How to budget for SEO (when you're not a big brand)

SEO budgets fail when they treat everything as equal. Here is a simple split for a small team or founder.

Start with the biggest gap

• No traffic yet? Put most effort into content for reachable keywords (see keyword research).
• Traffic but no conversions? Spend on pages and UX, not more articles.
• Indexing problems? Fix technical SEO first with the audit.

A balanced split

For most new sites:

• Content & on-page — 60%
• Technical SEO — 20% (fast to fix, compounds)
• Links & authority — 15%
• Reporting & analytics — 5%

Cheap wins

• Internal linking (guide)
• Schema and metadata via the free tools
• Refreshing old content (guide)

Track spend to outcome

Use GA4 and the ROI method to see which investment pays. Adjust the split every quarter.