Independent digital studio · since 2016
SEO is one of the most profitable digital investments and, at the same time, one of the hardest to evaluate. Here's how much it costs, what drives the price, how long it takes to see results and how to tell serious work from an empty promise.
MBMarco BagiacchiFounder of Nalu and web developer
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization: the set of activities that help a website show up in Google's results for the searches that matter to your business. Unlike advertising, you don't pay Google for each click: you invest in the work of professionals who make the site more useful, clearer and more authoritative in the eyes of the search engine and of people.
It's precisely this "invisible" nature that makes the price hard to judge. When you buy a website you see the result; when you buy SEO you buy time, expertise, analysis, content and technical fixes whose effects show in the following months. That's why it's essential to understand what an offer includes before you even look at the figure.
| Area | What it includes | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Technical SEO | Speed, crawling, indexing, structure, structured data, mobile version, errors. | Without solid technical foundations, even the best content stays invisible. |
| Content and on-page | Keyword research, service pages, articles, titles, internal links. | These are the pages that answer what people search for. |
| Authority | Mentions and links from other sites, reviews, presence on industry portals. | Google trusts sites that are cited by reliable sources more. |
Good SEO work covers all three areas, weighted differently depending on the site's situation. A new site mostly needs technical foundations and content; an existing site with good content but little authority needs to work on its reputation.
To give you a concrete reference, here are the formats we work with, with the starting prices also published on the service page.
| Format | What it includes | From |
|---|---|---|
| SEO audit | A complete snapshot of the site, with the issues to fix ranked by impact. | 350 € |
| Ongoing SEO | Optimization, content and monitoring month after month, with shared goals. | €400 a month |
| SEO in the websites we build | Structure, speed, titles, structured data and, if needed, migration with redirects. | Included |
We publish starting prices because we believe transparency is the first sign of seriousness in a field where offers are often hard to compare. A starting price isn't a promise about the total, but an honest reference to see what order of magnitude you're dealing with before you even talk.
The final price depends on the starting point and the goals. After an initial analysis we propose a plan with the planned activities, timing and costs, with no minimum term that makes no sense for your project.
The serviceSEO and Google rankings: how we work↗The audit is a snapshot of the site from Google's point of view. It shows what works, what is holding growth back and where it makes sense to start. It's the first step of any serious strategy, and on its own it often brings major improvements, because it uncovers problems nobody had noticed.
The value of an audit isn't in the length of the document, but in the clarity of its priorities. A list of two hundred problems with no guidance on what to do first isn't much use; ten actions ranked by impact are worth far more.
Always ask for the audit to include an action plan with priorities and estimated impact. It's the difference between a report you file away and a working tool.
SEO isn't a one-off job: Google keeps updating its algorithms, competitors work on their sites, people's searches change. To grow and stay at the top you need steady work.
Every month you look at the data: what improved, what got worse, where the nearest opportunities are.
Fixing errors, improving speed, optimizing the structure.
New pages and articles based on real searches, updates to existing content.
Titles, descriptions, headings and internal links on strategic pages.
Work to earn quality mentions and links, reviews, presence on industry portals.
A clear summary: what was done, what the results were, what comes next.
The mix of activities changes over time. At first, technical and structural work dominates; then content and authority carry more weight. A good consultant adapts the plan to the results, instead of repeating the same tasks every month.
Two SEO offers can have very different prices for legitimate reasons. Here are the main factors.
| Factor | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Site size | A 10-page website and an e-commerce store with thousands of products take very different amounts of work. |
| Industry competition | Ranking for highly contested searches takes more content, more authority, more time. |
| Geographic scope | A local strategy is different from a national or international one. |
| Starting point | A site with serious technical problems needs more demanding initial work. |
| Content to produce | Articles, service pages, product pages: writing is a big part of the cost. |
| Languages | Each language is, in practice, an SEO strategy of its own. |
That's why we're wary of one-size-fits-all packages. The right price comes from analyzing the site, the market and the goals.
It's the most common question, and the honest answer is: it depends. But we can give realistic indications.
| Situation | Typical timeline |
|---|---|
| Technical fixes on an existing site | Effects often visible within a few weeks. |
| Local and niche searches | Improvements usually within a few months. |
| New pages and content | From a few weeks to a few months to settle. |
| Competitive national searches | Often 6–12 months of steady work. |
| A brand-new website | Longer: Google first has to discover it and trust it. |
SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. The upside is that results, once achieved, tend to last and grow over time, unlike advertising, which stops when you stop paying.
Advertising rents attention. SEO builds it, month after month.
Many businesses wonder whether to invest in SEO or in Google and social media campaigns. The best answer is almost always: both, with different weights over time.
| Look | SEO | Advertising |
|---|---|---|
| Timeline | Gradual results over the medium term | Immediate traffic |
| Cost per visit | Decreases over time | Constant, you pay for every click |
| Duration | Results stay | They stop when the budget stops |
| Trust | Organic results inspire trust | Ads are recognizable as ads |
| Control | Indirect: Google decides | Direct: you choose keywords, budget, audience |
A balanced strategy uses advertising to get results right away and test which searches bring customers, and SEO to build stable visibility that, over time, reduces your dependence on ads.
Read alsoHow much to invest in Google Ads: how to set the budget↗A significant part of the cost of SEO is content: complete service pages, articles that answer customers' questions, well-crafted product pages. It's also the part that creates the most value over time, because every piece of quality content can bring visits for years.
Writing for SEO doesn't mean stuffing a page with keywords. It means understanding what a person is really looking for when they type a search, and giving them the best possible answer: complete, clear, reliable, written by someone who knows the subject. That's exactly what Google tries to reward.
If you have expertise to share, the cheapest and most effective way to do SEO is to turn your customers' questions into content. A consultant can guide you on structure and keywords, and you bring the experience.
The SEO world is full of promises. Here are the signs that should put you on guard.
Serious SEO is transparent: it explains what will be done, why, what you can realistically expect and how you will measure the results together.
SEO can be measured, as long as you look at the right numbers. Ranking for a single keyword is a useful indicator, but it isn't the goal: the goal is qualified visits that turn into customers.
| Indicator | Where to find it | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Clicks and impressions from Google | Search Console | How visible the site is and how much it attracts. |
| Organic visits | Google Analytics 4 | How many people arrive from search engines. |
| Landing pages | Google Analytics 4 | Which content brings visits. |
| Conversions from organic traffic | Google Analytics 4 | How many visits become inquiries or sales. |
| Rankings for strategic searches | Search Console or dedicated tools | The trend for the most important keywords. |
To calculate the return, compare the value of the customers who came from organic search with the cost of the SEO work. Remember that the benefits grow over time: a piece of content published today can bring customers for years.
For businesses that work mainly in one area, such as professional firms, restaurants, shops and tradespeople, SEO has slightly different rules and costs. A big part of the work isn't on the website but on the Google Business Profile: correct categories, well-described services, up-to-date photos, genuine reviews and timely replies.
On the website, local SEO focuses on clear service pages, consistent contact information, structured data describing the business and, when it makes sense, pages for the areas you actually serve, with unique, genuine content. The work is often less demanding than a national strategy, so the budget needed can be smaller too.
An online store has features that make SEO more complex, and therefore more demanding: hundreds or thousands of product pages, categories and filters that generate many URL combinations, products that come and go from the catalog, descriptions often copied from suppliers and therefore identical to those on other sites.
SEO work on an e-commerce store includes a category structure built on real searches, filter management to avoid duplicate pages, product pages with original descriptions, structured data for prices and availability, and a strategy for out-of-stock or discontinued products. It's work that pays off well, because every well-optimized product page is a way in for people who are ready to buy.
If your catalog uses the manufacturer's descriptions, rewriting the ones for your best-selling or highest-margin products first is one of the SEO actions with the fastest return.
Links from other sites have always been one of the signals Google uses to judge a site's authority. That's exactly why they are also the area where the riskiest practices are concentrated.
Google's guidelines treat as spam links bought to manipulate rankings, systematic link exchanges and networks of sites created only to link. A site that uses them risks losing visibility, sometimes drastically. The links that really count are earned: with useful content others want to cite, with relationships in your industry, with a presence on industry portals and trade associations, with collaborations and projects that get people talking about you.
It's one of the reasons building authority takes time and has a cost: you can't buy it, you have to build it.
When we build a website, basic technical SEO is included in the project. That means the site is born with the right foundations to be found: a page structure built around searches, carefully written titles and descriptions, speed, a mobile version, structured data, a sitemap and, when it replaces an old site, redirect management.
It doesn't mean the site will rank on its own for any search: to grow in competitive industries you need ongoing work on content and authority. But starting with solid foundations saves you from having to fix structural problems later, and makes every later investment more effective.
Learn moreHow to show up on Google: a step-by-step guide↗With AI-generated answers now appearing in Google's results and assistants like ChatGPT, many businesses wonder whether SEO still makes sense. The answer is yes, with a little extra care.
These systems build their answers from content they consider reliable, clear and well structured. The same qualities you need to rank well on Google: direct answers to questions, verifiable information, recognizable authors, structured data, a solid reputation. A site built on good SEO principles is therefore more likely to be cited in AI answers too.
What changes is how you measure results: some searches get an answer right on the results page, and the click doesn't always come. That's why it pays to focus on content that offers more than the quick answer: complete guides, comparisons, first-hand experience, useful tools.
Partly, yes. Many basic tasks are within reach of anyone with the time and will to learn: writing useful content, polishing titles and descriptions, managing the Google Business Profile, asking customers for reviews.
Others require specific skills: technical analysis, keyword research, content architecture, migration management, data interpretation. Mistakes in these areas can be very costly, for example losing in a day traffic built up over years.
A middle-ground solution, often very efficient, is an audit with a clear action plan, carried out partly on your own and partly with the help of a professional.
To get a precise, useful proposal, prepare this information.
With this information, a serious professional can propose a realistic plan. And you can judge it not on the lowest price, but on the clarity of the activities and the credibility of the expectations.
The questions we're asked most often on this topic. If yours isn't here, write to us.
With us, ongoing SEO starts at €400 a month (excl. VAT). The cost depends on site size, competition, geographic area and the content to produce.
With us, an SEO audit starts at €350 (excl. VAT) and includes an action plan with priorities ranked by impact.
Technical fixes can have an effect within a few weeks; competitive searches often take 6–12 months of steady work.
No. Google decides the rankings, and they change over time. Anyone who guarantees the top spot is promising something they can't control.
They complement each other: campaigns bring visits right away, SEO builds stable visibility over time. A balanced strategy uses both.
Yes. AI-generated answers draw on clear, reliable, well-structured content: the same qualities good SEO works on.
Yes, basic technical SEO is included in every website we build. Ongoing work on content and authority is a separate service.
You have a website, but nobody finds you on Google? You're not alone. This guide explains how search works, how to get Google to know your site and which concrete steps bring you, month after month, in front of the people looking for exactly what you offer.
From a few hundred to tens of thousands of euros: the figures you find online are so different they tell you nothing. This guide explains what the price depends on, what different types of website cost and how to read a quote without surprises.
Opening an online store isn't just about paying for the website. There are platforms, fees, photos, shipping, marketing and the time you'll need to put in. Here is a complete, honest picture, so you can plan your budget without surprises.
Tell us about your project: the assistant prepares the brief in two minutes, then a person from the team replies. No automatic quotes.
We use technical tools to run the site and, only if you accept, aggregate statistics to understand how to improve it. Read the policy.
Your choice code: