What size of agency do you work for?
Aside from freelancers and contractors, we saw a fairly even split across the sizes of agency that respondents work for, with the most popular answer (20%) being 10-25 people.
Typically, how do you structure your budgets for technical SEO work?
44% of agencies and freelancers said that they structure budgets using an ongoing retainer from the start of a project. This is a slight decrease from last year, when 50% said that they charged in this way.
What the experts think…
We've witnessed a lot of movement towards shorter retainers or even project work. Perhaps this means that companies are willing to pay more but for a shorter amount of time, to keep agile and have more control of the long term marketing budgets.
Nothing beats a good retainer, both from a financial perspective and the ability to plan for the long-term.
I'm not surprised to see retainers drop slightly from the year prior. While it's certainly our preferred way to work, the economic climate has contributed to many clients leaning towards project-based work. Fortunately many of those do turn into retainers for us, but there is more of an appetite to kick off with a project before committing to the longer term, ongoing investment.
The largest growing responses compared to last year are the one-off, fixed fee followed by optional or mandatory retainers for implementation. Anecdotally, we've also seen an increase in clients asking for highly specific case studies or proof of concepts before starting a retainer. Both of these trends point to clients guarding their budgets and being a little more discerning about external partnerships.
Establishing an ongoing retainer for technical SEO work right from the project's onset is crucial, as SEO tasks are rarely one-off. This ensures continuous monitoring, addressing new issues, and ongoing improvement. However, for websites with a large volume of pages, agencies may initially seek one-off technical SEO support before transitioning to a monthly retainer for continuous assistance.
When you work with clients, what is your ideal monthly budget range for working on technical SEO?
The most popular monthly budget for agencies and freelancers is $1,000-$5,000 per month, with 53% saying that this is what their ideal budget is. This represents a slight increase from last year where it was 45%.
What the experts think…
Technical SEO requires cumulative efforts over time. Having a monthly retainer on the smaller side is a great way to continue to look for, diagnose and resolve site wide issues.
This is particularly beneficial when development can take multiple weeks to test and implement.
How do you typically price a technical SEO audit of a single website?
In terms of how pricing is determined, just under half (46%) of agencies and freelancers said that they based it on the amount of time that a task may take, along with a day rate.
What the experts think…
The unpredictability of a technical SEO audit, with surprises emerging post-crawl and analysis, underscores why nearly half of agencies and freelancers opt for pricing based on time and day rates. This flexible approach accommodates the varying complexities and challenges encountered during the audit process.
This is an interesting move from last year with fixed and value gaining more traction. Seems like many are looking into productising their audits. Obviously, there are pros and cons to all three models. Time will always play a part in some way. The question is how you present that to the client when pitching.
Time and material based pricing is still the main pricing model I've witnessed, although clients nowadays often wish to know what they get for that time. The more budgets are scrutinised, perhaps value- or delivery-based pricing will become more and more common.
In my opinion, time based pricing is a great model for technical SEO. Many of you will know what sometimes diagnosing technical issues can take longer than planned, and agencies/freelancers should charge for their time.
Do you work on any form of performance based pricing? E.g. bonuses for increased traffic or revenue?
The vast majority (92%) of agencies and freelancers said that they don’t work on a performance based model.
What the experts think…
Because of the difficulty assigning value to technical SEO changes, it's no surprise that most respondents don't use performance based pricing.
Technical SEO tasks can indeed contribute significantly to performance improvement, especially in terms of website visibility, user experience, and overall search engine rankings. However, tying technical SEO tasks directly to individual performance improvement can present some challenges due to the nature of these tasks.
Have any of your clients cut their budget over the last 12 months?
Overall, 73% of agencies and freelancers said that their clients had cut budget over the last 12 months. The most popular answer was 37% of agencies and freelancers saying that their clients had cut budget over the last 12 months.
What the experts think…
We've seen this impact on the leads side as well. Fewer enquiries are coming in and price is more and more part of the conversation. On the other hand, paid media budgets are increasing and more enquiries are coming in. No surprising for a recession as paid is thought to get companies more immediate results.
This is a wide running theme we've seen across the agency world in the last 12 months. Clients are tightening their belts and want to see strong ROI, which is something technical SEOs as a whole struggle with.
The secret is to ensure we're getting buy-in from all levels of the organisation and that those with control over the purse strings understand what it is we do as SEOs.
It's certainly a mixed bag right now. Fortunately, many companies still see the need to invest in SEO for the long-term and budget cuts I've seen have often been specific (such as bringing content production in-house or cutting out link building because they weren't feeling it had as direct of an impact on revenue as other work). With all the turbulence we're seeing in the organic search landscape (and the world in general) it will be more important than ever to demonstrate SEO's impact on business metrics, not just rankings and traffic, so we don't see the number of budget cuts increase.
I think many agency owners and freelancers will be happy to know that they're not alone with clients cutting budgets. Being clever with pricing, reducing the anxiety of long-term retainers and diversifying not only revenue streams but also services will be key in recovering.
Following on from this, are you expecting client budgets to increase, decrease or stay the same over the next 12 months?
On a slightly more positive note, just over half (54%) of agencies and freelancers expect their budget to at least stay the same over the next 12 months. Whilst 19% expect a decrease.
What the experts think…
This is encouraging, as the consensus within our (small, U.S.-based) agency and among similar peers is that we saw a pretty scary crunch around the end of 2023 and are now coming out on the other side of it. Our pipeline is certainly looking stronger, and we're seeing less threat of client attrition, so it's great to hear that other agencies are experiencing the same!
These results demonstrate that the current economic conditions and difficulties we're facing aren't going away anytime soon.
We don't quite know how the industry will look for the next 12 months, but continuing to focus on value and impact will help see us through.
During economic slowdowns, marketing budgets, particularly for SEO, are often impacted first. However, many businesses, especially in the B2B sector, recognize the significance of maintaining or boosting their SEO budgets to secure top positions in organic search results.
Have recent developments surrounding AI influenced your SEO planning and roadmap?
The majority of agencies and freelancers said that their planning and roadmap had been impacted by the recent developments around AI. Most (58%) said that their plans had only been affected a little. Whilst 20% said that their plans hadn’t been changed at all.
Interestingly, these answers are very similar to those from in-house SEOs.
What the experts think…
While AI has certainly helped on the code side eg. understanding code and writing it if needed, it hasn't really yet impacted what tech SEOs spend the most time on - auditing and finding issues. With tools like the new SEMrush Copilot are starting to come into the space it will be interesting to see what happens. But then a true audit needs to combine several tools. Now when an AI can do this for you, that's where is all changes.
I think there's been a huge disparity in the number of In house and agencies that have or have not interacted with AI. Sometimes, it's a cultural thing, where SEOs are afraid of incorporating something new into their day-today.
Getting on top of new AI developments is vital. We know that AI is going to undoubtedly change the industry, so we all need to ensure we have the skills to use AI, otherwise we risk being left behind.
It feels like the SEO industry as a whole is starting to come to some consensus about how we should adjust our roadmaps and workflows based on AI developments. Most folks I talk to seem to feel that at least cautious adoption of new tools is the biggest change to be made.
It's crucial to acknowledge that AI in SEO is still in its early stages and often requires human review and refinement for optimal outcomes. It's reassuring to see that the majority of the community isn't hastily altering their roadmaps, recognizing the limitations of current AI capabilities in this domain.
How worried are you about AI developments negatively impacting your job security as a Technical SEO?
In terms of the impact on job security, the vast majority (64%) of agencies and freelancers are not worried at all about this. Again, the answers here are very similar to those from in-house SEOs, although 6% of in-house SEOs said they were very worried about job security, compared to 3% of agencies and freelancers.
What the experts think…
It's interesting to see that many aren't concerned about the impact of AI on technical SEO jobs. I share this sentiment. AI is likely to augment technical SEO tasks rather than replace the role.
In fact, the rise of AI-generated content that lacks a human touch may lead to an increased demand for technical SEOs to analyze and clean up penalized websites.
There are only a few percent of the broader community who express significant concerns about job security. In spite of AI advancements, many of us remain confident that human expertise and adaptability remain crucial to navigating these changes.
We have so many clients asking us for our perspectives and recommendations related to AI developments that it's hard to feel worried about job security.
If anything, I think I'm more confident that this will not impact my job security than I was at the start of 2023 when advances in generative AI really took off. Will it change how I do my job? Of course. But it's become clear that while tools like ChatGPT are incredible tools, they should remain as that — tools to help us do our jobs better, not as replacements, and that getting the most out of this powerful actually takes a new skillset that few have really mastered yet.
Agencies are often at the forefront of industry developments, which can provide reassurance to their teams too when it comes to embracing AI and not seeing it as a thread. The more it's being used and talked about, the better for all teams.
Have any of your clients cited wider economic challenges during budget conversations over the last 12 months?
Given the economic challenges of the last 12 months, we asked our respondents if their clients had cited this when talking about budgets. Over three quarters of respondents (76%) said yes, this was a factor in budget considerations.
What the experts think…
Economic challenges have certainly been a trend, but I'm also seeing many businesses struggle to adjust to the post-2020 reality. Industries that saw jumps in demand in the early days of the pandemic are now seeing slower growth (or even decreases in demand) and are having to figure out their new path forward, often with changes to the business far beyond marketing budgets. It feels like a lot of these changes are finally starting to settle, but have certainly taken much longer to shake out than we would have thought back in 2021 or 2022 when it was all about comparing demand and business to 2020.
This can be very frustrating for agency teams, where the performance and work quality is great, but something outside of anyone's control is impacting the client's ability to invest. But empathy is key here, and flexibility is crucial with agency/client relationships.
This isn't unexpected considering that budget tightens during economic pressures, and SEO can unfortunately be one of the first areas to be sacrificed.
However, the long-term value of SEO as a marketing strategy shouldn't be underestimated. As an industry, we need to work harder to educate clients on this fact.
Many respondents reported that clients cited these challenges when discussing budgets, which is not surprising. Our engagements with clients have become increasingly dependent on adapting to these economic circumstances and finding ways to navigate them effectively.
Please rank the following in order of which ones you spend the most time on, with the task requiring the most time at the top:
We asked agencies and freelancers how they typically spend their time. The task that most said took the most amount of time was examining a website to look for issues. This was followed by the proactive improvement of known issues.
Rank | Task |
1 | Examining the site to look for issues |
2 | Proactive improvement of known issues |
3 | Incremental improvements/testing of new opportunities |
4 | Reactive handling of issues introduced by site updates |
What the experts think…
Incremental improvements/testing of new opportunities at #3....we can do better! It depends on the site of course, but sticking to a mindset of fixing things will only get you so far. I'd love to see agencies lean more into a testing and experimentation mindset, sure there's a risk that it won't pan out but what about the opportunity cost of not trying new things and thinking big?
It's encouraging to see reactive handling of issues at the bottom of this list as well, since that suggests clients are invested in getting their SEO partners involved in website changes before they become issues to fix.
It would be interesting to see how much of this examination is an audit and how much is spent on ad hoc troubleshooting. We find that the initial audit (and subsequent fuller checks) take time but once that is done it takes much less time. Then it's about incremental improvements and levelling up the UX.
If SEOs are doing their jobs by working proactively and working in line with Google's guidelines, there should be little need to take a reactive approach and handle issues resulting from updates.
Analysing the site regularly is extremely important, regular crawls, traffic checks and other ad hoc checks are an essential part of an SEO's role day-to-day.
What's the most common way that you handle implementation of technical SEO tasks that require developers?
Agency SEOs were asked about implementing technical tasks and the most popular answer (49%) was that they worked with in-house developers whilst nearly a third (29%) said that they handled it within the agency.
What's the longest time frame you've had to wait to get a technical SEO change made for a client?
Unlike the same question for in-house SEOs, where the majority said that the longest they’d waited for an SEO change to be made was 6 months, 37% of agency SEOs said that the longest time frame was 12+ months.
What the experts think…
Speaking of inefficiencies and lost opportunity! Especially when clients are paying for these recommendations, a lot of money will be left on the table with slow implementation.
Something is still broken if changes take 12+ months. Either the change requested was not important to start with or the impact/benefit has not been communicated. There is still work that needs to be done, obviously, when it comes to aligning agencies with in-house devs. Yes we might never be as effective as in-house teams who have more personal relationships but it's our responsibility to get the job done not just to recommend changes.
Where's the option for "still waiting?"
While this is certainly a frustrating part of the job, it's on us as agency partners to demonstrate the potential impact of our work as well as to match the client's way of working as best as we can. The more you can learn about their product roadmap, opportunities to integrate SEO priorities with their priorities and the best way to communicate SEO needs and requirements to their tech team, the more these timelines decrease.
What's the shortest time frame you've had to wait to get a technical SEO change made for a client?
On the plus side, the shortest amount of time that agencies and freelancers have waited for an SEO change to be made is a day. 67% said that this was the shortest amount of time that they’d waited.
What the experts think…
This underscores the effectiveness of collaboration when clients are proactive in achieving results, and not just throwing the responsibility to the other side.
What's the typical timeframe across most clients for seeing a technical SEO change made?
Following on from this, we asked agency SEOs what the typical timeframe was for a technical change to be implemented and the most popular answer at 43% was around a month. Only 1% expect to wait more than 12 months.
What the experts think…
While this makes sense, I would love to get this down further. It again boils down to ensuring buy-in and developing those relationships with devs. In-house devs shouldn't just be told what to do, they should be part of the conversation and part of finding the best solutions.
What was the main blocker in getting changes made to the site?
In terms of the reason why changes don’t get made sooner, the most common reason (64%) was the existence of non-SEO development tasks.
What the experts think…
The first two are inseparable here. Often the reason why non-SEO dev tasks take precedence is because buy-in was not achieved in the first place. I'm also a bit wary of the term non-SEO development tasks. It can point towards a miss-understanding of what SEO is and why it's important. A great example is Javascript use. Too many times modules are developed without taking SEO into consideration - so-called non-SEO dev tasks - only to then be redeveloped when an SEO gets involved. It might be my in-house experience coming in here and I'm expecting to much but it feels like a good start is also ensuring devs understand the role of SEO from the get go.
How do you present your technical SEO recommendations to your clients? Pick all that apply:
The clear winner here was Google Sheets or Excel, with 83% of agencies and freelancers saying that this was how they present SEO recommendations to clients.
What the experts think…
While Google Sheets/Excel efficiently document URLs affected by issues, combining them with Google Slides/PowerPoint aids in educating and conveying findings to non-SEO clients/stakeholders. This dual approach enhances clarity and facilitates understanding, ensuring effective communication of technical SEO recommendations.
An excel/google sheet structure is great because it can help highlight all the issues in one place, where multiple stakeholders can view and understand.
It's interesting that in house often use Jira to organise tasks, but it's possible to use multiple formats depending on the stakeholder you're speaking with.
That being said, keeping these documents up to date is one of the most important things, you want to keep visibility of technical issues across the business.
I'm surprised to see email still as a popular way of communicating tech SEO recommendations. Perhaps this is one of the reasons there are long wait times on implementation?
No surprises here. Sheets are definitely a great way to present tech recommendations. Many companies also keep their SEO recommendations separate from their other dev tasks, so no access to dev tickets directly. The key is to get the devs invited into the sheets once the tasks have been approved. It's a great place to open up a dialog around the best solutions.
Slides and Sheets forever! I mean, really, I use all of these methods, but nothing beats some more formal documentation that can be easily shared amongst team members. We've put more and more focus on clearly articulating priority and expected impact of our recommendations and Slides and Sheets are often the best way to do this.
What is the primary means of communication with your clients for day-to-day work?
The most common way that agencies and freelance SEOs communicate with clients is via email, with 69% preferring this method of communication. This was followed by Slack / instant chat with 25%, which is a slight increase compared to last year at 21%..
What the experts think…
I'm surprised to see email still so dominant! I communicate with the majority of my clients via Slack and new clients are often relieved to hear that's an option. One of the biggest benefits is visibility — unless a message is sent in DMs, everybody in the channel can always see what's happening even if they're not directly involved. As a director, I especially appreciate this visibility into client communications for the client I have less day to day involvement with.
We mainly communicate with our clients via Slack, which seems to be the most common method of communication internally in client organisations too. It's nice to be able to integrate your agency within internal processes. Emails do have their place of course, especially in the onboarding stage and when negotiating contracts.
It's interesting to see Slack gaining traction from last year's report. We found that there can be pushback on opening channels - both from the agency side and the dev side. Immediate communication can be scary. You can "sit" on an email but there is much less hiding on Slack. Personally, I love it when communication is taken to Slack but it comes with it's own set of challenges both for the client and the agency.
How do you prioritise technical SEO tasks in terms of implementation? Please rank the following, starting with the most effective:
We asked agency and freelance SEOs to rank options for prioritising the implementation of technical SEO tasks. The most popular way to prioritise was quick wins that have a big impact with little effort. This was followed by the expected impact on KPIs.
Rank | Task |
1 | Quick wins (big impact, little effort) |
2 | Expected impact on KPIs |
3 | Impact on users |
4 | Best practices based on Google Guidelines |
5 | Industry changes and algorithm updates |
What the experts think…
While quick wins are the easiest way to go to immediately show a client the value of our work, the logistics don't always work out this way. For example, a client might need extensive technical restructuring in order to index valuable pages (big impact/high effort) before any on-page tweaks to those pages can be surfaced (big impact/little effort).
Many of these priority reasons should overlap. For instance, a technical change with an expected impact on KPIs is likely to be good for users too.
Typically, are your technical SEO recommendations deployed to a client staging environment prior to live?
When it comes to deploying technical SEO changes to a staging environment prior to live, 64% of agency SEOs said that they did this.
Do you carry out any form of A/B testing to understand the impact of technical SEO changes after they've been deployed?
40% of agencies and freelancers said that they carry out A/B testing to understand the impact of technical SEO changes. Similar to answers from in-house SEOs, this is a slight increase compared with last year, when 34% said that they carried out A/B testing.
What's the hardest part of your job?
Nearly half (49%) of agencies and freelancers said that the hardest part of their job was getting their recommendations implemented, followed by showing the value of their work at 17%.
Despite sharing the same most popular answer, it’s notable that just 32% of in-house SEOs said that getting their recommendations implemented was their biggest challenge. Whilst 29% said that showing the impact of their work was hard, compared with 17% of agencies and freelancers.
What the experts think…
In my opinion, relationship building is a big aspect of why agencies may find it harder to get things implemented. Without taking the time to educate developers and other stakeholders, you don't have an internal champion to help prioritise these tasks which can often hold agencies and freelancers back.
It really depends on the issue. Some are easy to implement - for example, changes to robot.txt. Others are like pushing a boulder up a hill - eg. changes to site architecture. It really is nuanced. This is why it's important to also look at it from an effort-impact perspective. And use this to make it clear to the client and the dev why something is with the effort.
As agencies, we're often tied to a specific scope, approach or service for each client. Which can be a challenge when trying to achieve specific targets. Also internal hierarchies and red tape can get in the way of executing SEO strategies. In an ideal world we'd be an extension of our client's internal team, and therefore would attain the acceptance and authority to get a wide spectrum of recommendations implemented.
The challenge of getting SEO recommendations implemented resonates with many in the field. This struggle is particularly pronounced in organizations with centralized tech teams or product-focused structures, where SEO recommendations may stuck in implementation pipelines for extended periods.
Please rank the following in terms of how important you think they are for a technical SEO to fully understand, starting with the most important at the top.
Interestingly, the answers here are very similar to those shared by in-house SEOs, with data analysis being the most important skill for technical SEOs to understand. This was followed by reading and understanding HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Rank | Task |
1 | Data analysis |
2 | Reading and understanding HTML/CSS |
3 | Reading and understanding JavaScript |
4 | Commercial awareness such as profit/loss and revenue |
5 | Content strategy |
6 | Log file analysis |
7 | RegEx |
8 | Machine Learning / AI |
9 | Link building |
10 | Database work such as SQL/BigQuery |
What the experts think…
I fully agree with data analysis being the #1 necessary skill. So much of our jobs as technical SEOs is synthesizing large amounts of information into actionable recommendations. At the end of the day, every technical SEO needs to be able to analyze the data, explain what it means, and create a prioritized action plan to improve.
Data analysis prevails again as the most important skill to advance as a technical SEO! This is a timeless skillset grounded in research methodology, data hygiene, basic statistics, and critical thinking. Often we point new or aspiring entrants to the field towards SEO-specific trainings. To excel in our field, the SEO knowledge base has to be complemented by experience and comfort with the techniques of extracting reliable insights from raw data.
I respectfully disagree. I will prioritize logfile analysis and regex over commercial awareness about profit loss/gain and content strategy. While these are important for business growth, in terms of Tech SEO tasks/processes, I would prefer to analyze log files and use regex instead!
Not surprising when time is spent mostly on finding issues. To detect what the problem is you need to be able to read the data. The problem arises when this translates to: our conversions have dropped this week can you check what's going on? Spending hours digging around statistically irrelevant drops is a real struggle both in-house and agency side.
We find that it's super useful for us to understand the client's revenue streams and overall business goals, especially when it comes to forecasting performance. We need to know how their partnership with us fits into their larger financial picture so that we can present them with a compelling ROI that makes sense for them.
I'd love to see more focus being put on commercial awareness. While this certainly varies depending on your role, SEOs as a whole don't put enough focus on this and is one of the reasons we typically get much smaller budgets than other channels.