Top SEO Investment Trends for 2024: Where Companies Are Focusing Their Budgets
Google’s business model pushes marketers toward Google Ads over organic traffic to avoid obscurity in search results. However, this has had little effect on internet businesses, as spending on SEO continues to increase. According to a survey done by GoodFirms by taking a sample of 150 companies, there is conclusive evidence that companies plan to increase their spending by 10% to 20% .
According to the statistics, 36.3% of businesses would allocate less than 10,000 dollars, 38.2% would choose between 10,000 and 50,000 dollars, 12% are planning to spend between 50,000 and 100,000 dollars and 6% are hoping to spend between 100,000 and 250,000 dollars. This trend clearly shows an uptick in spending in SEO.
Investment by the companies is also precisely directed towards specific areas, which they want to boost up to leverage better experience and usage.
The following the areas mostly targeted by the companies:
• Around 86.5% of the companies want to invest in SEO to boost up their lead generation and organic traffic. This lead via SEO could easily be achieved by using keywords, optimizing data, publishing user-friendly data and promotion on social media.
• 70.5% of the companies want quality content that shows the expertise level of its writer. They desperately want to hire experienced people to write content on their sites to divert traffic. Companies will happily spend to make sure that data on their site depicts experience, expertise and trustworthiness. Seriousness regarding the quality content has increased since the onslaught of AI in the content writing world.
• 60.3% of the businesses want to invest more in SEO to improve their brand awareness. Brand building could also be done through social media, but SEO is by far a cheaper way.
• The most controversial area is artificial intelligence. About 56.4% covet integrating AI into SEO, which will help them do data analysis fast and find keywords in no time, by using AI tools. Because SEO is becoming costlier with time, AI could also be cost-effective.
• Around 54.8% of the businesses would be keenly working on competitor analysis to compare their products and services with others’ and making sure they are not overcharging or undercharging.
• The companies are backing content written at length about a topic. 47.4% of them are giving more value to lengthy content than concise. Content written at length gives a better insight into the topic, and search engines prioritize lengthy content. So more words help in making your site visible on the internet.
• Online searches for local businesses account for nearly half of total searches, approximately 46% or 97 billion monthly searches. In 2024, the companies have opted for local SEO and are ready to invest 50 to 200 dollars hourly. Especially, if your business has an offline presence, it is worth optimizing your site for local search. The addition of location-page to your site and creation of local content would be beneficial.
• 40.3% of the companies will take guidance from Search Generative Experience. As per one research, SGE content will be favored by the search engines and would appear in 86% of searches.
• Not surprisingly, 35.9% of the companies are going after video-based SEO. Videos are more attractive and keep the customers on sites longer. So your site has a better chance of ranking higher if it has high-quality-video content.
• The companies have decided to keep mobiles in mind while designing their sites, especially if it is related to a local business. Local searches on mobile account for 78% of the total. So it is imperative that your site is mobile-friendly. Around 35.9% of the companies are prioritizing mobile optimization.
• Due to rise in AI voice assistants like Google Assistant and Siri, 24.4% of the companies think that it is imperative to optimize their sites for voice search. You want your content to be accessible even when voice search is used for searching data.
The above-mentioned stats indicate in which areas the companies are more likely to invest for better optimization of their sites.
How much would SEO cost monthly and hourly?
43%, 25.75% and 27.6% of the companies spend 1,000 to 2,000 dollars, under 500 dollars and over 2,000 dollars on SEO respectively. Similarly, 75%, 11.1% and 4.2% of the companies 50 to 75 dollars, 75 to 100 dollars and over 200 dollars respectively. The difference is due to the size and scope of companies.
Onpage and Offpage pricing
Onpage SEO must be done on a monthly basis to avoid any repercussions in the form of lower traffic. Around 52%, 21% and 5.2%, and 9.% of the companies spend 500 to 1,000 dollars, 1,000 to 1,500 dollars, 1,500 to 2,000 dollars and 2,000 dollars respectively on onpage SEO.
Most of the companies (42% to 60%) spend 500 to 1,000 dollars on offpage SEO to maintain link-building, social media marketing and guest posting. In 2023, 46.3 of the companies spent 500 to 1,000 dollars on link building, 60% of them spent 500 to 1,000 dollars on social media management, 42% spent 500 to 1,000 dollars ( per campaign) on influencer marketing and 50% spent 500 to 1,000 dollars (per post) on guest posting.
Other Miscellaneous expenses
Each site requires technical maintenance as well. Around 55.3% of the companies spend 500 to 1500 dollars monthly for technical maintenance of their sites.
Also, 65% of the companies spend 50 to 500 dollars monthly on SEO software and tools, which perform numerous SEO tasks.
Which pricing model should you choose?
60% of the companies prefer the Retainer Model to hourly and other fixed packages. Retainer Model is preferable, for it enables long-term gains, and being held accountable is an option here. This model is the best for huge businesses only. Small businesses should choose a project-based or hourly pricing model.
With the rise of AI, things have started changing in the world of the internet. To remain relevant in the field and keep profiting, you must invest in the key areas mentioned above.
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