Can You Do SEO on a Budget? 

Literally one of the most common conversations I have with the agency owners I work with – in either a consultancy or supplier capacity – goes something like this: “Pete, our clients love the idea of SEO, but they’re asking if there’s a more budget-friendly way to get started so they can see the benefit?”

My answer is almost ALWAYS the same, and it goes something like this: “Absolutely. You can definitely do meaningful SEO on a budget – but it requires understanding what “budget SEO” really means and where to focus your limited resources for maximum impact. It will also have a limit as to how far you can get them, and that starts with how they’re performing already.”

So, what does that ACTUALLY mean in practice?

The Reality of Budget SEO

I’ve mentioned this before: organic SEO is never truly “free.” It always costs you something – either time or money. The clicks might be free, but getting to the point where you earn those clicks requires investment. Budget SEO simply means being strategic about where that investment (of your time and their money) goes.

Think of it like this: if your client is a local plumber competing against other local plumbers who barely have websites, then solid SEO fundamentals might be enough to dominate their market. But if they’re trying to compete in the “emergency plumber London” space against national companies with dedicated SEO teams and million-pound budgets, they’re going to need a much more comprehensive strategy.

The key is understanding your client’s competitive landscape and matching your SEO investment to their actual situation. It also means that “budget SEO” is about doing some of the technical graft and getting it right – this is always driven by the data, and not by a client’s wish list of what they want their SEO to look like.

Some Hard Truths for Agencies

From our “agency owner” side of the fence, much of what constitutes “budget SEO” should really be considered standard practice in any professional website build, and maybe even care plan.

Once again, and I’ve said this before, we have a duty of care to ensure every website we produce is serviceable for the client. I’d even go as far as to argue that it’s almost irresponsible to launch a website without these fundamentals in place.

You wouldn’t sell a car without an engine, or a house with no foundations, so why would you build a website that can’t be found?!

Four Pillars of Budget-Friendly SEO

So with all that said, I can now get off my soapbox and we can see what “budget SEO” actually entails – I mean, where do you start, and what do you do? And most importantly, where does “budget SEO” end, as it’s becoming too complex?

1️⃣ Site Speed Optimization

Site speed isn’t the be-all and end-all of SEO success, but it’s often the tiebreaker. When everything else is equal between competitors, the faster site typically wins.

Where to start:

• Plugin management: Be conservative with plugin installations. Every plugin adds potential overhead to the page load.
• Caching implementation: WP Rocket or your host’s caching solution (like Cloudways’ Breeze plugin).
• Image optimization: Tools like EWWW.io can dramatically reduce load times.
• Quality hosting: Don’t put clients on shared hosting with hundreds of other sites, make sure you have a solid hosting plan put in place.

2️⃣ Deploy a Site Structure That Makes Sense

This is where many inherited websites fall apart – they have flat structures where every page is a direct child of the homepage. Instead, think in terms of pillar and cluster pages (see SEO Weeklies no 15 and 27 for more on this).

Example structure for “Bob the Plumber”:

• Pillar page: Boiler Services (domain.com/boilers)
  • Cluster pages:
    • Boiler Repairs (domain.com/boilers/boiler-repairs)
    • Boiler Installation (domain.com/boilers/boiler-installation)
    • Emergency Callouts (domain.com/boilers/emergency-callouts)

Each pillar page provides breadth (overview of all services), while cluster pages go deep on specific topics. This creates natural internal linking opportunities and helps search engines understand your content hierarchy far more succinctly. At this level, it’s about spoon-feeding Google, so go as granular as you need to.

Implementation note: Even on inherited sites, you can restructure existing content into this format. Set up redirects, reorganize the content, and suddenly you have a logical site architecture that search engines can follow.

3️⃣ Proper Page Structure

This is basic housekeeping and if a site is built properly, then the template should handle a lot of it, but it’s shocking how often this is done wrong! 😬

• Heading tag hierarchy: One H1 per page containing your main keyword, followed by logical H2s for main sections, H3s for subsections, etc. Don’t use heading tags for styling – that’s what CSS is for!

To monitor your work, install the Meta SEO Inspector Chrome extension or Headings Map for Firefox. You’ll instantly see if your page structure makes sense or if you have heading tags scattered randomly throughout your content.

• Schema markup: Your SEO plugin should handle basic schema automatically – SEOPress or SlimSEO Pro would be my go-to’s.
• XML sitemaps: Generated automatically and submitted to Google Search Console. Whilst doing this, you may also want to set up instant indexing.

4️⃣ The Right Tools in Place

You need an SEO plugin – not the basic free version of Yoast, but something with actual functionality:

• SEOPress Pro (my preference for reliability in search results), closely followed by…
• SlimSEO Pro or you could choose…
• RankMath Pro or
• All-in-One SEO Pro

These handle meta descriptions, schema markup, XML sitemaps and, they connect everything to Google Search Console properly.

If the above doesn’t suit your client, or they still don’t see this as “budget-friendly”, then I would point them to the Starter SEO Strategy for any company that I outlined in SEO Weekly 27 👍.

If you’re dealing at this level it’s better to equip them and move on. They will come back when they either see results, or realise how much time and effort is involved…

Managing Expectations

It’s important to note that this approach takes time to show results, but it builds a solid foundation. Some clients will do the work and see gradual improvements. Others will try for a few months, realize how much effort is involved, and come back ready to invest in a more full-service SEO program.

Both outcomes are wins. The first group gets results through their own effort, and the second group becomes educated buyers who understand the value of what you’re offering – but either way, you’ve helped the client and potentially dodged some bullets.

One Last Note About Professional Standards

Everything we’ve discussed should be considered baseline professional practice, not “extra” SEO work. When you build a website, you’re the web professional in the relationship. It’s your responsibility to ensure that site performs better than what it’s replacing.

The technical fundamentals – site speed, structure, proper page markup and basic tool setup – these aren’t SEO luxuries. They’re professional standards that ensure your clients’ websites are found by their potential customers.

Budget SEO isn’t about cutting corners; it’s about prioritizing the work that delivers the biggest impact for the available investment. Sometimes that’s professional expertise, sometimes it’s “client sweat equity”, but it’s always about building something better than what came before.

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Need help auditing your clients’ SEO fundamentals? SEOHive offers Technical Audits for $47 and Scout Reports for $97 – quick, affordable ways to identify exactly where to focus your efforts. Because sometimes the best budget strategy is knowing precisely what needs fixing first.