SEO pricing for estate agents is notoriously opaque. Agencies quote wildly different figures, freelancers undercut each other on price, and some website providers claim to include SEO while doing very little. The result is confusion — estate agents either overpay for mediocre results or underspend and see nothing at all.
This guide cuts through the noise. We break down the main pricing models, explain what each price tier actually delivers, highlight the red flags that suggest you are not getting value, and explain why LOS Digital takes a fundamentally different approach to SEO pricing for estate agents.
SEO Pricing Models for Estate Agents
There are four main ways estate agents pay for SEO services. Each has its own pricing range, advantages, and limitations.
| Model | Typical Monthly Cost | Best For | Key Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEO Agency Retainer | £500 - £5,000/month | Agencies wanting comprehensive, ongoing SEO | Overpaying for generic work |
| Freelance SEO | £200 - £1,500/month | Agents who want hands-on, affordable expertise | Inconsistent quality and availability |
| In-House SEO | £2,000 - £4,000/month (salary equivalent) | Large multi-branch agencies | Expensive and hard to recruit |
| Bundled with Website | £0 - £200/month (as part of website fee) | Agents who want SEO included as standard | Varies enormously in quality |
business SEO Agency Retainer (£500 - £5,000/month)
This is the traditional model: you hire a digital marketing agency on a monthly retainer to manage your SEO. At the lower end (£500-£1,000/month), you typically get basic technical audits, some on-page optimisation, and monthly reporting. At the higher end (£2,000-£5,000+/month), you get dedicated account management, content creation, link building campaigns, and comprehensive analytics.
The challenge for estate agents is that many general SEO agencies do not understand the property sector. They apply generic strategies without understanding how property feeds work, how CRM integration affects site architecture, or which local search terms actually drive vendor instructions. You can end up paying a premium for work that does not move the needle for your specific business.
person Freelance SEO Specialist (£200 - £1,500/month)
Hiring a freelance SEO consultant is often more cost-effective than an agency. A good freelancer brings focused expertise without the overhead costs of an agency. At £200-£500/month, you typically get a few hours of work — enough for basic technical monitoring and periodic optimisation. At £800-£1,500/month, you can expect more substantial work including content strategy, link building, and regular reporting.
The risk with freelancers is consistency and availability. A solo operator may take on too many clients, become ill, or simply move on. You also lack the breadth of skills available at an agency — a freelancer who excels at technical SEO may not be equally strong at content creation or link building.
groups In-House SEO (£2,000 - £4,000/month equivalent)
For large, multi-branch estate agencies, hiring an in-house SEO specialist or digital marketing manager can make sense. At a salary of £28,000-£45,000 per year (plus employer costs), you get a dedicated resource who understands your business intimately. However, this only makes financial sense if you have enough work to fill a full-time role and can attract someone with genuine expertise. For most independent and small-to-mid-sized agencies, in-house SEO is prohibitively expensive.
web Bundled with Website (£0 - £200/month additional)
Some website providers include SEO as part of their package. The quality varies enormously. At one end, "included SEO" means nothing more than the ability to edit meta titles and descriptions. At the other, it means a website built with SEO at its core — proper site architecture, schema markup, optimised page speed, and indexable property pages. The key is understanding exactly what is included and whether the provider has genuine SEO expertise or is simply using the word as a marketing term.
What You Should Expect at Each Price Point
One of the biggest sources of confusion in SEO pricing is not knowing what you should receive for your investment. Here is a realistic breakdown of deliverables at common price points.
looks_one £200-£500/month
Monthly technical health check. Basic on-page optimisation (meta titles, descriptions). Google Search Console monitoring. Monthly performance report. Limited to a few hours of work — enough for maintenance, not for growth.
looks_two £500-£1,000/month
Everything above, plus keyword research and strategy. One to two pieces of optimised content per month. Google Business Profile management. Basic local citation building. Competitor monitoring. This is the minimum for meaningful organic growth.
looks_3 £1,000-£2,000/month
Comprehensive SEO strategy with regular content creation (four or more pieces per month). Active link building campaign. Area page creation and optimisation. Detailed analytics and conversion tracking. Quarterly strategy reviews. This is the sweet spot for most serious estate agents.
looks_4 £2,000+/month
Full-service digital marketing including SEO, content marketing, digital PR, and possibly PPC management. Dedicated account manager. Custom dashboards and reporting. Suitable for large agencies or groups with significant digital budgets and multi-location strategies.
Red Flags in SEO Proposals
The SEO industry has a reputation problem, and for good reason. Many providers overpromise, underdeliver, or use tactics that can actively harm your website. Here are the warning signs to watch for when evaluating SEO proposals.
warning SEO Red Flags to Avoid
- Guaranteed rankings: No legitimate SEO provider can guarantee specific ranking positions. Google's algorithm considers hundreds of factors, and no one outside of Google controls the results. Anyone promising "page one guaranteed" is either lying or planning to use tactics that risk penalties.
- Vague deliverables: If a proposal says "SEO optimisation" without specifying exactly what work will be performed each month, it is a red flag. You should know precisely how many hours of work you are paying for, what activities are included, and what deliverables you will receive.
- Long lock-in contracts: Reputable SEO providers do not need 12-month minimum contracts. A one-month notice period is reasonable — if the work is delivering results, you will not want to leave. Lengthy contracts often protect poor-performing providers rather than the client.
- No reporting or transparency: If your SEO provider cannot show you exactly what they have done each month, where your rankings stand, and how organic traffic and leads are trending, you have no way to evaluate whether the investment is working.
- Suspiciously low prices: An SEO service charging £99/month and promising comprehensive results is either automating low-quality work or simply not doing enough to make a difference. Effective SEO requires genuine expertise and significant time investment — if the price seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is.
What Good Estate Agent SEO Actually Involves
Understanding what effective SEO for estate agents looks like helps you evaluate whether a provider is delivering genuine value. Good estate agent SEO is not a checklist of generic tasks — it is a structured, ongoing programme tailored to your specific market and goals.
build Technical Foundations
Your website must be technically sound before anything else. This means fast page loads (under two seconds), mobile-first design, proper schema markup, clean URL structures, an XML sitemap, correct robots.txt configuration, and no crawl errors. These foundations should be built into your website from day one — not addressed retrospectively by a separate SEO provider at additional cost.
location_on Local Optimisation
Local SEO for estate agents involves Google Business Profile optimisation, consistent NAP citations across UK directories, area page creation with genuine local content, Google review management, and local link building. This work directly influences your visibility in the map pack and local organic results — the searches that generate vendor leads. For a comprehensive guide to this topic, see our local SEO for estate agents guide.
article Content That Ranks
Creating content that ranks requires keyword research, a clear understanding of search intent, and the ability to produce genuinely useful material. For estate agents, this means area guides, market reports, buyer and seller guides, and answers to common property questions — all written with specific keyword targets and published on a consistent schedule.
link Authority Building
Building your site's authority through quality backlinks from relevant sources — local businesses, community organisations, industry bodies, and local press — is essential for competing in the organic results. This is time-intensive work that requires genuine outreach and relationship building, which is why it forms a significant part of any credible SEO budget.
Why LOS Digital Bundles SEO Into £88/Month
The traditional approach to estate agent SEO is broken. You pay one provider for your website, then pay another provider a separate retainer to fix the SEO problems created by the first provider. This is inefficient, expensive, and unnecessary.
At LOS Digital, we take a fundamentally different approach. We build SEO into the architecture of every website from the first line of code. This means you do not need a separate SEO retainer to cover the basics that should have been handled by your website provider in the first place.
This does not mean you will never need additional SEO support. If you want ongoing content creation, active link building campaigns, or dedicated digital PR, those services require additional investment. But the technical foundation — which is where most estate agents waste money fixing problems that should not exist — is handled from day one.
For a broader look at website pricing, see our estate agent website cost guide.
ROI: SEO vs Paid Advertising for Estate Agents
One of the most common questions estate agents ask is whether they should invest in SEO or paid advertising. The answer is not either/or — but understanding the economics of each helps you allocate your budget more effectively.
search SEO Economics
SEO has a higher upfront investment period but delivers compounding returns. Once your site ranks well for target terms, organic traffic flows continuously without per-click costs. A typical estate agent spending £500-£1,000/month on SEO might generate 20-50 organic leads per month after 6-12 months, at a declining cost per lead as rankings strengthen. After 18-24 months, organic search typically delivers the lowest cost per lead of any channel.
ads_click Paid Ads Economics
Google Ads delivers immediate visibility but at a per-click cost. For estate agent terms in competitive UK areas, cost per click ranges from £2-£8, with cost per lead typically £30-£80. The traffic stops completely when you stop paying. There is no compounding effect — your month-12 cost per lead is the same as month one. Paid ads work well for short-term campaigns but become expensive as a long-term primary channel.
The most effective approach for estate agents is to build strong SEO foundations for sustainable, long-term lead generation while using targeted paid advertising for specific campaigns — new office launches, seasonal promotions, or specific area pushes. This way, organic search provides your baseline lead flow while paid ads supplement it when needed.
Consider this simple calculation: if your website generates five additional vendor leads per month from organic search, and you convert one in five to an instruction worth £3,000 in fees, that is £3,000 per month in additional revenue. Against a combined website and SEO cost of under £500 per month, the return is substantial — and it grows as your rankings improve.