SEO questions, answered straight
What each service costs, how long SEO takes, what we need from you, and what nobody can promise. If yours isn’t here, ask us on a free call.
SEO and AI search questions.
How much does SEO cost?
Technical SEO is a flat $1,000: we audit the site and make the fixes. Monthly SEO is from $399 a month for one site in one market, and grows with the pages, markets and languages you want. Paid ads management is from $499 a month, plus the ad spend you pay Google directly. No setup fees.
Is SEO still worth it with AI answers?
Yes, and it is now two jobs. Assistants that answer with sources search the web first, so pages that rank are in the running. But most pages cited in Google’s AI Overviews don’t rank in the top ten, so being quoted takes its own work: clear answers, facts a model can lift, and mentions on sites it trusts.
How long does SEO take to work?
Technical fixes usually show within weeks. New pages take three to six months to settle into their position, and AI citations tend to follow once a page ranks and is mentioned elsewhere. In the first month we set a target for each page and report against it every Monday.
Do you guarantee the first position?
No one honest can: Google and the AI assistants decide. We guarantee the work, a plain report on what changed, and an easy exit. The audit is a one-off fee, and monthly SEO and paid ads are month to month after the first three months.
Do you buy links?
No. Paid links break Google’s spam policies and can cost you the rankings they were meant to win. We earn links and mentions with stories, data and expert comment that editors want to cite.
What do you need from us?
Access to Search Console, your analytics and your CMS, and one person who can approve a page within a week. We handle the rest.
Pricing and contracts questions.
Which one do I need?
Technical SEO if the site has problems you can feel: pages missing from Google, traffic that fell after a redesign, slow pages. Monthly SEO if the site is sound and you want to rank for more searches and be named in AI answers. Paid ads if you need customers this month, while rankings build. Not sure? Book a call and we will say which, even if the answer is none of them.
Are there setup fees?
No. The technical SEO audit is a flat $1,000, all in. Monthly SEO and paid ads start with the first month’s fee, and setting up paid ads is part of the first month.
Can I cancel?
The audit is a one-off, so there is nothing to cancel. Monthly SEO and paid ads run for three months to start, then month to month with a month’s notice.
Can I combine them?
Yes, and it often makes sense: the audit first, then monthly SEO, with paid ads covering the searches you don’t rank for yet. Each is priced on its own, so you only pay for what you use.
Technical SEO questions.
What is a technical SEO audit?
A check of everything that decides whether search engines can find, read and trust your pages: crawling, indexing, speed, mobile rendering, redirects and structured data. Ours ends with the fixes made, not a PDF of problems.
Why a flat fee?
So you know the cost before we start. Most sites fail in the same handful of ways, and our own tools find them fast. Sites over 10,000 URLs, or in several languages, get a fixed quote on the call instead.
Do you make the fixes, or only list them?
We make them on WordPress, Shopify, Webflow and most hosted platforms. On a custom build we write each fix as a ticket your developers can ship, then check it once it is live.
How long does it take?
Three weeks: one to crawl and audit, one to fix, and one to check the fixes in Search Console and walk you through the report.
When will rankings improve?
Pages that were missing from Google often appear within weeks of being fixed. Speed and structure changes take longer to settle. We can’t promise a position, but you see exactly what changed and what we would do next.
Do I need monthly SEO afterwards?
No. Some sites only need the foundations fixed. If you want to keep climbing, monthly SEO picks up where the audit ends.
Monthly SEO questions.
What do I get for $399 a month?
Technical monitoring, with anything that breaks fixed the same week. Two pages a month, new or rewritten from real searches. Google Business Profile and local SEO. 25 customer questions tracked in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot. The Monday report: positions, clicks, AI citations and what shipped. For one site in one market. Three months to start, then month to month with a month’s notice.
What makes the price go up?
More pages a month, More markets and languages, Digital PR, More questions tracked, Site migrations. We agree the price before we start, and it doesn’t change without your say.
Is there a contract?
Three months to start, because that is the least time SEO needs to show. After that it is month to month, with a month’s notice.
Can you get us cited by AI assistants?
We can raise the odds, not promise it: nobody controls what a model says. We track your customers’ questions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot and Google’s AI Overviews every week, so you see when you are cited, by which assistant, and what changed.
What is in the Monday report?
Positions for your target searches, clicks from Search Console, which questions cite you in which AI assistant, what we shipped that week and what comes next. One page, in plain words.
Should I start with the technical SEO audit?
Only if the site has a backlog of problems. Monthly SEO includes technical monitoring and fixes as they come up; a site with years of issues is quicker to clear with the flat-fee audit first. We will tell you which on the call.
Paid ads questions.
What does $499 a month cover?
Managing up to $5,000 a month of ad spend across Google, Microsoft and Meta: tracking, campaigns, weekly tuning, monthly tests and the Monday report. Above $5,000 of spend, the fee is 10% of what you spend.
Is the ad spend included?
No. You pay Google, Microsoft or Meta directly, on your own card, so you can see every cent. We never mark it up or pass it through our books.
How much should we spend on ads?
Enough to buy a few leads a week at the price your searches cost, so there is something to learn from. We work out that figure from Google’s own keyword data on the call, before you commit to anything.
How soon will we get leads?
Search ads can bring enquiries in the first week they run. The first month is for learning which searches and ads bring the cheapest leads; from then on we cut what wastes money and spend more on what works.
Should we run ads or do SEO?
Ads rent a place at the top for as long as you pay; SEO earns one that keeps working. Most businesses start ads for the searches they can’t rank for yet, and spend less on them as the rankings come.
Who owns the ad account?
You do. We work in accounts in your name, so the campaigns, tracking and history stay yours if you ever leave.
Ask us anything.
Book a free 30-minute SEO call with the strategist who would do the work. You leave with the three fixes we’d make first, whether you hire us or not.