How much do SEO services cost for a small business?
Most agencies quote a small business somewhere between $1,500 and $5,000 a month, and often that covers SEO alone, with the website, the Business Profile and any AI search work billed on top. I do not hand you a number off a shelf. The free audit comes first, then I quote against what your business actually needs: how many services and locations need pages, the state of the current site, and how competitive your city is. One all-in price, no lock-in.
How long does SEO take to work?
Google Business Profile and map pack improvements often move within the first month or two, and lower-competition services and neighborhoods respond early. The crowded head terms every competitor is chasing take longer, usually four to six months before the trend is clear. Any SEO agency promising page one in thirty days is either targeting terms nobody searches or is not being straight with you.
What makes a good SEO agency for a local business?
Ask who will actually do the work on your account, and whether you can talk to them. Ask what they will build in the first ninety days, in plain words. Ask how they report, and whether the report counts calls and customers or impressions and keyword positions. Ask what happens if you leave. A good answer to all four is specific. A bad answer is a deck. With me the person you talk to is the person doing the work, and you can leave any month.
Is local SEO different from regular SEO?
Yes. Local SEO is the work that gets a business with a physical location or a service area into the Google map pack and the local results: the Business Profile, reviews, consistent name and address across the web, and location pages. Regular SEO is the website side: technical health, content, links. A law firm, a clinic or a gym needs both, because the map pack brings the ready-now calls and the website brings the researching customer. I do both as one program.
Why is my business not showing up on Google Maps?
It is almost never effort. Owners complete the profile, gather reviews and still sit outside the top three, because the map pack depends on things they rarely adjust: the correct primary category, a profile that matches the website exactly, one consistent name and address across the directories, and review activity that keeps arriving. I work out which of those is costing you and fix them in order, since the top three listings take most of the local clicks.
Which industries do you do SEO for?
Law firms, dental and orthodontic practices, medical specialists and local businesses such as gyms and trades. Most of my experience is in medical and legal, where the content has to hold up to a professional's review and the rules on what you can claim are strict. The same system applies to a gym, a trade business or an online store, and I run programs for local businesses outside medical and legal today. If your industry is not on that list, ask on the call and I will tell you plainly whether I am the right fit.
Do you guarantee first page rankings?
No, and nobody honest does. Google itself says no one can guarantee a number one ranking. What I can guarantee is the work: the audit, the fixes, the pages, the reporting, and a plain answer every month about what moved and what did not. The no-lock-in contract is the real guarantee. If the work is not bringing customers, you leave.
Do I need to keep paying for SEO forever?
You need to keep paying for as long as you want the work to continue, and the work does compound, so stopping is not a cliff. The profile, the pages and the technical fixes are yours and keep working. What stops is the review flow, the new pages, the monitoring and the response when a competitor moves or Google changes something. Many clients scale the retainer down once the foundations are built rather than stopping outright.
How is SEO different from Google Ads?
Ads bring calls this week and stop the day you stop paying. SEO is slower and keeps working. For most local businesses the right answer is both, in sequence: ads to cover the gap while the SEO builds, then a smaller ad budget aimed at the searches organic cannot win. I run both, so the two are planned together instead of competing for the same budget.
Who writes the content on my pages?
I draft it, with the person who does the work, and you approve every word before it publishes. In medical and legal that means a clinician or an attorney signs off, because the content carries real stakes and the professional judgment has to be yours. My degrees are in law, an LL.B and an LL.M in International Law, which helps me read the rules a page is built on, but I am not a licensed US attorney and I do not give legal or medical advice.
Do you lock clients into a long SEO contract?
No. Nothing is locked in and you can leave at any time. I would rather earn next month than hold you for a year, and a client who stays because customers are calling is worth more to me than one kept by a contract.
What does the free SEO audit include?
Where you rank now, the traffic actually reaching the site, the technical faults in the way, which searches you are missing, what ChatGPT and AI Overviews say about your business today, and a full list of fixes ordered by what moves first. Returned inside 24 to 48 hours, at no cost and with no obligation.
