The 2019 SEO Services Report by Brian Dean demonstrates what factors are truly important for a businesses when choosing SEO agencies or freelancers to work with, including the statistics of their involvement. 1,200 American business owners were interviewed for the survey regarding their knowledge on the world of SEO services in general as well as any experience they might’ve had being a client for SEO companies. The results include various findings such as how much an owner is willing to pay for SEO services, how a business owner chooses SEO agencies or freelancers, what sort of expectations business owners have when working with SEO companies, their satisfaction levels, and why they choose to leave their SEO providers.

How Much Are Clients Willing to Pay for SEO Services

Dean’s survey reported that small business owners spend roughly $500/month on average for their SEO services. More than half of the owners interviewed for the survey stated that they pay their SEO provider less than $1k/year. Fourteen percent of owners reported that they spend more than $5K/year while only 2 percent claimed that they pay their SEO agencies over $25K/year. According to the results, owners are more likely to pay agencies within the range of $10K-$25k/year, with 24 percent of owners reporting that they pay their SEO agencies within that range, compared to only 2 percent of owners who pay that range to freelancers. Agencies are also twice as likely to be paid within the $1k-$2k/month range than freelancers, who dominate the $500-$1K/month range.

How Clients Choose SEO Agencies or Freelancers

Forty-four percent of the owners interviewed stated that they found their current or last SEO provider using online means such as a web search engine or a review platform. Twenty-eight percent of owners stated that they found their SEO provider through word of mouth and referrals, while 11 percent answered that they responded to an SEO company’s advertisement. When it comes down to ultimately selecting an SEO provider, reputation and cost seem to be the strongest factors regarding an owner’s choice. Typically, an owner would want to work with an SEO company that displays a high understanding of their field while being recognized as such by the rest of the industry. In addition to knowing how well their SEO provider understands the industry, seventy-eight percent of the owners surveyed claimed that they prefer to know where their SEO provider is located, however only half of the SEO clients surveyed stated that they know this information about their provider.

Expectations when Working with SEO Companies

Based on the results of the survey, business owners are most concerned with getting an increase of traffic to their site along with access to a new client base. As such, owners expect their SEO providers to fulfil these demands while building a better sense of safety and capability in their brand’s presentation. Business owners appear to be least concerned with building their social media portfolio, increasing their Email subscribers, and recruiting new talent through the use of an SEO provider.

SEO Satisfaction Levels

As a whole, the SEO services industry has an NPS score of zero. What this means is that clients who have worked with SEO agencies are not likely to recommend them to their friends and colleagues. While there were just as many business owners in the survey who said they’d be willing to recommend their SEO provider compared to those who wouldn’t (30 percent), 70 percent of the panelists answered indifferently. Based on the results of the survey, business owners are more likely to be satisfied with SEO agencies (NPS score: 8) than they are with freelancers (NPS score: -6). Furthermore, the survey’s results demonstrated that business owners who spend over the $500/month average for their SEO services tend to be twice as likely to be satisfied with their SEO provider than those who spend less than the $500/month average.

Why Clients Choose to Leave Their SEO Provider

While most SEO clients leave their provider due to a lack of result compared to the price they pay for the service, many business owners who took part in the survey claimed that they simply just don’t have the knowledge necessary to understand why SEO is important to them. As result, clients grow confused as to how their SEO provider is helping them and why their help is worth the price for their business. Naturally this lack of educational resource for the client turns into tremendous dissatisfaction over time. Therefore, based on the results of the survey, it can be stated that SEO providers should also communicate more efficiently as to how their services are helping the business owner in a wording that they can best understand. By doing so, SEO agencies and freelancers can better ensure that their client knows they’re being cared for according to their needs.