What does a big company's SEO team do each month?

A big company's SEO team spends each month researching the words customers type, recording where its pages appear, reading the whole site for errors, writing and updating pages, studying competitors and reporting results. O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, lists tasks for this role such as collecting website numbers like visits and click-through rates, and working with developers so search engines can read every page.

How much does Semrush cost in 2026?

Semrush's SEO plan cost $139 a month billed monthly, or $117.33 a month billed annually, on its pricing page on 27 September 2026. The Starter plan with AI search listed at $199, Pro+ at $299 and Advanced at $549 a month billed monthly, and Semrush says annual billing saves up to 17%. Advanced adds 40 websites to monitor and 5,000 keywords to track daily.

How much does Ahrefs cost in 2026?

Ahrefs listed its Lite plan at $129 a month on 27 September 2026, with Standard at $249, Advanced at $449 and Enterprise at $1,499 a month. These are the prices for monthly billing, and the Enterprise plan requires an annual commitment. Ahrefs sells tools for competitor research, keyword research, rank tracking and site audits, which large search teams use every day.

How much does Moz Pro cost?

Moz Pro Standard cost $99 a month paid monthly, or $79 a month paid yearly, on Moz's pricing page on 27 September 2026, with $950 billed for the first year. Medium listed at $179 a month and Large at $299 a month when paid monthly. Moz describes the Standard plan as one for small businesses that need the basics of SEO.

Is Screaming Frog free?

Screaming Frog's SEO Spider is free for up to 500 URLs, which are web addresses, usually one for each page. A licence cost £199 per user per year on its pricing page on 27 September 2026, and it removes that limit and adds advanced features. The program reads every page of a site the way a search engine does and lists errors such as broken links and missing titles.

How much do AI visibility tools like Profound cost?

Profound publishes no price for its brand plans: on 27 September 2026 its pricing page showed a free Trial and an Enterprise plan with custom pricing. Tools of this kind show how a brand and its competitors appear when people ask AI assistants for recommendations. Without a public price, a small business learns the cost of Profound only through a sales conversation.

Can SEO tools see Google's own ranking data?

SEO tools cannot see Google's own ranking data. Google says third-party tools have no access to its internal ranking data and cannot guarantee performance, and it encourages every site owner to use its free Google Search Console, whose data comes directly from Google Search. Paid tools estimate search numbers across the web, while Search Console reports what Google recorded for your own site.

Does a small business need Semrush or Ahrefs?

A small business can start SEO without Semrush or Ahrefs, because Google says a small local business can probably do much of its SEO work itself, beginning with the SEO Starter Guide. Free tools cover the basics: Google Search Console shows the real searches and clicks, and a Google Business Profile costs nothing. The paid tools are built for teams that follow many sites and competitors.

Which big-company SEO tasks matter for a small business?

The big-company SEO tasks that matter most for a small business are the local basics: accurate business details, a clear page for each service, reviews and a complete Google Business Profile. In Licheo's retired audit of 66 websites chosen by the visitors who tested them, 47 had no LocalBusiness schema, the labels in the page code that tell search engines a business's name, address and hours.

Are SEO tools cheaper if you pay yearly?

Yes, several SEO tools charge less per month when paid yearly. On 27 September 2026, Semrush's SEO plan was $139 a month billed monthly or $117.33 billed annually, and Semrush says annual billing saves up to 17%. Moz Pro Standard was $99 a month paid monthly or $79 paid yearly. Ahrefs Enterprise, at $1,499 a month, requires an annual commitment.

What a big company's search team does each month, and what its tools cost

Every task on an enterprise search team's list, the list price of each tool behind it on 27 September 2026, and the tasks a small business needs from that list.

See if customers can find you

A big company's search team researches the words customers type, tracks where its pages appear, reads its whole site for errors, writes and updates pages, and reports each month. On 27 September 2026 Semrush listed its Advanced plan at $549 a month and Ahrefs its Enterprise plan at $1,499 a month. A small business needs a few of these tasks, and free Google tools cover many of them.

Who is on a big company's search team?

In a large company, the search work is shared between several people. A search specialist plans it and reads the results. Writers produce the pages and the articles. Web developers change the site's code when a problem appears. An analyst builds the monthly report, and a marketing manager decides what comes first next month.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows what each of those people is paid. In May 2025 the median annual wage was $92,650 for web developers, $76,910 for writers and authors, and $166,790 for marketing managers. The search specialist belongs to the group the Bureau calls market research analysts and marketing specialists, with a median of $78,760 a year. Our page on big-company marketing sets out the whole team, and its pay, in one table.

O*NET, the occupation database of the U.S. Department of Labor, describes the search specialist's job as using search marketing tactics to increase the visibility of a company's content, products or services. The list in the next section turns that description into the tasks the team works through each month.

The monthly work, line by line

Here are the tasks a large company's search team works through each month, each one with its plain meaning. O*NET's task list for the search role names several of them directly, including collecting website numbers such as visits, time on the site and click-through rates, preparing text, images and video for search engines, and working with developers on how the site is built.

Keyword research: finding the exact words customers type when they look for what the company sells, and how often they type them. Paid tools estimate these numbers, and Google Search Console shows the real searches that already bring visitors to the site.
Rank tracking: recording each day where the company's pages appear in Google for a chosen list of searches. Semrush's Advanced plan, for example, includes 5,000 keywords to track daily and 40 websites to monitor.
Site crawling: running a program that reads every page of the site, the way a search engine does, and lists broken links, missing titles and pages that cannot be read.
Content planning and writing: planning each new page or article, writing it, and updating older pages whose facts have gone out of date.
Link research: listing the other websites that link to the company and to its competitors, and asking suppliers, partners and the press for new links.
Competitor research: following what competing companies publish and which searches they appear for.
AI visibility tracking: checking whether the company is named when people ask AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Google's AI Overviews for a recommendation.
Technical fixes: working with developers so that the site loads fast, works on phones and can be read by search engines.
Reporting: gathering clicks, visits and enquiries into a monthly report for the managers, with the reasons behind each change.

The paid tools and their list prices

Each task above has software built for it, and a large team can pay for several of these subscriptions at the same time. The table shows the list prices that each vendor published on its own pricing page on 27 September 2026. Prices are in US dollars unless marked otherwise, and the list price column shows the price when billed month by month.

Two more points help in reading it. Semrush describes its Pro+ plan as made for teams working across multiple markets, locations or websites, and Moz describes its Standard plan as one for small businesses that need the basics of SEO. The vendors, in other words, say themselves which plans are for large teams.

Paid SEO tool list prices, from each vendor's own pricing page on 27 September 2026. US dollars unless marked; Screaming Frog is priced in British pounds.
Tool and plan	What it is used for	List price	Other terms
Semrush SEO	Keyword research, rank tracking, site checks and competitor research	$139 a month	$117.33 a month if billed annually
Semrush Starter (SEO + AI Search)	The SEO plan's work plus tracking in AI search	$199 a month	$165.17 a month if billed annually
Semrush Pro+	Teams working across multiple markets, locations or websites	$299 a month	$248.17 a month if billed annually
Semrush Advanced	Adds 40 websites to monitor and 5,000 keywords to track daily	$549 a month	$455.67 a month if billed annually
Ahrefs Lite	Competitor research, keyword research, rank tracking and site audits; Ahrefs calls it essential data for small businesses and personal projects	$129 a month	Price for monthly billing
Ahrefs Standard	Ahrefs says it is made for freelance SEOs and marketing consultants	$249 a month	Price for monthly billing
Ahrefs Advanced	Ahrefs says it adds more tools and data for small in-house marketing teams	$449 a month	Price for monthly billing
Ahrefs Enterprise	The highest-priced plan Ahrefs lists	$1,499 a month	Annual commitment required
Moz Pro Standard	The basics of SEO for small businesses, in Moz's words	$99 a month	$79 a month paid yearly, $950 billed for the first year
Moz Pro Medium	SEO tools plus tools for AI search	$179 a month	$143 a month paid yearly, $1,719 billed for the first year
Moz Pro Large	SEO and AI search data for larger businesses	$299 a month	$239 a month paid yearly, $2,868 billed for the first year
Screaming Frog SEO Spider	Reads every page of a site and lists errors	£199 per user per year	Free version reads up to 500 URLs
Profound	Shows how a brand and its competitors appear in AI answers	No price published	Free trial; Enterprise is custom-priced
Similarweb	Market and competitor research, including website traffic	No price published	Businesses are asked to contact sales

What the list prices leave out

A list price is where the cost begins. Ahrefs requires an annual commitment for its Enterprise plan at $1,499 a month, so that plan is a yearly contract. Screaming Frog charges £199 per user per year, so each person on the team who uses the program needs a licence. Semrush says that paying yearly saves up to 17%, which suits a company ready to commit for twelve months.

Some vendors publish no price at all. Profound shows a free trial and an Enterprise plan with custom pricing, and Similarweb tells businesses and enterprises to contact its sales team for a custom package. When a price is agreed in a sales call, a small business has no public figure to compare it with.

The tools also need people to act on what they find. A tool reports that many pages have missing titles, and somebody must write each new title. A tool lists the searches a competitor appears for, and somebody must decide which pages to write in reply and then write them. In a large company those people are the salaried team described at the top of this page, and a subscription price never shows their cost.

The free tools that cover part of the same work

Some of the most useful search data costs nothing, because it comes from the search engines themselves. Google Search Console is a free service from Google that helps an owner monitor, maintain and troubleshoot the site's presence in Google Search results. Google encourages every owner to use it, whether or not they buy other tools, because its data comes directly from Google Search.

Bing Webmaster Tools gives the same type of information for Bing. Microsoft says it is free to start, and it describes its tools for search and for AI answers as free. Creating a Google Business Profile is free, and Google Analytics, which counts visits and what visitors do on the site, is free of charge.

One more fact changes how to read the paid tools. Google says third-party tools have no access to its internal ranking data and cannot guarantee performance. The paid tools estimate search numbers across the whole web, and Search Console reports what Google recorded for your own site. For a small business with one website, that free report answers the question that matters most: which searches bring people to your pages, and how often.

Which of these tasks matter for a small business?

Let us go back to the monthly list and sort it honestly for a business with one website, serving one town or running one online shop. The table puts each task next to the smaller version a small business needs.

The tasks a small business needs most are the local basics, and our own records show how often they are missing. When Licheo's retired SEO audit read up to 20 pages on each of 66 websites between 30 December 2025 and 27 August 2026 (Pacific time), 47 had no LocalBusiness schema, the labels in the page code that tell search engines the business name, address and hours. 34 had no section for reviews or testimonials, and 50 showed no sign of being verified in Bing Webmaster Tools. These websites were chosen by the visitors who ran the tool, and by our own team when testing, so the group is self-selected.

Google puts it simply for small local businesses: the owner can probably do much of the work, starting with the SEO Starter Guide. The paid tools are built for teams that follow many sites, many markets and many competitors at once. A business with one website can start without them and put its money into the work itself.

The big-company search tasks and the version a small business needs.
Task	In a big company	For a small business
Keyword research	Paid tools covering many markets	Done at the start and when adding a service; Search Console shows the real searches
Rank tracking	Up to 5,000 phrases a day on Semrush Advanced	A monthly look at the average position of your main searches in Search Console
Site crawling	Regular scans of every page	A check after each change; Screaming Frog's free version reads up to 500 URLs
Content planning and writing	A team of writers	One clear page per service, and articles for the questions customers ask
Link research	Paid link databases	Links from suppliers, partners and local groups the owner already knows
Competitor research	Many competitors across markets	A look at who appears for your main searches
AI visibility tracking	Paid AI tracking tools	Asking an AI assistant for a business like yours, and keeping the Business Profile up to date
Technical fixes	Developers on staff	Fixing what stops a page from loading or being read
Reporting	A monthly report for managers	A short monthly look at clicks, searches and enquiries

How Licheo does this work for a small business

Licheo's agents take the tasks from that list that a small business needs, and do them every month. A team of specialist AI agents builds the website, makes it findable on Google and in AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews, and shapes pages to turn visitors into customers. The owner learns no tools, manages no dashboard, and approves each change before anything goes live.

Put plainly, it is the website, search and AI work that big companies pay whole teams for, done for your small business, without long contracts. Contact us for pricing, or start with the free Get Found Check to see where your site stands today.

Part of a larger guide

This page is one part of Small business SEO. The other parts:

Questions people ask

What does a big company's SEO team do each month?: A big company's SEO team spends each month researching the words customers type, recording where its pages appear, reading the whole site for errors, writing and updating pages, studying competitors and reporting results. O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, lists tasks for this role such as collecting website numbers like visits and click-through rates, and working with developers so search engines can read every page.
How much does Semrush cost in 2026?: Semrush's SEO plan cost $139 a month billed monthly, or $117.33 a month billed annually, on its pricing page on 27 September 2026. The Starter plan with AI search listed at $199, Pro+ at $299 and Advanced at $549 a month billed monthly, and Semrush says annual billing saves up to 17%. Advanced adds 40 websites to monitor and 5,000 keywords to track daily.
How much does Ahrefs cost in 2026?: Ahrefs listed its Lite plan at $129 a month on 27 September 2026, with Standard at $249, Advanced at $449 and Enterprise at $1,499 a month. These are the prices for monthly billing, and the Enterprise plan requires an annual commitment. Ahrefs sells tools for competitor research, keyword research, rank tracking and site audits, which large search teams use every day.
How much does Moz Pro cost?: Moz Pro Standard cost $99 a month paid monthly, or $79 a month paid yearly, on Moz's pricing page on 27 September 2026, with $950 billed for the first year. Medium listed at $179 a month and Large at $299 a month when paid monthly. Moz describes the Standard plan as one for small businesses that need the basics of SEO.
Is Screaming Frog free?: Screaming Frog's SEO Spider is free for up to 500 URLs, which are web addresses, usually one for each page. A licence cost £199 per user per year on its pricing page on 27 September 2026, and it removes that limit and adds advanced features. The program reads every page of a site the way a search engine does and lists errors such as broken links and missing titles.
How much do AI visibility tools like Profound cost?: Profound publishes no price for its brand plans: on 27 September 2026 its pricing page showed a free Trial and an Enterprise plan with custom pricing. Tools of this kind show how a brand and its competitors appear when people ask AI assistants for recommendations. Without a public price, a small business learns the cost of Profound only through a sales conversation.
Can SEO tools see Google's own ranking data?: SEO tools cannot see Google's own ranking data. Google says third-party tools have no access to its internal ranking data and cannot guarantee performance, and it encourages every site owner to use its free Google Search Console, whose data comes directly from Google Search. Paid tools estimate search numbers across the web, while Search Console reports what Google recorded for your own site.
Does a small business need Semrush or Ahrefs?: A small business can start SEO without Semrush or Ahrefs, because Google says a small local business can probably do much of its SEO work itself, beginning with the SEO Starter Guide. Free tools cover the basics: Google Search Console shows the real searches and clicks, and a Google Business Profile costs nothing. The paid tools are built for teams that follow many sites and competitors.
Which big-company SEO tasks matter for a small business?: The big-company SEO tasks that matter most for a small business are the local basics: accurate business details, a clear page for each service, reviews and a complete Google Business Profile. In Licheo's retired audit of 66 websites chosen by the visitors who tested them, 47 had no LocalBusiness schema, the labels in the page code that tell search engines a business's name, address and hours.
Are SEO tools cheaper if you pay yearly?: Yes, several SEO tools charge less per month when paid yearly. On 27 September 2026, Semrush's SEO plan was $139 a month billed monthly or $117.33 billed annually, and Semrush says annual billing saves up to 17%. Moz Pro Standard was $99 a month paid monthly or $79 paid yearly. Ahrefs Enterprise, at $1,499 a month, requires an annual commitment.

Sources

Web Developers and Digital Designers, Occupational Outlook Handbook, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Updated 2026-08-27, accessed 27 September 2026.
Writers and Authors, Occupational Outlook Handbook, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Updated 2026-08-27, accessed 27 September 2026.
Advertising, Promotions, and Marketing Managers, Occupational Outlook Handbook, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Updated 2026-08-27, accessed 27 September 2026.
Market Research Analysts, Occupational Outlook Handbook, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Updated 2026-08-27, accessed 27 September 2026.
Search Marketing Strategists 13-1161.01, O*NET OnLine, O*NET OnLine (U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration), wage data from BLS. Accessed 27 September 2026.
Semrush Plans and Pricing, Semrush. Accessed 27 September 2026.
Ahrefs Plans & pricing, Ahrefs. Accessed 27 September 2026.
Moz Pro pricing, Moz. Accessed 27 September 2026.
SEO Spider Pricing, Screaming Frog. Accessed 27 September 2026.
Profound Pricing, Profound. Accessed 27 September 2026.
Similarweb pricing, Similarweb. Accessed 27 September 2026.
About Search Console, Search Console Help, Google. Accessed 27 September 2026.
Bing Webmaster Tools (about page), Microsoft Bing. Accessed 27 September 2026.
Google Business Profile, Google. Accessed 27 September 2026.
Google Analytics (Google Marketing Platform), Google. Accessed 27 September 2026.
Google Search's guidance on using third-party SEO tools, services, and advice, Google Search Central. Updated 2026-06-05, accessed 27 September 2026.
Do you need an SEO?, Google Search Central. Updated 2026-06-05, accessed 27 September 2026.
What 102 website audits and 215 website checks showed us about small business SEO (Licheo's own records), Licheo. Accessed 27 September 2026.

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