Your Content Budget Is Either Too Small or Totally Untracked
I see two extremes.
Companies spending $500/month on content and wondering why it doesn't move the needle.
And companies spending $50,000/month with absolutely no idea what they're getting for it.
Both are bad. Let's find the sweet spot.
The Minimum Effective Dose
Here's the truth nobody wants to hear: good content costs money.
A well-researched, properly optimized, 2,000-word blog post from a skilled writer costs $300-800. Minimum. If you're paying $25 for a blog post from a content mill, you're getting what you pay for.
rolls eyes
For most small to mid-size businesses, a realistic starting budget is $2,000-5,000 per month. That gets you 4-8 quality pieces, some basic promotion, and room for tools.
Where to Allocate
Content creation: 50-60%. Writers, editors, designers. This is the core.
Tools and tech: 10-15%. SEO tools, CMS, analytics, project management.
Promotion: 20-25%. Social ads, email, outreach. Content that nobody sees is content that doesn't exist.
Strategy and management: 10-15%. Someone needs to run this operation.
The ROI Question
Track every dollar. Know your cost per piece, cost per lead from content, and content-attributed revenue.
When you can prove content ROI and show that $1 in content generates $5 in revenue, budget conversations become very easy.
Start With the Right Foundation
Before you spend a dime on content, make sure you have a system to ensure quality. SEO Checkup is free, sets up in 30 seconds, and gives you 113 tasks across 4 checklists.
No credit card. No excuses. And don't forget the free tools -- Google Analytics and Search Console cost nothing and cover a huge chunk of your analytics needs.
Spend smart. Track everything. Scale what works.