How Much Should Your Local
SEO Budget be in Toronto?
Read Time: 5 Minutes
Many small business owners in Toronto are unsure how much they should budget for local SEO services. These services are crucial for their online success, but their lack of knowledge about SEO often leaves them uncertain about their monthly budget.
The post addresses this by providing price ranges for local SEO services based on our experience working with clients in Toronto.
5 Main Factors to Determine Local SEO Costs
1. Age of the Business
How old your local business is a ranking factor. New businesses take some time to build trust in Google’s eyes. If you’re new and not ranking on Google, your monthly budget for these services might be higher.
Are you ready to spend more because your business is new?
2. Size of the Business
Whether your business has one or multiple locations also determines how much of your budget you need to spend on these services. Businesses with multiple locations have a higher local SEO budget because this requires more effort to succeed.
Are you prepared for the extra effort for multiple locations?
3. Your Competition
If your competitors are strong and have high-quality website content, competing with them can take a long time, and you may need more marketing resources. Conversely, you can spend less on these services if your competitors are weak.
Have you analyzed the work of your competitors?
4. Your Current Online Presence
5. Your Goals
Your goal should be clear regarding what you want from these services. Every small business owner in Toronto can have different goals, such as:
- Some want results with less money, while others only want premium services.
- Some need short-term results, while others are focused on the long term.
- Some want to increase website traffic, while others want more calls from their Google business profile.
Once your goal is clear, you can decide how much money to spend on local SEO services.
Do you prefer setting short-term goals or long-term?
Budget Ranges Based on Different Scenarios
1. Budget Ranges Based on the Age of a Business
New Business
If your business is new and you have never taken local SEO services, you can spend between C$500 and C$1500 monthly.
Once your business starts running well, meaning when customers start coming in, you can adjust this budget according to the situation.
Old Business
I estimated this monthly budget based on our work with various small businesses in Toronto. We found significant mistakes in everything from their websites to their Google Business profiles. Correcting these errors and working on new strategies requires separate and considerable effort.
2. Budget Ranges Based on the Size of the Business
One Location
Multiple Locations
You should spend C$500 to C$1500 in each location if you own multiple Google Business profiles.
Businesses with multiple locations are often given discounted rates so that a good local SEO agency might charge between C$500 and C$1200 per location per month.
3. Budget Ranges Based on the Competition
Low Competition
If you work in an industry with little competition, you can set a monthly local SEO budget between C$500 and C$950.
Determining low competition requires thorough research, typically done by an SEO expert.
High Competition
4. Budget Ranges Based on Current Online Presence
Good Online Presence
A monthly budget of C$1000 to C$1500 is ideal for small businesses with a good online presence.
A good online presence means all the SEO-related work you have done so far is correct, and there is no need for changes, such as being listed on reputable citation sites, having informative and quality content on the website, etc.
Bad Online Presence
Bad online presence includes acquiring toxic backlinks, creating citations on incorrect websites, and writing AI-generated and unuseful content to achieve local rankings on Google.
You should spend between C$1500 to C$3000 monthly in such a situation.
5. Budget Ranges Based on Goals
Building Authority
Building authority in your industry can help you achieve top rankings on Google for years. Today, smart business owners in Toronto who know about SEO have this as their primary goal.
If this is your goal, you should spend C$1500 to C$2500 on these services monthly.
TIP: To build authority, you must consistently write content that makes it seem like you’re an expert in your industry.
Website Traffic
You can set a monthly local SEO budget of C$700 to C$1800 to achieve this goal.
Local Leads
A different strategy is used to increase local leads. You regularly schedule posts on Google Business profiles, write content for the local audience on your website and much more. The main goal of this is to maximize online sales.
You can start with a C$500 monthly budget to achieve this goal and increase it as sales grow. Set a monthly budget between C$500 and C$2000.
Our monthly local SEO packages start from basic C$499 and premium C$999.
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Key Takeaways
- Knowing the monthly price ranges for local SEO services ensures no one can overcharge you.
- You can only figure out the exact budget by combining different factors such as current online presence, competition, your goals, the current condition of the website, etc.