What determines your SEO investment
SEO pricing depends on the nature of the challenge more than on company size alone. Five variables drive scope and price:
- Geographic reach and active assets: the number of markets you operate in, and the communities, floor plans, inventory pages and local profiles you manage.
- Technical footprint and platform: the website’s overall condition, its CMS platform, the variety of page templates and the maturity of your analytics.
- Internal resources: how much execution and development capacity your in-house team has, balanced against the level of senior strategic guidance you need.
- Content and media requirements: how much original content is needed and how large your photo, video and floor plan libraries are. Our scalable content strategy work is scoped from this.
- Market conditions: local competition and any implementation requirements specific to your markets.
A single-market builder with a capable marketing team may need only high-level strategic direction. A multi-market builder managing dozens of active communities and floor plans needs a much larger operational effort.
Our four pricing tiers
Link Socially offers three ongoing tiers in which our team does the work, plus a leadership-only option for builders whose own team executes.
Foundation: $3,500 per month
Best for a single-market builder that needs a strong SEO foundation and ongoing support. Typical scope: technical audit and priorities, community and floor plan structure, local SEO and Google Business Profile guidance, core non-branded content priorities, internal linking, monthly reporting and direct senior strategy.
Growth: $6,500 per month
Best for builders managing multiple communities. Includes Foundation capabilities plus scalable content governance, market and keyword intelligence, non-branded expansion, an internal-link program, AI search visibility, forecasting and roadmap management.
Market Leader: $10,000 per month
Best for regional or multi-market builders. Includes Growth capabilities plus entity and authority engineering, multi-market prioritization, large-scale technical initiatives, image optimization strategy, advanced SEO forecasting, roadmap ownership and quarterly senior strategy sessions.
Fractional Head of SEO: $9,000 to $12,000 per month
Best for builders with capable internal marketing, content and development teams that need senior SEO ownership rather than more execution capacity. Scope may include roadmap ownership, prioritization, technical direction, content governance, team coordination, executive reporting, forecasting and implementation QA.
How Fractional Head of SEO differs from Market Leader
Market Leader and Fractional Head of SEO cost about the same, but they buy different things. Market Leader includes Link Socially’s team doing the work alongside senior strategy. Fractional Head of SEO is leadership only: Cristobal Varela owns the roadmap, priorities and standards, and your in-house team and vendors carry out the work.
| What differs | Market Leader | Fractional Head of SEO |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly investment | $10,000 | $9,000 to $12,000 |
| Who does the work | Link Socially’s team | Your in-house team and vendors |
| What Link Socially provides | Senior strategy plus technical, content, authority and forecasting execution | Roadmap ownership, priorities, standards, release QA and executive reporting |
| Best for | Regional or multi-market builders that need more hands | Builders with capable teams that need a senior owner |
Which tier fits your builder
The right tier depends mostly on how many communities and markets you manage and how much of the work your own team can do.
One community, one market
Start by deciding whether an ongoing engagement is necessary. A focused audit, a local SEO engagement or the Foundation program may be more appropriate than a large recurring scope.
Multiple communities, one metro
Growth is designed for builders coordinating several communities while expanding non-branded visibility, content governance, internal linking and measurement.
Multiple markets or a national footprint
Market Leader addresses technical scale, market differences, authority, content systems and internal coordination across a larger footprint.
If you already have an in-house marketing team
Fractional Head of SEO is designed for teams that need senior ownership of strategy, prioritization, measurement and implementation quality. To weigh it against hiring, compare an SEO agency with in-house SEO.
How our contract terms work
Ongoing Link Socially engagements begin with a six-month initial term. After that initial period, the engagement continues month to month with 30 days’ notice.
The six-month period gives the work enough time to establish a baseline, implement meaningful changes, allow search engines to process those changes, and begin measuring whether visibility is moving in the expected direction.
It does not mean every SEO objective will be completed within six months. More competitive or complex programs can require additional time.
What every engagement is measured by
Every Link Socially engagement is measured in the order results arrive: visibility first, then visits, then inquiries and tours. Reporting in that sequence shows early progress honestly without treating rankings as revenue.
- Visibility: non-branded impressions and rankings for the markets, communities and floor plans that matter to you.
- Clicks: visits from search to community, floor plan and quick move-in pages.
- Inquiries and tours: form submissions, calls, appointment requests and tours, and contracts where your CRM can connect them to search.
Two checks run across all three. Non-branded growth is reported separately from branded search, so you can see whether buyers who did not know your name are finding you. And each month’s results are compared with the forecast set at the start, so the roadmap adjusts to evidence. Our SEO reporting and forecasting service explains how those forecasts are built.
What’s included in every ongoing engagement
Every ongoing Link Socially engagement includes direct senior SEO involvement, a defined roadmap, ongoing performance measurement, implementation guidance, and clear visibility into what is being worked on and why.
Depending on the engagement level, the work may include technical SEO, market and keyword intelligence, content governance, local SEO, internal linking, entity and authority development, AI search visibility, forecasting and implementation QA, drawn from our home builder SEO services.
Reporting is built around business-relevant outcomes rather than rankings alone.
What’s not included
Link Socially is focused on organic search strategy, implementation and measurement. Unless specifically included in a proposal, standard engagements do not include paid media management, complete website development, CRM implementation, listing portal management, professional photography, large-scale video production, sales-team management, social media management or advertising media spend.
Some of these functions may need to collaborate with SEO. Collaboration does not automatically make them part of the engagement.
Who Link Socially is not for
Link Socially is not the right fit for every builder. We are unlikely to be a good fit if your organization cannot implement meaningful website changes, if the only outcome you want is a monthly ranking report, or if you are looking for guaranteed positions or guaranteed timelines.
Very small single-community builders may also be better served by a focused audit or local SEO project instead of a full ongoing program.
The best fit is a builder that wants organic search to become a measurable growth channel and has the internal ability, or the willingness, to act on the work required to get there.
One-time projects
One-time projects suit builders that need a diagnosis or a plan but will carry out the work themselves.
Technical SEO audits
A standalone technical SEO audit is a complete technical diagnosis, delivered as one package, for builders whose own team or web vendor will make the fixes. It goes deeper than the technical baseline included in the Foundation tier, which our team then works through month by month.
| Audit level | Best for | What’s included | Investment | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Focused Audit | One market, or one specific problem such as indexing, page speed, or a post-migration check | Crawl and indexation, page templates, page speed, structured data, and a prioritized fix list | $7,500–$12,000 | 3–4 weeks |
| Comprehensive Audit | Builders with multiple communities or metros | Everything in Focused, plus server log analysis, rendering and AI crawler access, inventory and quick move-in URL handling, internal linking, and a working session with your developers | $15,000–$25,000 | 4–6 weeks |
| Enterprise Audit | National builders, multiple domains or divisions, or platform migrations | Custom scope | From $25,000, quoted to scope | Set during scoping |
Price depends on the number of communities and URLs, the number of markets and domains, your website platform, how inventory and quick move-in homes are published, and whether legal or compliance review applies to site changes. Scope and fees are confirmed in a written proposal before work begins.
Other one-time projects
Market research, migration reviews and strategic roadmaps are scoped individually. Scope, deliverables, implementation responsibilities and fees are agreed in a written proposal.
