What should local SEO cost a small business?

What the market charges

Local search work is usually sold as a monthly retainer, commonly somewhere between five hundred and three thousand dollars a month for a small business, on a twelve month agreement. That is six thousand to thirty six thousand dollars a year, invoiced whether or not your position ever changes.

The problem with that shape

Every ounce of risk sits with you. You pay first, you receive a monthly report, and the report is not the same thing as a result. A year later a lot of businesses are in the same position in the results and several thousand dollars lighter.

The question that sets the right number

What is one new customer actually worth to you, over the life of that relationship?

A probate attorney settling an estate for four thousand dollars needs one extra file a year to cover almost any sensible fee. A roofer at nine thousand dollars a job needs less than one. A business making eighty dollars per customer needs dozens, and should probably spend the money somewhere else. Same service, three completely different answers.

That is why we ask before we quote, and why there is no price list on this site.

What we do instead

One payment, for the year, due only after your site has held page one for fourteen consecutive days. Nothing up front, nothing monthly, and nothing at all if ninety days pass without page one.