Any SEO Is Better Than No SEO. Here’s Why the Industry’s False Choice Is Costing Australian SMBs Ground.

This is the second in a two-part series on SEO pricing for Australian small businesses. In last week’s piece, our agency walked through what SEO actually costs in Australia in 2026 – the tiers, the ranges, and the honest boundaries between legitimate work and dodgy work at each price point. This piece takes a position on the deeper question that the piece deliberately left open.

I’ve been doing this for over 25 years, and I want to say something that most agencies in Australia won’t say out loud:

Any SEO is better than no SEO.

I mean it literally. A small, well-run SEO engagement at $750 a month, done by a competent Australian team with a focused scope, will do more for a small business over three years than the industry’s preferred alternative – which is to tell that same business owner that they should either commit to $3,000+ a month or not bother.

That advice sounds sensible on the surface. In practice, it’s costing thousands of Australian small businesses competitive ground they’ll never recover.

Let me explain what I mean.

The false choice being handed to SMB owners

Here’s a version of the conversation I’ve watched play out hundreds of times.

A small business owner in Newcastle, or Spring Hill, or Surry Hills starts thinking about SEO. They talk to a couple of agencies. They read a few articles online. The message they receive, sometimes gently and sometimes bluntly, is this:

“Real SEO costs $1,500 to $4,500 a month minimum. Anything below that is a waste of money, or worse – dodgy operators who’ll get you penalised. If you can’t commit to that budget, don’t bother. Wait until you can.”

The business owner does the maths. $3,000 a month is $36,000 a year. They can’t justify that on the current revenue. So they walk away. They tell themselves they’ll revisit SEO next year, when the business has grown a bit.

They don’t. Two years later, they’re still relying on word of mouth, Facebook, and occasional Google Ads. Their competitor down the road, who accepted a $750-a-month SEO engagement two years ago, is ranking for every relevant local search and getting a steady flow of enquiries that don’t cost anything to sustain.

The competitor didn’t win by spending more. They won by starting.

That’s the false choice the industry has set up. Not “spend $3,000+ or spend $750.” The choice is really “spend $750 and start, or wait for a version of yourself that will spend $3,000 and never actually do it.”

Where the industry’s caution comes from – and where it goes wrong

I want to be fair here, because the caution isn’t invented from nothing.

There is a real problem with cheap SEO in Australia. A lot of what’s sold at $299, $399, or $499 a month is genuinely dodgy – automated software running against your site, offshore link networks that Google’s spam systems will eventually catch, template content that adds nothing. The people warning against that stuff are right to warn against it.

But somewhere along the way, the industry stopped distinguishing between bad SEO at a low price and good SEO at a small scope. And the warning shifted from “watch out for the automated stuff” to “anything under $1,500 is a red flag.”

That shift matters, because it changed the advice the industry gives from “be careful” to “don’t bother.” And “don’t bother” is worse advice than most SMB owners realise.

What actually happens when a small business does nothing

Here’s the part most people don’t think about. SEO isn’t just a marketing channel. It’s a compounding visibility asset. Every month you don’t invest is a month your competitors (the ones who did invest) build search authority you can’t replicate later by writing a bigger cheque.

I’ve watched this play out consistently. An SMB waits three years to start SEO because they’ve been told to wait until they can afford it properly. Meanwhile, their local competitor started a small $750-a-month engagement three years ago. That competitor now has three years of ranked content, three years of accumulated backlinks, three years of Google Business Profile activity, and three years of citation building.

When the first business finally starts SEO, properly, at $3,000 a month, with the “right” budget the industry told them to wait for, they’re not starting even. They’re starting three years behind.

Google’s algorithms reward consistency and time in market. You can’t buy your way to three years of search history. You can only get there by starting, and staying.

This is why “wait until you can afford real SEO” is worse advice than “do a small amount, consistently, starting today.”

What “any SEO is better than no SEO” actually means

Let me be precise, because I don’t want this argument to be taken as an endorsement of dodgy work at any price.

Any SEO doesn’t mean any provider. It doesn’t mean automated software. It doesn’t mean offshore link networks. It doesn’t mean template content. The market’s warning against those things is exactly right.

Any SEO means: a legitimate, focused, honest engagement with a competent team, at whatever scope your budget can actually sustain, starting now rather than never. That can mean $450 a month at the very bottom of the range if the scope is right for it. It more commonly means $750 to $1,500 a month for an SMB in a low-competition industry.

At that scope, you might be looking at:

• A properly optimised Google Business Profile with monthly posts and review management
• Two well-targeted, well-researched pages on your website
• Basic technical SEO to ensure your site is crawlable and indexable
• Monthly reporting so you can see what’s happening

That’s not full-service SEO. Nobody’s claiming it is. But it’s legitimate SEO, done by real people, on your actual business, with real outcomes to show for it. It builds. It compounds. It’s meaningfully better than nothing.

The alternative isn’t “$3,000 a month of proper SEO.” For most SMBs on tight budgets, the alternative is nothing. And nothing loses to something, every single time, over enough years.

When the industry’s advice is actually right

I don’t want to overstate my case. There are situations where the standard industry warning is exactly the right advice:

When the low-tier provider is dodgy.

If the $600-a-month package is generic, automated, or offshore, the warning is correct. Walk away. Wait until you can afford legitimate work.

When the goals genuinely need more.

If your business needs to rank in Sydney legal services, or compete nationally in ecommerce, or move fast in an aggressive vertical, $750 a month won’t get you there. Don’t pretend it will. Either scale up or focus your goals down to something the budget can actually support.

When the business owner is looking for a quick fix.

If someone starts SEO expecting to see enquiries in month two, they’ll quit before the compounding curve arrives. Better to not start than to start and abandon at month five. (I wrote about that specific pattern in June.)

When the business has genuinely no budget.

$450 a month is $5,400 a year. If that’s genuinely unavailable, focused work on free channels (a well-run Google Business Profile, a small amount of DIY content, community engagement) is a better starting point than paying for SEO you can’t afford. That’s a different conversation.

But if you have a budget, and you have a real business with real goals in reach at your scope, and you can find an honest Australian agency willing to work at your scale – start. Don’t wait.

The point most agencies won’t make

There’s a reason the industry mostly won’t make this argument. Agencies at the $3,000+ end of the market have no commercial reason to encourage SMBs to spend $750. It’s not their client. It’s not their revenue. And it’s marginally easier to justify their own pricing if the low tier is characterised as illegitimate.

I run an agency that works across the full range – from $450-a-month engagements to $6,000+ ones. I’ve watched every tier work when the client is right for the tier. And I’ve watched every tier fail when someone signed up for something that wasn’t right for their business.

The mistake isn’t spending too little. The mistake is either spending on the wrong thing, or spending nothing while telling yourself you’ll spend properly later.

What to do if you’re an SMB weighing this right now

Three questions to ask yourself:

Can you afford $450 to $1,500 a month consistently for 18 months? If yes, that’s enough to start. Not enough to dominate a competitive market – but enough to begin compounding.

Are you willing to commit to the timeline? SEO takes a minimum of 12 months to show meaningful movement, and 24-36 months to genuinely compound. If you can’t commit to that, don’t start at any price. Money spent on SEO you abandon at month six is money wasted regardless of the monthly figure.

Can you find an agency that’s genuinely honest about what your budget can do? Not one that promises full-service SEO for $750 (they’re lying). One that will look at your business, tell you what’s realistic at your scope, and deliver focused work honestly. That agency exists. In Australia, more than one does.

If yes to all three: start. Don’t wait for the version of your business that will spend $3,000. Compound what you can with what you have.

The honest summary

I’ll close where I started, because the argument doesn’t get more complicated than this:

Any SEO is better than no SEO – provided the SEO is legitimate, the team is competent, the scope is honest, and the client commits to the timeline. On those conditions, a $750-a-month engagement done properly for three years will outperform every scenario where an SMB waited for the “right” budget and never started.

The industry has spent years telling SMB owners to hold out for full-service SEO. That advice has served the mid-tier agencies giving it. It hasn’t served the thousands of Australian small businesses who took the advice, waited, and now find themselves years behind competitors who didn’t wait.

If you’re an Australian SMB owner and you’ve been sitting on the SEO decision because you’ve been told your budget isn’t enough, I’d rather have a straight conversation with you about what’s actually possible at your scale than watch you spend another year giving your competitors free ground.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is a $750-a-month SEO campaign a waste of money?

Not if the work is legitimate and the scope is honest. A $750 monthly engagement isn’t full-service SEO, and no honest agency would claim otherwise. But focused work on a Google Business Profile, a small number of well-optimised pages, basic technical health, and consistent monthly reporting can meaningfully move the needle for a small business in a low-competition market. The waste isn’t in spending $750. The waste is in expecting $3,000-a-month results from a $750-a-month engagement, or in signing up with a low-cost provider using automated or offshore tactics.

2. Why do most agencies say you need at least $1,500 per month for SEO?

Because for most agencies at that price point, that’s the minimum figure at which they can sustainably run a client account with the level of attention their business model requires. It’s an honest reflection of their own cost structure, not a universal truth about what SEO requires. Agencies structured differently (with lower overhead, or a deliberate strategic choice to serve smaller businesses) can profitably deliver legitimate work at lower price points.

3. Should I wait to start SEO until my business grows?

Usually no. SEO is a compounding asset that rewards time in market. Every year you delay is a year your competitors (the ones who started sooner) build search visibility you can’t buy your way past later. If you can afford $450 to $1,500 a month for a minimum of 18 months, and you can find an honest Australian agency to do focused work at that scope, starting is almost always better than waiting.

4. How do I find an honest agency that will work at a small budget?

Look for named strategists you can talk to, written scopes of work that describe specifically what will be done, transparent monthly reporting, no lock-in contracts, and an Australian team. Ask them to be specific about what your budget can and can’t achieve – an honest answer to that question is the single strongest signal that you’re dealing with a legitimate agency rather than someone selling automated work at a low price.