How Much Does SEO Cost In South Africa?

As an SEO professional (Search Engine Optimisation) and agency owner, I get asked this question all the time. So let’s answer your question straight away.

SEO services in South Africa range from R250 p.h (per hour) to R1500 p.h. Or, if done on a monthly retainer, the prices in South Africa range from R1500 to R25000 per month.

Now you might be wondering (or even hoping) that’s the end of it. Well, not exactly. You see, SEO has many different aspects to it.

For example, a basic SEO audit using a tool like Ahrefs shouldn’t take a good SEO consultant more than an hour or two to whip together for you. And these represent the lower end of the SEO pricing spectrum.

In contrast, the higher end of an hourly rate will require more technical expertise (such as handling Google penalties) and time for your agency to do for you.

Some other questions that affect your cost of SEO are:

• Do you need a local SEO package, a national SEO package, or a global SEO package?
• How competitive is your industry/niche?
• Do you require a content marketing strategy to be put in place and executed?

Compared to the rest of the world South Africa provides fantastic value for money. For reference, you can expect to fork out around $100 p.h for the equivalent level of service/expertise in the U.S.

But before I start banging on about how lekker the value for money is in S.A., let’s be 100% transparent on SEO costs. Let’s kick things off by taking the top Google search results for the search phrase; how much does SEO cost in South Africa?

I’ve outlined everything in one resource below. First, split into a comparison table for per hour, then into per month tables, and lastly, a per-project comparison table.

Hourly Cost Of SEO Services In South Africa

Now it’s worth mentioning that hourly SEO services work well in some areas and not so well in others.

If that seems a bit vague, here is the breakdown. SEO audits are a routine service, and any good SEO agency has an S.O.P. (Standard Operating Procedure) to perform these audits. And they can give you an accurate quote for an audit.

Where per hour pricing does not work in your favour is larger SEO projects. Such as link building campaigns and the hours of outreach it takes to build your authority in the eyes of the dark Google overlords.

At Black Plastic Glasses, the policy is to offer technical SEO audits (our basic audits are FREE) at an hourly rate if you only require this. Just click the button below to claim yours.

However, if your needs are more comprehensive, continue reading to learn more about monthly SEO packages.

Monthly Cost Of SEO Services in South Africa

Before we begin firing prices and data at you, it’s best to highlight the different monthly packages you’ll find in South Africa. I can hear your sighs at another ‘it depends’ excuse. But this is important to cover.

Local SEO packages:

Say, for example, your business sells biltong (the best f*ing biltong). And you have a bricks & mortar shop in Fourways, Johannesburg.

You (most likely) want to appear in the Google Map box when someone searches ‘biltong shop Fourways or ‘best biltong in Fourways. The way to do this is through a Local SEO package.

A quality Local SEO package contains business citations, services pages optimisation and Google My Business optimisation.

Below is a table of the same websites we compared earlier and their local SEO prices:

At Black Plastic Glasses, we charge R4500 p.m; for a local SEO package and what you get in return on that spend is:

1. Competitor tracking & analysis
2. Keyword research
3. Website architecture
4. E.A.T. (Expertise Authoritativeness and Trust) signals
5. Filler page build outs
6. Off-page optimisation
7. Social media presence
8. Branded web 2.0
9. Guest post link building

What the heck is SEO competitor analysis, link building or Google analytics, I hear you say? Don’t worry. You can find a detailed explanation of local SEO and all the terminology via this link.

Provincial/Regional SEO packages:

Now imagine your biltong shop has boomed, and the good residents of Fourways have been showering your business (and skills) with positive reviews on Google. This, in turn, has brought you even more business because we optimised your listing when doing your Local SEO package.

But now it’s time to sell your bef*k boerewors and biltong to the rest of Gauteng. In addition to keeping on top of local searches, you will need a content marketing strategy.

This means publishing written content in the form of blog posts that target keywords like best biltong Johannesburg or biltong delivery Johannesburg. Then these posts will also need promotion through link building and outreach.

And since other website owners now realise the value of a link, it’s almost a given that they’ll ask for money to place these links. Hence the price for provincial SEO packages is higher.

The prices for a provincial SEO package in South Africa are in the table below:

If your marketing budget can accommodate our monthly retainer of R9999, click the button below, and a friendly team member or I will be in touch within 24hrs.

To learn more about what SEO strategies go into a provincial SEO package, be sure to check out this comprehensive guide.

National SEO Packages:

Fast forward further down our hypothetical timeline, and now the good Joburgers on the highveld are positively raving about how good your biltong delivery is (remember we targeted this keyword in your previous package) as well as the quality of your chilli sticks.

The time has come to claim the top spot. You want to be on the first page of Google when someone in South Africa searches for anything related to biltong.

And according to backlinko.co, the top 3 search results receive 75% of the search traffic on Google. Welcome to the ultra-competitive landscape of organic search.

To even begin competing here, you need more of everything. More content, more backlinks, and more expertise. You need a dedicated SEO expert to handle your account. At the same time, you run the daily tasks of your national business expansion.

The prices for a national SEO package in South Africa are in the table below:

Our SEO services cost R11999 per month for a dedicated SEO expert to handle your account to continue this national journey together.

Want to find out what exactly a national monthly SEO package includes? Then check out this article that fleshes out the ins and outs for you.

Global SEO Packages:

Your biltong brand has now become a case study for online marketing in S.A.’s universities. With the papers now hailing, calling your product the next Mrs Balls Chutney.

To grow in organic search, the last hurdle in your way to world domination is appearing in search internationally. But you may think that the market for biltong is only limited to South Africa.

According to Ahrefs, 35% of global searches for the word biltong come from the United States.

The market is significant. But so is the competition with even bigger marketing budgets than before. As a result, you have gone from needing a dedicated SEO expert to requiring a team of SEO experts to strategise and implement a global SEO campaign.

Your website now needs to cover absolutely everything about biltong. So when someone searches, why is biltong so tasty? or is biltong more tender than jerky? Your articles appear ahead of your competition.

You’ve also (somewhat unfortunately) dropped any slang and South African jargon so that a global audience can relate to your brand. And the same will happen with this blog post moving forward.

Global SEO services are our speciality at Black Plastic Glasses, and our portfolio of websites target their respective international audiences. Our prices start at R25000 per month.

But what can you expect in return for this fee? Click the button below and we will get back to detailing everything you need to know.

The cost of competing global SEO services in South Africa are in the table below:

Per Project-based SEO services in South Africa

Per project-based SEO services aren’t typically offered by agencies operating in South Africa. However, there will always be some room for negotiation if you reach out.

Here at Black Plastic Glasses, our ears are always open, and we are willing to discuss per-project fees with you.

What makes it so difficult for agencies to advertise price is (you guessed it), it depends. There is no one size fits all, and the price is influenced by the factors we touched on earlier, is the project local, national or globally focused?

One-off SEO services are best suited to websites before they launch. For example, if you were planning to unveil your business, it would be wise to have an SEO expert optimise all your service pages and have all the website architecture done correctly.

This then helps you get off to the best possible start in Google and saves you looking for SEO services to rectify any mistakes further down the road.

The best thing going for per-project SEO is that the cost is fixed, and there can be no nasty surprises in the form of expensive link placements.

Final Thoughts

The answer to how much does SEO cost in South Africa depends on four (4) key factors:

1. Is your business local?
2. Do you operate provincially/regionally?
3. Are you looking for national coverage?
4. Or are you looking (Pinky & The Brain trying to take over the world) for a global presence?

Each of these package types is priced according to your business needs. The Black Plastic Glasses monthly SEO package prices are below:

• Local SEO Packages – From R4500 p.m
• Provincial/Regional SEO Packages – From R9999 p.m
• National SEO Packages – From R11999 p.m
• Global SEO Packages – From R25000 p.m

Depending on how competitive your industry is will ultimately affect how much you need to spend on SEO to see the results you want.

In SEO, you get what you pay for. If you are looking for cheap SEO, read this before you entrust an SEO agency with your digital marketing needs on the cheap.