How Much Does a Small Business Website Cost in 2026?
Real 2026 price ranges for DIY builders, freelancers, and agencies — plus the five features worth paying for and the three that aren't.
Read articleNow booking this month's builds — limited slots
Your customers search. We make you the answer.
Tim's SEO Lab builds fast, search-first websites and runs the SEO, content, and GEO programs that put small businesses in front of buyers — on Google and inside AI answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.
Websites from $1,000
Month-to-month SEO
30-day money-back
94Score
Search visibilityUpdated 4 min ago
Core Web Vitals ✓
Indexing ✓
Schema ✓
0 critical issues
Organic clicks · last 30 days
▲ 38.2%
"plumber near me" — Google positionPage 1 · moved #18 → #4 in 5 months
▲ Top 5
AI answer: "best HVAC repair in Plano"Brand cited by 3 of 4 AI engines
New
Blog: "water heater sizes explained"Published · 1,240 visits this month
+38%
0Websites built & optimized
0Keywords ranking in Google top 10
0Avg. organic traffic lift in 6 months
0Avg. Lighthouse score of our builds
Trusted by local & e-commerce brands
Northside Dental
Harbor & Hart Law
PeakForm Fitness
BLUEWATER
Casa Verde Café
Sterling Books
Sound familiar?
Great business. Shame about the invisibility.
Every client on this page told us the same thing before they hired us. Which one sounds like your last 30 days?
01
Page 5 of Google
Most clicks go to the top three results. If you're not there, your competitors are collecting customers who searched for exactly what you sell.
02
AI answers skip you
ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews now recommend businesses. If they can't understand your site, you don't exist in the newest search results.
03
A slow, dated website
Visitors bail in three seconds on a slow page — and Google notices. Every extra second of load time quietly bleeds rankings and sales.
04
Content that goes nowhere
A blog last updated in 2022 tells customers — and search engines — that you've gone quiet. Publishing without strategy is just expensive diary-keeping.
05
Agency math that doesn't work
$5K retainers, 12-month contracts, and reports full of jargon. Your "account manager" juggles 30 brands and answers in a week.
06
The DIY time sink
Nights and weekends lost to page builders and plugin conflicts. You didn't start a business to become an unpaid webmaster.
You didn't start a business to fight an algorithm. Here's how we take over →
What we do
One lab. Every piece of your search presence.
From the website itself to the content, links, and AI visibility that feed it — engineered to work as one system, not four disconnected vendors.
Website Design & Development
Fast, mobile-first, search-engineered websites from $1,000 — built to pass Core Web Vitals on day one, not patched after launch.
Explore this serviceSEO Growth Program
Keywords, on-page, technical fixes, and link outreach — a month-to-month program that compounds, with deliverables you can actually see.
Explore this serviceContent Marketing & Management
SEO articles, landing pages, and updates — planned from keyword data, written for humans, and managed end-to-end in your CMS.
Explore this serviceLocal SEO
Google Business Profile optimization, reviews, citations, and local landing pages — the map pack is where local buying decisions happen.
Explore this serviceGEO — AI Search Optimization
Get recommended inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews: schema, entity clarity, llms.txt, and monthly AI-visibility tracking.
Explore this serviceTechnical SEO & Audits
A $500 one-time audit that finds what's holding your site back — speed, indexation, crawl traps, schema — plus a prioritized fix roadmap.
Explore this serviceHow it works
From invisible to rankings you can point at.
No six-week discovery theater. Here's exactly what happens after you book the free audit.
Step 1
Free SEO & site audit
A 30-minute call. We map your technical debt, keyword gaps, and the fastest wins — the notes are yours to keep either way.
Step 2
Fix the foundation
Launch a new site from $1,000 — or harden the one you have: speed, schema, indexation, and Core Web Vitals brought up to standard.
Step 3
Run the growth engine
Content, links, local, and GEO programs shipped every month. You approve the plan; we execute and report on it.
Step 4
You watch the graph
A plain-English monthly report — rankings, traffic, leads, AI citations — plus a strategy call to steer the next 30 days.
You own everything
Your domain, your code, your content, your Analytics and Search Console. If we ever part ways, you get a complete handover — files, credentials, documentation — within a week.
Fast first wins
Technical fixes and Google Business Profile improvements typically land within the first 30 days — leading indicators you can check, not promises you can't.
Why Tim's SEO Lab
DIY builder, big agency, or us?
The same search presence, three very different bills — market rates shown are typical 2026 ranges.
| DIY builder | Typical big agency | Tim's SEO Lab | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Website cost | $0–$500/yr + your weekends | $6,000–$35,000 typical build | From $1,000, fixed quote |
| SEO retainer | Not available | $2,500–$5,000/mo average | $600–$1,200/mo |
| Who does the work | You, after work | A junior juggling 20–40 accounts | Founder-led senior team |
| Speed & Core Web Vitals | Whatever the template gives | Often billed as extra | Engineered in from day one |
| AI search (GEO) | Not offered | Rare, and expensive | Dedicated program from $800/mo |
| Reporting | None | Monthly PDF of vanity metrics | Plain English: rankings, traffic, leads, AI citations |
| Ramp-up time | Months of learning curves | 2–4 weeks onboarding | 1–2 weeks |
| Commitment | None | 3–6 month minimums | Month-to-month, cancel anytime |
Results
What "found" looks like on the dashboard.
A few recent engagements. Full case studies with the messy middle included.
Home Services
+212% organic traffic
Site rebuild plus local SEO for a plumbing company: from page 5 to the map pack in 5 months, with 37 keywords in the top 10.
Read the case study
E-commerce
+96% organic revenue
DTC skincare brand: Core Web Vitals all green, 60+ SEO product pages, and product recommendations cited inside two AI engines.
Read the case study
B2B Services
3.4× demo requests
Bookkeeping firm: a 4-posts-a-month content engine plus GEO — now cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity for "virtual bookkeeper" queries.
Read the case studyClient words
Owners who finally show up in search.
"The new site paid for itself in six weeks. We're booking more jobs from Google than from the lead-gen service we were paying $900 a month for."
Derek M.Owner · Plumbing company, Austin TX
"Tim's monthly report is the first marketing report I've ever read twice. Actual numbers, plain English, no jargon. And the traffic line keeps going up."
Priya S.Founder · Skincare brand
"A client told me they picked us because ChatGPT recommended us. That one call covered the GEO fee for a year."
Marcus T.Managing Partner · Bookkeeping firm
"I'd been burned by two agencies before. Month-to-month was what sold me — and month four, we're still here because the numbers work."
Jenna R.Owner · Dental practice
Pricing
Senior work at boutique prices.
Websites from $1,000 one-time. Ongoing growth programs from $600/month. Month-to-month, no setup fees, 30-day money-back on your first month.
Launch
A fast, search-first website that makes you look as good as you are.
$1,000one-time, from
Fixed quote before we start. Live in ~3 weeks.
See what's included- Up to 5 pages, mobile-first design
- On-page SEO + schema foundation
- Core Web Vitals engineered to pass
- Analytics & Search Console set up
- You own everything, always
Most popular
Grow
Ongoing SEO, content, local, and GEO programs that compound every month.
$600/mo starting
Local SEO $600 · SEO Growth $1,200 · GEO $800 · Content $1,200.
Compare growth plans- Named deliverables every month
- Plain-English monthly report + strategy call
- AI-visibility (GEO) tracking available
- Month-to-month — no lock-in contracts
- 30-day money-back on month one
From the lab
Field notes on search, straight from practice.
The same playbooks we run for clients — pricing guides, local SEO checklists, and GEO explainers. No fluff, no jargon.
What Is GEO? How to Show Up in AI Answers
ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews already recommend businesses. How generative engines pick who to cite — and the steps that get you in.
Read articleThe Local SEO Checklist: 15 Steps to the Map Pack
The exact order we set up Google Business Profile, citations, reviews, and local pages for service businesses — with the mistakes that cost rankings.
Read articleFAQ
The questions every owner asks.
Our websites start at $1,000 for a five-page launch site. Most small businesses land between $1,000 and $2,500 depending on page count, copywriting, and integrations like booking or e-commerce. You get a fixed quote before we start — no hourly surprises.
Honestly: SEO is a compounding investment, not a light switch. Technical fixes and Google Business Profile wins often show within 30–60 days. Meaningful ranking and traffic movement typically lands in 3–6 months, depending on competition. We show you leading indicators — indexation, impressions, Core Web Vitals — from month one, and every plan is month-to-month, so you stay because it's working, not because a contract says so.
No — and you should run from anyone who does. Search rankings are controlled by search engines, and no honest provider can guarantee a position. What we guarantee is the process: named deliverables every month, senior-level work, and a 30-day money-back guarantee on your first month.
GEO gets your business recommended inside AI answers — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. We make your site easy for AI engines to understand and cite: clean structure and schema, consistent entity information, llms.txt, content that answers real questions, and monthly tracking of where and how you're mentioned. It's the fastest-moving opportunity in search right now.
Completely. You own the domain, the code, the content, and every account we set up — Analytics, Search Console, hosting. If we ever part ways, you get a full handover with files, credentials, and documentation within a week.
Yes. Many clients keep their current site and start with a $500 SEO audit. We fix speed, structure, and indexation issues on what you have, and only recommend a rebuild if it's genuinely the cheaper path. If you do need a new site, we migrate everything with proper redirects so you keep the rankings you've earned.
Ready to be found?
Book a free 30-minute SEO & website audit. We'll show you exactly what's holding your site back — and the notes are yours to keep either way.
No contracts
30-day money-back
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