What Does SEO Cost a Trades Business in NI?

Short answer: there’s no single price, because no two trades need the same work. What you’ll pay depends on where you’re starting and how much of NI you want to cover. A good agency quotes for what your business actually needs rather than selling one fixed package, and tracks the calls so you can see it working.

If you’ve never bought this kind of work before, and most plumbers and heating engineers haven’t, this is the plain-English version, with no “page one of Google” nonsense.

Why is there no fixed price?

Because it isn’t one product. It’s Google Business Profile work, reviews, website pages and technical fixes, and how much of each you need differs hugely. A firm with a tidy website and 80 reviews needs far less work than one starting from a half-finished Google listing and no site at all. Anyone quoting you the exact same package as the next plumber isn’t really looking at your business.

What changes what you’ll pay?

• Where you’re starting. A claimed, half-decent Google listing is a smaller job than building everything from scratch.
• How many areas you cover. A one-van plumber in BT4 needs less than a six-engineer firm covering Belfast, Lisburn and Bangor.
• How competitive your work is. Emergency Belfast plumbing is more contested than rural oil-boiler servicing.
• Whether you need a new website as well as the Google work.

What to watch out for

Be wary of two things: a cheap fixed “£99 package” (almost always too little to do real work), and a vague quote with no list of what you actually get. A straight agency tells you exactly what it’ll do each month and shows you the real enquiries coming in.

What you should actually be paying for

Whatever the figure, you should be paying for results you can see: real enquiries, plain-English reporting, and no long lock-in. If you can’t see the calls and form submissions, you can’t tell whether it’s working.

Before you spend anything, compare it honestly against what you’re already paying for shared leads. We do the maths in is Checkatrade worth it for NI plumbers?.

Book a free 10-minute audit and we’ll tell you, for your business specifically, what would actually get your phone ringing and what it would cost.