Cost labor and purchased work separately
Internal labor equals hours multiplied by the fully loaded hourly cost. Add agency or specialist fees, tools, and production costs that are not already included. With 30 hours at $60, plus $1,500 in fees, $200 in tools, and $1,000 in production, monthly planned cost is $4,500 and annualized cost is $54,000 if spending remains flat.
Define the work before comparing quotes
Technical fixes, information architecture, original content, design, translation, analytics, and maintenance have different scopes. Compare proposals by deliverables, ownership, access, review cycles, and evidence of quality rather than a headline monthly fee. Include staff time needed to approve and implement changes, even when an agency does the analysis.
Payment does not buy organic placement
Google states that it does not accept payment for higher organic ranking or more frequent crawling. SEO costs pay for research and work on a site; they do not buy a position in search results. Avoid link schemes and promises of guaranteed rankings. Use Search Console and business outcomes to assess useful progress, allowing for delays and other influences.
Google Search Essentials · Google: helpful, reliable content