SEO digital marketing packages bundle search engine optimization with other channels, such as paid search, email or reporting, for one monthly fee. Judge one by its SEO line: if that line has no deliverables you can check, the other channels are carrying the price.
This guide shows what each channel adds to SEO, how Google separates SEO from ads, what the SEO line should include, an example fee split with the arithmetic, and four traps to check before you sign.
What are SEO digital marketing packages?
One monthly fee that covers SEO plus at least one other channel, run by one company. Digital marketing SEO packages differ mainly in which channels sit next to SEO and how many hours each one gets.
Google’s SEO starter guide describes SEO as helping search engines understand your content and helping people decide to visit your site. It also says some changes take effect in a few hours while others could take several months, and that you should wait a few weeks to judge a change. That timing matters for a bundle: the SEO line will look slow next to an ad channel that starts at launch. Search Console’s Performance report opens on the past 3 months by default, which is shorter than the several months some changes can take, so ask for a longer view.
Digital marketing SEO packages are useful when the channels share data and one person owns the plan. They are a poor deal when they are a list of services with no shared report. Our guide to digital marketing packages covers bundle tiers and the all-in monthly cost, so this piece stays on the SEO line.
Is SEO or digital marketing better?
Neither wins, because SEO is one part of digital marketing. The useful question for SEO digital marketing packages is which channel to buy first and which to add second.
The table lists the four channels most often bundled with SEO and what each gives the SEO line. Tracking comes first in many cases: without orders tied to landing pages you cannot tell which SEO work paid back. Content adds pages that can rank, email brings buyers back, and paid search adds keyword data and short-term sales.
Seasonality can fool you in any bundle. Google’s traffic drop guide suggests setting the Search Console Performance report to the last 16 months, so you can see whether a dip repeats every year. Ask for that view in the report.
What is the difference between SEO and PPC?
You pay for PPC clicks but not for organic rankings, and Google says one does not affect the other. PPC is paid search advertising; SEO is work on your own pages.
Google’s page Do you need an SEO? states that advertising with Google has no effect on your site’s presence in its search results, that Google never accepts money to include or rank sites, and that it costs nothing to appear in organic results. So SEO digital marketing packages cannot honestly sell ad spend as a way to lift rankings.
What a paid channel can do is feed SEO. The search terms report lists the searches that triggered your ads and helps you find ideas for creative and landing page content. Its search terms insights group those searches into themes using the last 56 days of data. If you run both channels, ask the agency to share that report so the SEO keyword list starts from real searches. A search term that brings paid orders is a strong candidate for its own page, and one that brings clicks but no orders is worth checking before you write for it.
In SEO digital marketing packages the two channels are billed together but should still be measured apart:
- SEO: clicks and impressions from Search Console, plus orders from organic search in your analytics.
- PPC: spend, clicks and orders from the ad account.
- Together: one sheet that shows both next to each other, without adding them into one number.
What does the SEO part of a package include?
A list of work with owners and dates, not the word “optimization”. Google’s own list of what SEO services can cover is a good template.
On the same Google page, services can include content development, keyword research, technical advice and expertise in specific markets. Turn that into a monthly list for the SEO line of your quote:
- Audit and fixes: a ranked problem list and a dated fix log in the first month.
- Keyword and page map: each target search assigned to one page.
- Page work: a stated number of pages rewritten or created each month.
- Reporting: Search Console and order data, in the same format each month.
For reference, we publish our own timing for ecommerce SEO: the audit within 2 workdays, the plan and first fixes in about a week, page work from week 2, and the first monthly report after 30 days. Whoever you hire, ask for timing that specific, and ask what the first 30 days will have produced when the first invoice arrives. SEO digital marketing packages with a vague first month tend to stay vague. The monthly SEO package guide goes through a full 12 months and the contract terms.
One more line from Google is worth quoting in the contract talk: no one can promise a #1 ranking. A bundle that does is selling the one thing nobody controls. Treat that as a red flag in any SEO digital marketing packages quote.
What is the best use of marketing budget for SEO?
Pay first for what lets you measure and fix, then for pages, and keep ad spend as its own budget. The best use of marketing budget for SEO early on is tracking and technical fixes, because new pages built on a broken base do not pay back.
Worked example: a store pays a $3,000 monthly bundle fee, with ad spend paid separately to the ad platform. It is an invented example, not a market rate. The split is 45% SEO ($1,350), 25% paid search management ($750), 15% email ($450) and 15% tracking and reporting ($450). The four lines add up to $3,000.
Why that split for digital marketing SEO packages? In the first quarter the SEO line carries the audit and fixes, and tracking makes sure orders are tied to pages. Once the base is fixed, shift hours from tracking to page work. If paid search already earns money, keep its share; if it does not, cut it before you cut SEO, because SEO work stays on your site after the month ends.
Your numbers will differ. The best use of marketing budget for SEO is whatever you can see written down per line. The point is that the split is written down per channel, so you can see what moves when you change the plan.
What does marketing SEO cost inside a bundle?
It depends on how many pages, fixes and channels the fee covers, so test the quote instead of looking for an average. Marketing SEO cost is easiest to judge as a fee per deliverable, and the marketing SEO cost of a bundle should always be split by channel.
We do not publish market ranges here, because they move too fast to stay true. Use the example above: if the $1,350 SEO line buys 6 pages a month, that is $225 a page. If another bundle’s SEO line buys 2 pages for the same $1,350, it is $675 a page. The cheaper bundle can cost more per page.
The pricing models guide explains retainers and the other ways a fee can be billed. Our own starting price cards are on the ecommerce SEO page.
The checklist above holds the four traps that make two similar SEO digital marketing packages quotes differ:
- SEO is a word, not a list. Ask for the pages, fixes or hours per month.
- Ad spend sits inside the fee. You then cannot tell what the agency charges for management.
- Accounts are in the agency’s name. Keep Search Console, analytics and the ad account under your own login and add the agency as a user.
- One blended report. It hides which channel earned the order.
If a quote fails 2 of the 4, ask for a rewrite before you compare the marketing SEO cost.
When should you buy SEO on its own first?
When nothing else in the bundle is earning yet, or when you cannot yet measure orders by channel. In that case the bundle spreads a small fee thinly.
A quick test:
- Does an ad channel already bring orders at a cost you accept? If not, do not add it to the bundle yet.
- Can you see orders by landing page in your analytics? If not, start with tracking.
- Would the SEO line stay near 45% of the fee, as in the example, or fall below a third? If it falls, the bundle is mostly something else.
If you answer no to the first two, begin with SEO and tracking, and add a channel once the report shows what it would build on. For a view of where you stand today, our free audit reads your Search Console with read-only access. More guides are in buying guides.