Let’s start from the beginning. Most of the smaller companies try to do SEO themselves. Somewhere between the marketing and the IT, there is this SEO task, bounced frequently in between. Like a hot potato. No one is really sure what to do, and has absolutely no time for it. So after the initial internal effort that did not result in the desired changes in your ranking here are two avenues:

a) Keep SEO in house
b) Hire a SEO company

We all want cheap SEO so the obvious choice is to keep your SEO tasks in house. You will need:
SEO Training – do not expect to have a SEO knowledge in the company that never did any SEO.
SEO Tools – As you would buy tools for any other tasks, you will need a budget for a list of tools. IBP, WebCEO, iSnare, and similar will each help you do a task.
Links Purchase – Yahoo at $299 is where you start and Best of the web and similar is where you continue spending.

That was a cheap SEO option. Now add the time you or your staff will spend on it, and get the real cost, of our all of the sudden not so cheap SEO!

Outsource your SEO – bring in the professionals

It might seem expensive at first, but anyone who have tried to do SEO internally will understand that outsourced SEO is actually a truly cheap SEO.

Most of the SEO provides fall into the following three groups:

Marketing Agencies (€10,000 per month)
Their marketing experience is usually the biggest, but might not really be related to online marketing at all. Double check their online experience and if they actually have SEO staff internally or are just outsourcing the SEO tasks to external freelancers. Their price range cuts off start-ups and small companies.

SEO Companies (€1,000 to €10,000 per month)
Those are usually companies who had an extremely good SEO guru, who trained a team around him. They will in general do more for you than the big companies, since the founder / owner is still doing SEO or at least training SEO internal staff. There is a pride involved, and those companies will show off with the high rankings of your (clients) site (free PR!).

SEO Professionals (€500 to €1,500 per month)
Mostly students and ex web developers in that price range of cheap SEO. Do not rule them out since some of them will generate good results. The general rule is that the smaller your SEO provider is the more will you have to ask about the relevant experience and RESULTS in similar or same geographical markets and industries.

Ask for results, ask for references and ask for their plan of action.

When you compare the cost of in house SEO and outsourced SEO – what one would you call The Cheap SEO?