There’s something about the word “cheap” that makes people feel clever. Like they’ve beaten the system. Outwitted the market. Snuck past the guards with a shiny deal clutched under their coat.
But in SEO, cheap usually means one thing: trouble. The sort of trouble that arrives quietly, sticks around far too long, and starts costing you more than you saved.
We’ve seen it. Over and over again. A business owner can hire The Best SEO freelancer for £99 a month. “We’ll get you on page one,” they say. “No contracts. Instant results.”
And then the spell begins.
What You Actually Get for £99
Let’s be clear: good SEO takes time. It needs skill, thought, and an expert consultant in SEO who doesn’t treat content like filler between adverts.
Now imagine trying to do all that for less than the cost of a half-decent pub lunch. You can’t. Not properly. So what do you actually get?
Spammy backlinks
Thousands of links. All from websites no one visits. Most ending in .info, .xyz, or something that sounds like a dodgy nightclub.
They say, “These links will boost your ranking.” What they don’t say is, “Until Google finds out and gives you a quiet little penalty.”
Copy that reads like a bad instruction manual
You’ll get blog posts that look like writing. Sentences, punctuation, paragraphs – all present. But the soul? Gone. And the grammar? Wobbling.
Often written by someone who’s never been to your country, used your service, or understood the difference between a plumber and a pipe dream.
Broken promises and vanished rankings
They’ll show you fancy reports. Charts. Shiny arrows pointing upwards.
What they won’t show you is how the clicks are all from bots, or how you’re now ranking for things you don’t even offer – like “cheap used tractors in Wales” when you sell curtains in Kent.
The Hidden Cost of Fixing It
Bad SEO is like hiring a builder who installs a toilet on the roof and tells you it’s “innovative.”
At first, it seems like a bargain.
Later, you need someone to rip it all out, patch the damage, and put things back where they belong.
Here’s what you might have to fix:
- Cleaning up spammy links
- Rewriting pages that make no sense
- Rebuilding a site that was never finished properly
- Explaining to Google that, no, you don’t run a blog about cryptocurrency in Azerbaijan
And while you’re fixing all this, your proper customers are going elsewhere. Usually to someone who didn’t cut corners.
Why People Still Fall for It
Because SEO is invisible. It lives in code, on pages, in places most people don’t look.
It’s not like a broken tap or a burnt steak. You don’t know something’s wrong until it’s very wrong. And by then, the damage is done.
Cheap SEO sellers know this. That’s why they rely on:
- Big promises
- Vague answers
- Monthly reports full of fluff and graphs with no labels
It’s smoke and mirrors. But when you’re busy running a business, you don’t always have time to check behind the curtain.
What Good SEO Looks Like
Let’s be honest. Good SEO isn’t always fast. And it’s not always flashy.
But it does look like this:
- Pages that are clear and useful
- Content that sounds like a human wrote it (preferably one who knows what a comma is for)
- Links from websites that actually relate to your business
- A steady rise in visitors who might actually buy something
- No nasty surprises from Google
It takes time. It takes work. But it works.
The Bottom Line
If you’re paying less than you would for a weekly shop, chances are you’re not buying SEO. You’re buying a mess with a polite smile.
And once you’ve picked through the damage, you’ll wish you’d hired someone who charged more – and knew what they were doing.
So next time someone offers “cheap SEO,” remember this:
There’s only one thing worse than paying too much for SEO.
It’s paying too little.
