I be allotting toward this?
Tim (21:15):
Brands often use a figure of 10-15% of revenue per year for marketing. That will vary based on the business, and it will determine how much you can allocate to each channel—paid, SEO, email (which we’ll cover in the next episode). To make an impact, anywhere between $30K and $60K a year is a good range. I know that’s broad, but it depends on the size of the site and how aggressive the goals are. You can spend even more—there are agencies you could spend $200K to $300K a year with, but those are usually national or global brands with large-scale needs. They might spend $10K to $15K on a single piece of content. But for a small to medium-sized brand, that would be crazy. For most brands, the $30K to $60K range is a solid spot. Over the year, that’s a good, healthy investment into something with a long-term return. I like to use Semrush, a tool that estimates the cost of buying traffic for a piece of content. Some content I’ve created for clients would cost $10K to $20K per month in paid ads to generate the same amount of traffic. So if a $2,000 piece of content brings in $10,000 worth of traffic a month, that’s a fantastic return on investment. Over a year, that’s $100K worth of traffic for a $2,000 investment. If I could put $2,000 into a 401k and have $100K by the end of the year, I’d call that a win.
Robbie (24:00):
Where do I buy this snake oil?
Tim (24:02):
Exactly! When it’s well-thought-out and planned, the return is clear. Not everything will have that big of an ROI, of course, but it’s about the long-term gain. Some keywords are niche, and while they may not generate tons of traffic, they bring in quality visitors. Sometimes those “zero volume” keywords can lead to high-value conversions, like a six-figure B2B sale. If you’re working with an SEO and have a full 12-month strategy, including project-based work, content creation, and technical improvements, it’s hard to do it right for less than $20K. If you’re paying less, you’re likely cutting corners somewhere—maybe in the quality of writing, the depth of research, or the strategy. But it’s still going to perform better than using Fiverr or Hoff for $50 articles. That $30K to $60K range is a good investment level for serious SEO work.
Robbie (25:37):
That’s a helpful ballpark. Now, I’m going to throw you a curveball since we have a few minutes left. Who is NOT a good fit for SEO? Who wouldn’t be your ideal client?
Tim (25:52):
Oh man. So, man, that is a curveball. The not ideal client is the person who has the wrong expectations about how SEO works. If it’s seen as that single silver bullet that’s going to achieve everything and do it in record time, that’s not the right person. There has to be the expectation, again, like I always talk with clients on the front end, that this is something that’s going to take six to 12 months before you really see performance kicking in. And probably year two is when you start to see that bigger inflection point where you finally look back and say, “Oh wow, we’ve really made big progress from where we were.” There’ll be wins along the way, but you’re investing in a strategy that works over time. A single piece of content can take six months for Google to pick up and actually rank—unless you’re a huge site with big domain authority, and stuff just ranks easily because you’re generating so much content, and Google just knows and trusts that.
Tim (26:58):
But for the average site, there’s that three-to-six-month window, and it can get tense sometimes for a client. If they’ve put all their eggs in this one basket, like, “Oh man, SEO’s gotta work, and it’s the only thing we’re doing, and we’re not doing anything else,” then that’s usually not the right fit. Another layer to this is the micromanager who wants to redo everything, saying, “This is how I would do it, this is what I would do, this is how I want it to look, and this is how I want it to read.” Edits are part of it, and I’m all about making sure it stays on brand and keeps the right voice. If there’s a gap in our thought process where they can add even deeper expertise, I’m all for that.
Tim (27:41):
But then there’s the person who wants to edit just for the sake of editing, and they end up taking out the elements that could make it perform better. If you can’t trust, at some level, that this person is an expert who can do these things, then you might not be ready for it. It’s like you’re handing your baby over to someone else and trusting that this babysitter is going to take care of it with the same love and passion that you have. You’re not watching them through the nanny cam for every little thing, making sure they’re holding the baby’s head right. You might be a little too precious, you know? Maybe you hear a voice through the nanny cam saying, “Hold the head better!”—”Support the neck!”
Tim (28:26):
So again, a hundred percent, everything should be on brand. I always say that every client I work with, and this is how I feel it should be with every brand, should be able to see what’s being done, ask questions, and give feedback. That’s part of the process. If someone just goes rogue and starts doing all sorts of things, well, yeah, that would be scary for any brand if you’re working with an external partner. But there has to be a level of trust. They’re going to write it how it needs to be written, they’re going to research it, and they’re going to know it. You have to trust that if they frame it a certain way or talk about the topic in a specific way, there’s a reason behind it.
Tim (29:07):
If there’s a gap in knowledge or a focus we need to adjust, then sure, we want that to be part of the process. But sometimes, you just have to trust that there’s a reason why we’re doing this piece of content. It may not seem obvious, but trust me, it’s going to build links for you, or it’s going to help everything else perform better. So yeah, those are the two types: one where everything is too precious to them, and the other where all their eggs are in one basket. If this doesn’t work and it’s micromanaged, panicked, and they’ve thrown their last dollars at it, then that’s probably not a good fit either, because the results won’t come quickly enough for that person.
Robbie (29:51):
Yeah, so if I’m thinking about investing in SEO for my business, as a marketing VP or e-commerce founder, this gives me a good idea of what to consider and how much to invest. And it sets expectations for what I can see on the other end.
Tim (30:25):
Exactly. It’s like investing—you’ll see ups and downs, but over time, if you’re consistent, you’ll see growth. We share some clients, and one you worked with is on track for a million new eyeballs through content this year. That’s a lot of potential new customers, and that’s a lot of money saved on paid clicks. When it’s done well, it’s powerful. That didn’t happen in the first three months, though—the first three months were rough!
Robbie (31:08):
Yeah, lots of gray hairs! But when you see what’s possible on the other side, it’s powerful.
Tim (31:31):
Exactly, thousands of users on very expensive keywords is really nice for any brand to see. And it doesn’t mean that they stop doing their ad spend, because we’ve talked before about that three-legged stool. You always want to have stability with a few different ways that your traffic is coming in, as diversified. You’ve got your stocks, you’ve got your bonds, you’ve got some international mixed in there. You’ve got a little bit of diversification. You don’t want to just go all in on one channel, but at the same time, it’s great support for, “Hey, we’re paying over here for this keyword, but we’re also organically there.” We now have two spots on page one where people are seeing us and can click into us. So, okay, you have me investing for the long term.
Robbie (32:14):
Okay, you’ve sold me on long-term investing. Thank you, Tim. And for everyone listening, we’ll have part two next time, covering how much you should invest in email. Thank you all for tuning in, and we’ll see you next time!
Tim (32:34):
Yeah, and if you’ve tried the Frankenstein model and had success, let me know on LinkedIn. Poke some holes in our argument. We’d love to hear about it!
Robbie (32:49):
Yes, and don’t forget to leave five stars for the smooth Irish accent alone! Have a great day!
Tim (32:52):
Thanks, everyone!
[Outro]
