According to the latest data from Statista, it is estimated that by 2025, 72.9% of e-commerce website core traffic growth will rely on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). But the reality is a bit harsh: many sellers only care about “how much money was spent,” but don’t know where exactly the money went, nor do they understand why the results are poor—it’s actually because the investment wasn’t allocated properly.
By 2025, basic SEO work is no longer as simple as “adding a few keywords.” Take a mid-sized independent website as an example (with 300-500 SKUs), basic SEO services alone include:
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Fine-tuned optimization of approximately 60 core SKU product pages,
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Conducting a full technical review and fixes across the entire website (such as improving loading speed and ensuring mobile compatibility),
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Configuring GA4 and GSC as these two data tools,
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Building a basic content framework.
The reasonable starting price for this part is ¥4,000 to ¥6,000 per month.
The three key factors affecting the budget are:
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Category Competition Level: For example, optimization costs for beauty products and health supplements are approximately 35% higher than those for home and daily necessities.
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Number of Technical Issues: For example, if your website has 50 redirect errors, fixing this alone could cost an additional ¥1,500+/month.
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Link Building Efforts: A link from an authoritative vertical media outlet has a median cost of around ¥3,000.
But the problem is, currently on the market over 60% of SEO service providers have very vague quotes, always using “customized solutions” to cover up the fact that specific work content lacks detail.
This guide will help you break down the pricing logic of SEO services layer by layer.
What is the Basic Service Fee
If you run an e-commerce business with approximately 300-500 products on your website, and by 2025 you still haven’t done SEO or have many problems, the first step is to have the service provider do a round of “basic work.” This part is the so-called “basic service fee,” which is generally charged monthly.
In the 2025 market, the monthly basic SEO service fee for mid-sized independent sites is generally ¥4,000 – ¥6,000 starting.
Keyword Confirmation
Keywords that are off-target make optimization a waste of effort. You need to know whether customers are actually searching for “wireless Bluetooth earphones” or “noise-canceling earphones for running with long battery life”—these two directions are vastly different!
What was done?
Core Keyword Research: Select at least 20-50 keywords most relevant to your business, including product keywords, category keywords, and question-based keywords.
Difficulty Analysis: Use tools like Ahrefs and Semrush to analyze keyword competition. For example, “coffee maker” has too high difficulty (KD>65), making it almost impossible for new sites; “small portable espresso coffee maker KD<30" is much more achievable.
In 2025, basic SEO plans generally cover 60%-70% of medium-to-low difficulty keywords (KD between 10-40).
Search Volume: Prioritize keywords with monthly search volume >500 and with conversion value. Long-tail keywords below 100 are not necessarily worth competing for.
User Intent Matching: Clarify whether customers searching are looking to buy, compare prices, or read guides. If the match is off, a bounce rate exceeding 70% is very common, wasting effort.
Cost Proportion: This part accounts for approximately 15%-20% of the total basic service fee (¥600 – ¥1,200/month).
Product Page Optimization
The core of an e-commerce website is the product pages. Google also pays the most attention to this. If product titles and descriptions are poorly written and images are bad, not only will customers be turned off, but search engines will also ignore you.
What exactly is done?
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Title Rewrite: Focus on optimizing titles for 30-50 flagship SKUs, keeping them within 60 characters, with keywords and selling points, such as “[2025 New Arrival] XX Brand Quiet Blender Home Use 1.75L Large Capacity”.
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Description Optimization: Not keyword stuffing, but using 200-500 words to clearly explain the product’s selling points (USP), naturally integrating 3-5 keyword variations, emphasizing parameters, advantages, and use cases.
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URL Optimization: Change links like
/p=123to easily understandable structures, for example/blender/xx-brand-quiet-blender-175L, which benefits SEO and sharing. Optimize 50-100 page URLs per month. -
Image Alt Tags: Add descriptions not exceeding 125 characters to each product image, for example “XX Brand Quiet Blender Front View – White – 1.75L Capacity”.
Cost Proportion: This is the most expensive part, accounting for approximately 50% of the basic service fee (¥2,000 – ¥3,000/month), because it requires deep product knowledge, copy revision, and image matching.
Website Structure Organization
A chaotic website structure makes it easy for search engine crawlers to get lost, fail to capture key pages, and fail to rank well. Clear structure allows crawlers to find over 90% of important pages.
What was done?
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Navigation Optimization: Ensure the main navigation is clear (3-5 categories), and users can find any product within 3 clicks. Optimize 1-2 key paths per month.
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Internal Link Addition: Add 30-50 links among content pages, product pages, and category pages to distribute authority to core pages.
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Island Page Cleanup: Handle 20-50 isolated pages and outdated pages, either delete them or set up 301 redirects.
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XML Sitemap Check: Ensure important pages are in sitemap.xml and submitted to GSC, with coverage reaching over 80%.
Cost Proportion: Accounts for 15%-20% of the basic service fee (approximately ¥600 – ¥1,200/month), requiring technical personnel, not simple editing work.
Supplementing Basic Content Pages
Pages like “About Us” and “Return Policy” are also reviewed by Google, and users usually click on them before making a purchase. Content that is too short or unprofessional reduces website credibility.
What pages were written?
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About Us: Introduce the company—who you are, what you do, how long you’ve been established, and what your advantages are (such as “95% positive reviews”), written in 300-500 words.
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Contact Us: Provide phone number, email, address, and business hours (such as weekdays 9am-6pm).
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Shipping Policy: Explain where it ships to, how long delivery takes, free shipping thresholds, which couriers are used (such as SF Express, JD Logistics), written in 400-600 words.
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Return and Exchange Policy: Include return/exchange time limit (such as within 7 days), conditions, process, and who bears the costs, written in 500-700 words.
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If your website doesn’t have these, basic services usually include building them.
Cost Proportion: Approximately 10%-15% (¥400 – ¥900/month), focusing on being professional, clear, and trustworthy, not pursuing quantity.
Tool Configuration
GA4 and GSC are free, but they must be installed and you must know how to use them.
What needs to be done:
GA4 Installation and Configuration:
- Install coverage for over 95% of pages
- Configure conversion tracking (such as add-to-cart, checkout, successful purchase)
- Set up common reports so you know where traffic comes from and who buys what
- Set UTM parameters for all external links to track each entry point
GSC Setup and Monitoring:
- Verify domain ownership
- Submit sitemap
- Configure geo-targeting and preferred domain (with or without www)
- Check core reports monthly (indexing, mobile usability, page experience)
- Handle 5-15 404 or mobile usability errors monthly
Cost Proportion: This part is mainly one-time work, but monthly maintenance also takes time. Accounts for 5%-10% (¥200 – ¥600/month), mainly analyst or engineer work.
Five Key Influencing Factors
The ¥4,000-¥6,000 monthly basic SEO service is just a starting price. The actual cost spent on your store could be two to three times higher, or even more.
Why is this the case? Because different stores have “different starting points” and “different goals.” Data from 2025 shows that SEO monthly budgets for mid-sized e-commerce sites generally range from ¥4,000 to ¥20,000+. The key to the cost difference lies in these five main factors:
Keyword Difficulty (The more popular the keyword, the fiercer the competition, the more money you spend)
Keywords are the core of SEO. Which keywords you want to compete for determines how much you need to invest.
How to judge if keywords are difficult?
Industry Competition Level: Industries like health supplements, finance, and legal services have particularly fierce SEO competition. Top companies may invest over ¥50,000 monthly in SEO. Keyword difficulty scores (KD) in these industries are often above 65 (out of 100). For niche industries like specialty tools or unique home goods, keyword difficulty may be less than 35, costing 30%-40% cheaper.
The higher the search volume, the stronger the competition: Keywords like “laptops” or “sports shoes” with monthly search volumes exceeding 5,000 are extremely difficult to rank on the first page, requiring massive content and backlinks, with very high initial investment.
High-value Keywords vs. Long-tail Keywords: Focusing on 10 high-conversion keywords costs much more than targeting 100 minor long-tail keywords. For example, ranking “gaming laptop recommendations under 5,000 yuan” on the first page may cost 2-3 times that of regular product keywords.
Number of Keywords: If you need to target 300 keywords instead of 50, workload and costs will both increase. Generally, for every additional 50 keywords, costs rise by 20%-25%.
The larger the store, the less content, the higher the cost
How many products does your store have? How complex are your pages? These directly affect the workload for SEO optimization.
Product Count (SKU) is key:
- For a store with 100 SKUs, optimizing all product pages requires approximately 60-80 hours of work;
- If you have 1,000 SKUs, even if you only work on 20% of flagship products (200 pages), it takes 120-160+ hours. Therefore, service providers sometimes charge per “core SKU,” roughly ¥80-¥200/each.
Is content very sparse?
- If product descriptions are all under 100 characters and the blog only has a few posts, a lot of content needs to be added.
- A product guide or blog post around 1,000 words with rich and practical content costs ¥1,000-¥2,500 in 2025.
- If you need 10 high-quality posts per month, this category’s monthly cost could be ¥10,000-¥25,000+.
How many categories and information pages?
For example, in the fashion category, the structure might be: Gender > Season > Style > Material > Item. This complex structure requires optimizing more category pages, and costs are 15%-25% higher than for stores with simpler structures.
More technical problems mean more expensive fixes
Minor Problems (Lower cost):
- For example, missing meta tags—fixing 50 pages only requires 3-5 hours (approximately ¥400-¥800);
- Fixing a small number of 404 errors (<20) takes approximately 1-3 hours (¥200-¥500);
- Minor tasks like submitting sitemap usually take less than 1 hour.
Moderate Problems (Costs increase):
- Slow website loading—if first-screen load time exceeds 3.5 seconds, you need to optimize code, images, caching, etc., taking 8-20+ hours, with costs around ¥2,000-¥5,000+.
- Many duplicate pages (e.g., too many parameters generate a large number of useless pages)—URL canonicalization settings are needed, with costs around ¥1,000-¥4,000+.
Severe Problems (Costs skyrocket):
- Chaotic structure and over 300 erroneous redirects—organizing and fixing alone takes dozens of hours, with costs possibly ¥3,000-¥10,000+;
- Legacy website system is outdated, lacking basic functions and requiring development—for example, adding structured data (Schema) to product pages, development costs may be ¥5,000-¥15,000+;
- Historically hacked, too many spam backlinks—cleanup work is time-consuming, adding ¥3,000-¥8,000+ per month.
The more complex the technical problems, the more costs stack on top of the base monthly fee, sometimes quoted separately.
More backlinks mean more spending
Backlinks are like votes—the more people trust you, the higher search engines rank you.
A large number of indexable backlinks with DA≥1 offers better value for money:
500 backlinks with authority (DA>1), even if not industry-related, are 3-5 times stronger than dozens of high-quality backlinks, costing approximately ¥50-¥80 each, offering excellent cost-effectiveness.
Different backlink types have very different prices:
Guest Posting: Publishing articles with links on relevant websites, with costs around ¥2,000-¥5,000 each.
Resource Links: For example, if your content is listed on authoritative website recommendation pages—if the website has high authority (DR>80), one link may cost ¥5,000-¥15,000+.
Media Reviews or Coverage Links: Getting on TechCrunch, Forbes, etc., requires PR, connections, product samples, etc., with prices around ¥8,000-¥20,000+, and success rate below 5%.
Common Practices:
New e-commerce sites typically pursue 8-15 medium-to-high quality relevant links monthly;
Monthly backlink budget is generally ¥8,000-¥25,000, accounting for 40%-60% of total SEO budget;
Some service providers offer “basic backlink support,” while others provide “premium backlink services” quoted per link.
How quickly do you want to see results
SEO takes time—if you must see results within a few months, you must spend much more money, with higher risks.
Normal Pace:
- Months 1-3 mainly focus on foundation building (technical optimization, content preparation, etc.), with little traffic change;
- Months 4-6 start seeing significant growth (traffic increases 20%-50%);
- Months 6-12 is the phase when traffic and rankings gradually stabilize.
If you insist on speed:
- Multiply content: Originally 10 posts per month, now 30 or more—the content cost suddenly increases by ¥10,000 – ¥40,000/month;
- Accelerate backlinks: Originally planning to slowly build links, now pushing at several times the speed, with costs doubling, possibly adding ¥10,000 – ¥40,000+;
- Focus on a few major keywords: Ignoring other long-tail keywords can easily cause traffic structure imbalance.
The result may be counterproductive:
- The chance of quickly reaching the first page is below 50%, and even if you do reach it, the probability of dropping off within three months exceeds 60%;
- Therefore, reliable service providers generally recommend setting target cycles of 6 months or more, optimizing in phases, with more stable resource investment.
How SEO Service Providers Charge
In the 2025 e-commerce market:
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72% of SEO collaborations charge monthly,
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25% charge by project,
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Less than 3% use performance-based sharing (because the risk is too high).
The billing method affects your budget arrangement, risk level, and partnership continuity.
Let’s explain the three mainstream methods one by one.
Monthly Billing
Model: Sign a contract, pay monthly, receive continuous service—just like hiring an external SEO team to help you long-term.
How is pricing determined?
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Based on keyword difficulty, website size, number of technical issues, backlink foundation, and timeline urgency.
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Monthly fees for mid-sized independent sites in 2025 fluctuate widely between ¥5,000 – ¥20,000.
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For example, a newly started home goods website with 500 SKUs has a monthly fee of approximately ¥8,000;
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A health brand with 300 SKUs that has many problems and fierce competition may have a monthly fee reaching ¥18,000.
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What does the service usually include?
Clear contracts are key!
General packages include:
- Optimize 15-30 core SKU pages per month
- Write 4-8 blog articles over 1,200 words each month
- Build 5-10 relevant backlinks (DR value > 45) monthly
- Handle technical issues, such as fixing the top 20 critical errors
Service commitment standards:
- Respond to emails within 24 hours
- Hold weekly or bi-weekly progress meetings
- Assign 1 strategy manager + 1 execution specialist
Deliverables:
Monthly reports including top 50-100 keyword rankings, organic traffic, site health status, and work completion checklist
Key financial points in the contract:
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Minimum contract term is 6 months, with 12 months being common
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Early termination usually requires compensation of 1-2 months’ fees
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The vast majority of service providers require prepayment (by the 1st or 5th of each month)
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Prices may increase by up to 15% after 6 months or 1 year of cooperation, with 30-60 days advance notice
Who is it suitable for?
Suitable for sellers who want to do long-term SEO
Advantages:
- Continuous service, team will understand your business better
- Budget is easier to control
- Problems can be handled promptly
Disadvantages:
- Long contract binding period
- May not see significant results in the first 3-6 months
Project-Based Billing
Model: For a specific, clear task such as technical optimization or content writing, charge a one-time fee, and end when the work is complete.
How is it charged? Quote by module and item:
Technical SEO Audit + Fixes
- Audit report: ¥3,000 – ¥8,000, a detailed report of 50-100 pages listing issues, priorities, and recommendations, usually completed in 5-15 working days.
- Fixes: For fixing 50 high-priority errors, costs ¥8,000 – ¥15,000+, must specify “how many to fix”
Batch Product Page Optimization
- For example, optimizing 200 SKUs, charging ¥80 – ¥200 per SKU, total project cost ¥16,000 – ¥40,000, taking approximately 4-8 weeks.
Content Writing (Launch Blog)
- Writing 10 in-depth industry articles (1,500+ words, with data charts), ¥2,000 – ¥5,000 per article, total ¥20,000 – ¥50,000, taking 6-10 weeks.
Payment rhythm: Common is 5/3/2 or 5/4/1
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50% upon start, 30%-40% after halfway completion, remaining 10%-20% after acceptance. Project cycles are mostly 1-3 months.
Key contract points:
- Clearly define what tasks are included, what deliverables are expected, deadlines, and acceptance criteria.
- If requirements are added mid-project, additional charges and extensions (change requests) apply
Who is it suitable for?
People who want to solve a specific problem
For example:
Technical inspection before new site launch
Migrating content after old site redesign
Writing a batch of high-quality content
Advantages:
- Clear tasks, no long-term commitment
Disadvantages:
- No follow-up maintenance
- Easily exceeds budget or timeline due to unclear scope
- Only solves partial problems
Performance-Based Sharing
Model: Low base fee or even free, share profits only after results are achieved. Sounds like “pay only if there’s results.”
But the problem is: how do you define “results”?
A. Ranking Improvement (Easiest to be deceived)
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For example, promising “to get 50 keywords into the top 20.”
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The problems are:
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Keywords may have no search volume, so improvement is useless
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May use unreliable methods to quickly rank, then drop after a few months
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“Top 20” includes 20th place, with almost zero traffic
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B. Traffic Growth
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For example, promising “3 months to gain 5,000 new organic visitors”
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The problems are:
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Traffic may be irrelevant audiences who look but don’t buy (bounce rate >85%)
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Requires you to open GA4 data, with risks of tampering and privacy issues
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Focuses only on traffic, not conversion
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C. Sales Commission (Most reliable but also most difficult)
Share profits based on SEO-driven sales, for example 5%-15%
But the biggest difficulty is: how do you track which orders came from SEO?
Attribution is difficult, GA4 model has 15%-35% error rate
You also need to open your GA4 or order system, with risk of business data leakage
Service providers may recommend discounted sales to increase commissions, affecting profits
Actual cost analysis:
For example:
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Monthly base fee ¥5,000
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Achieve ¥100,000 in sales, 10% commission = ¥10,000
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Your total expenditure that month is ¥15,000
Comparison: If using monthly billing, finding a provider at ¥12,000/month to achieve the same results saves you money and fewer disputes.
Hidden problems:
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Service providers will only prioritize projects that “can quickly meet targets,” such as inflating traffic and rankings, regardless of foundational quality
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This model suits them filtering “easy” clients, not everyone
Who is it suitable for?
Only when you:
- Have very high trust with the service provider
- Have mature data attribution systems
- Are willing to share risks together
can try this “base fee + sales commission” hybrid model.
How to Choose Among the Three Billing Methods?
| Method | Best For | Popularity | Risk Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Billing | Sellers who want stable long-term SEO with a fixed budget (¥5,000 – ¥20,000/month) | ★★★★★ | Contract binding 6-12 months, slow results (requires 3-6 months) |
| Project-Based | People who need to solve a specific SEO problem and have a one-time budget | ★★★☆☆ | Unclear scope easily leads to timeline/budget overruns, service ends when project ends |
| Performance-Based | Mature sellers with high trust in their provider and strong data attribution | ★☆☆☆☆ | Result definitions are problematic, easy to dispute, tends to attract unreliable providers |
Common Additional SEO Fees
When negotiating SEO partnerships, many people only pay attention to monthly fees or project fees, but in reality, by 2025, there are four types of services that may require additional charges.
Often, packages only include the most basic services; if you really want to do things properly, you have to spend extra. You could accidentally overshoot your budget by 20%-60%!
Industry data shows that over 65% of clients only discover after the partnership that they need to pay extra for content or backlinks.
Let’s break this down in detail:
Good Content = Cost, Must Pay Extra
Monthly fee packages usually only include basic content maintenance (such as optimizing existing pages), but if you need to write high-quality original content (especially in-depth articles), additional charges apply.
Common content fees:
New Product Descriptions (Large Number of SKUs)
For example, if you have 500 products, each with only 50 characters of original description, and you want to upgrade to 300-500 character sales copy. Packages usually only cover 20-50 core SKUs. The excess is charged by quantity:
- ¥80 – ¥180/SKU (English versions may be more expensive, ¥150 – ¥350+)
- If rewriting 400 SKUs, expected cost is: ¥32,000 – ¥72,000+
Content Marketing (Blogs, Guides, Research Reports)
The core method for attracting traffic and building backlinks. Prices are calculated based on content length and depth:
- Simple blog posts (800-1,200 words): ¥800 – ¥1,800/post
- Advanced guides (1,500-2,500 words, with data or case studies): ¥1,800 – ¥3,800/post
- In-depth reports (3,000+ words, including research/charts/expert interviews): ¥5,000 – ¥15,000+/post
Multilingual Content (Translation or Localization) costs 50%-150% higher:
- Translating a 1,000-word English technical article to German/French: ¥1,200 – ¥2,500+
- Localized creation (not just translation): ¥2,500 – ¥5,000+
For example:
If you need to publish 10 industry guides of 1,500 words each per month, just this content budget requires ¥18,000 – ¥38,000+
Content is one of the most core investments in SEO—the more you invest, the results could be 30% or more better—but don’t overlook this budget.
Backlink Building
Packages usually only include a small number of basic backlinks (such as 3-8 monthly, DR 40-50), but to truly rank on the first page or surpass major brand competitors, you must invest more resources to acquire high-quality backlinks.
Guest Posts
Publishing content on high-authority websites (without need for relevance), with prices mainly determined by website authority (DA):
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DA 50-65: ¥2,500 – ¥5,000 each
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DA 65-80 (industry authority sites): ¥5,000 – ¥10,000+ each
Resource Collaboration Links
- For example, if your tools or research are included in industry resource sites.
- Costs include the high-quality content you produce (such as an ¥8,000 report)
- Then the backlink specialist recommends it to target websites, charging per successful link, approximately ¥1,200 – ¥3,500+/link
This type of link is more efficient at passing authority than guest posts, approximately 15%-30% higher.
Relationship-Based Links (Media Coverage/Reviews)
- For example, seeking media reviews and exposure when launching new products or winning awards.
- Extremely difficult to obtain (success rate <5%)
- Usually requires sending samples, coordinating PR, or even sponsorships—each link costs ¥8,000 – ¥20,000+
How to Plan Backlink Costs
Professional Technical Support
Packages only include routine maintenance (such as basic error fixes, plugin updates), but for serious technical problems like slow speed, website hacking, or full-site migration, you need to hire professional developers separately, charged by hours or project.
Common charging scenarios:
Optimize website loading speed (e.g., compress from 4.5 seconds to under 2 seconds)
- Requires: front-end optimization, image compression, CDN setup, server caching strategy, etc.
- Development time: 25-60+ hours
- Cost: ¥10,000 – ¥48,000+ (cost increases dramatically for every 0.5 seconds improvement)
Full Site Migration or Large-Scale Redesign (changing CMS, rebuilding website)
- Must ensure no dead links, SEO data is preserved, and traffic doesn’t drop
- Hours: 80-200+
- Cost: ¥32,000 – ¥160,000+, varying greatly based on the number of pages on the site
Website Hacked, Spam Backlink Attacks
- Need to remove malware, patch vulnerabilities, appeal to Google, etc.
- Hours: 40-100+, cycle may last up to 3 months
- Cost: ¥16,000 – ¥80,000+, recovery period 1-6 months
Custom Technical Development
For example, developing tools for automated SEO parameter handling or integrating company internal systems
General project cost: ¥15,000 – ¥50,000+
Pay-Per-Click Traffic Budget Is Separate
Key Reminder: SEO and PPC are two separate systems!
SEO consultants handle organic traffic optimization, PPC ads (such as Google Ads) are a separate budget, not included in SEO monthly fees.
PPC budget breakdown:
Ad Spend (Money paid to Google)
For example, promoting “lightweight luggage,” each click may cost ¥18 – ¥35+, monthly spending easily ¥10,000 – ¥100,000+
Ad Account Management Fee (Money charged by service provider)
Percentage of ad spend: 10%-20%, for ¥50,000 ad spend, corresponding management fee ¥5,000 – ¥10,000
Fixed management fee: such as ¥4,000 – ¥15,000/month
Hybrid: base fee + percentage, such as ¥3,000 + 10%, when spending ¥50,000, management fee is ¥8,000
Important note:
SEO and PPC data can be analyzed together, but costs must be calculated separately
If a service provider handles both SEO and PPC, be sure to require itemized cost breakdown in the contract:
- What is the SEO monthly fee?
- How is PPC management fee charged? Percentage? Fixed? Or hybrid?
- What is the ad spend? Must be deposited separately into your ad account—don’t let the service provider directly transfer it!
SEO performance doesn’t affect PPC management fees
Even if SEO is done well and keywords rank, as long as you continue running ads, the advertising consultant will still charge management fees as usual, unless you actively pause the ad campaign.
Practical Tips for Choosing Service Providers and Negotiating Prices
By 2025, over 60% of e-commerce sellers have wasted a lot of money with little effect due to choosing the wrong SEO service provider or not clarifying details—averaging over ¥50,000+ in wasted spending.
Use the following 5 steps to get the results of a ¥15,000 budget with just ¥10,000.
Know Your Budget and Market Rates
Industry benchmark prices:
- Mid-sized independent sites with weak foundations (300-500 SKUs): Reasonable budget is ¥8,000 – ¥12,000/month.
- Sites with many problems or high competition: Budget should be ¥15,000 – ¥22,000/month.
Set your budget based on your site’s scale:
- Small sites (<100 SKUs): ¥4,000 – ¥8,000/month
- Mid-sized sites (300-800 SKUs): ¥8,000 – ¥20,000+/month (high variability, depends on your foundation)
- Large sites (>1,000 SKUs): ¥25,000+/month, may require a dedicated team
Have a clear understanding of organic traffic costs:
- If you’re running Google Ads, a keyword click costs ¥20 per click, then doing SEO for organic traffic, the cost per click (your investment divided by traffic) should be kept between ¥2 – ¥6.
- If your current organic cost per click is as high as ¥15, it means the service provider’s efficiency is too low.
Set your annual total budget first—for example ¥100,000 – ¥180,000—this way the other party can design a plan within this framework, avoiding heavy spending early in the month and running out of money by month’s end.
First Clarify What Problems You Actually Want to Solve
Vague goals only get you vague plans. Don’t just say “I want to do SEO”—specifically describe the problems you’re facing.
Scenario A: New site launched with no traffic (cold start)
- Example statement: “Launched 90 days ago, fewer than 20 visitors per day from search, and 80% of core product pages haven’t been indexed by Google yet.”
- Clear need: Get Google to index quickly, build a solid foundation, and get at least 50 keywords into the top 50.
- Budget focus on technical optimization and basic content.
Scenario B: Have traffic, but poor conversion rate
- Example statement: “Monthly over 5,000 organic search visitors, but add-to-cart rate is only 1.5%, far below the industry average of 2.8%.”
- Clear need: Improve product page experience, speed up page loading, make copy more compelling, increase trust.
- Budget focus on product page optimization and content quality.
Scenario C: Traffic for a certain category won’t go up
- Example statement: “Overall site traffic grew 40%, but Category A (accounting for 35% of GMV) keywords have been stuck at positions 11-20, not reaching the first page for 6 months.”
- Clear need: Focus efforts to get 10 keywords for this category onto the first page.
- Budget should lean toward backlink building and content specific to this category.
Tip: Directly share your GA4 and GSC data with the service provider, such as “bounce rate >70%” or “average dwell time <1 minute," so they can provide solutions.
Talk to Multiple Providers and Compare
Don’t just hear from one provider—compare at least 3 different types of companies (freelancers, small companies, large agencies).
Data shows this can help 70% of buyers save 10%-25% of their money.
Detail level of proposals:
Don’t just listen to vague terms like “keyword optimization”—look for specifics: how many keywords are optimized (for example, 50, with a list?), how many product pages (for example, 30 SKUs?), how many blog posts per month (for example, 4 posts × 1,200 words)
Who is the team doing the work?
Clarify: Is it student freelancers or experienced professionals? How many years of e-commerce SEO experience does the project manager have? (3+ years is qualified) Is communication responsive? (Can they respond within 4 hours for urgent matters?)
Reasonable staffing is typically: 1 project manager + half-time content writer + half-time technical person
Case studies should be from the same industry and verifiable
- Phrases like “traffic increased 200%” cannot be trusted. Be specific about:
- Which industry?
- What was the original traffic? How long did it take?
- What was done? (For example, “Mother and baby site: non-brand traffic increased 65% in 6 months, with focus on redesigning category navigation + batch optimizing long-tail pages”)
Quotation details should be clear
For example: “Your website has many technical issues, add ¥2,500/month for technical work,” or “You want 5 additional blog posts monthly, content fee +¥9,000/month.”
Ask Detailed Questions About Services
Be clear about every detail, especially these key points:
Keyword related:
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“Can you provide a draft keyword list for the first three months? Does it include estimated search volume and difficulty?”
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“How do you monitor rankings? What proportion are in Top 10/Top 20? How often are reports delivered? What tools are used?”
Content related:
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“What specific points are revised in product descriptions? How many SKUs can be optimized per month?”
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“Who decides on blog topics? How many rounds of outline review? How many revisions allowed? Are original charts included? Is there an extra charge?”
Technical related:
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“What is the website speed target? For example, improving from 4.2 seconds to under 2.5 seconds? What testing tools are used?”
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“How many technical issues are fixed monthly? Does it include server optimization?”
Backlink related (most commonly misrepresented):
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“Does the monthly fee include backlinks? How many per month? What is the minimum quality standard? (For example, DR > 40, monthly traffic > 5,000)”
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“Can I approve each backlink before it’s placed? How to avoid spam sites? Absolutely no PBN black-hat links!”
Communication and reporting:
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“What data is included in monthly reports? For example, core keyword rankings, brand/non-brand traffic, page indexing count, deliverables checklist?”
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“How often do we communicate? (Recommended every two weeks) How quickly are urgent issues responded to? (Email within 24 hours, phone within 4 hours)”
Make Contracts Clear to Protect Yourself
Verbal agreements don’t count—put everything in writing!
Key contract contents include:
Scope of Work (SOW): Clearly state all tasks for each month, for example:
- “Optimize no fewer than 25 SKU product pages per month (including titles, meta, internal links)”
- “Write ≥3 original blog posts per month, each ≥1,200 words, topics must be confirmed, client has review rights”
- “Deliver one report monthly including keyword rankings, organic traffic changes, and work completed”
Performance standards (not recommended to directly tie to rankings or traffic):
- For example: “Monthly product page optimization completion rate ≥90%”
- Or: “Each backlink must meet quality standards (DR≥40, relevance ≥80%)”
Fees and payment methods:
- Clearly state total monthly fee (¥XX,XXX), payment due date
- Extra fees must specify trigger conditions, for example “¥1,500 per additional blog post”
Contract term and termination:
Clearly state start/end dates, auto-renewal terms (such as written notice 30 days in advance)
Early termination must specify compensation rules, for example, maximum compensation of 2 months’ fees
Intellectual property ownership: All content created by SEO (text, images) belongs to you!
Data confidentiality: For example, GA4, order data—can only be used for SEO analysis, not to be leaked externally
Liability limitations: Even if the other party makes mistakes, maximum compensation is only 1-3 months of service fees
