comparison · HOW TO CHOOSE AN SEO COMPANY

In one sentence: an SEO company changes your website and your business listings so that Google, and now the AI answers people read instead of clicking, put you in front of someone already looking for what you sell.

Three months, then month to month, that is four kinds of work and nothing else. Everything on a proposal is a subcategory of one of them.

The technical work, which is whether Google can crawl the site, index it and load it fast on a phone. The pages, which is the titles, headings and words that earn the search. The local signals, which is the Google Business Profile most buyers read before reaching your website, plus your name, address and phone matching everywhere. And the answer engines, which is whether the AI results can find and cite your pages.

One term to define, because every firm uses it and none explain it. A citation is any listing of your business name, address and phone on another site, like a directory or a chamber page. Consistency across them is a ranking signal, which is why firms charge to clean them up.

The whole category describes activities. Almost nobody attaches a count, a date or a name to them, which is what makes proposals impossible to compare.

Dates. A record of what changed and when, that stays open where you can read it, instead of a fresh document every month with no link to last month's.

A name. Which human does the work, and whether you speak to them after you sign.

The two most useful questions here are the ones about what you have to do and what you will be able to see. Nobody in this category volunteers either.

Of those same sixteen pages, fourteen published a floor, a range or a contact form instead of a number. So the useful question is what the money buys in countable units, and why the price is what it is.

Mine is $1,000 a month for the whole SEO line, three months, then month to month, no setup fee: the technical work, the pages, the Google Business Profile, reviews and AI search, and the written audit on top. The same $1,000 for one location as for four. Two lines together are $1,799, three are $2,499.

Why it is that number: one marketer with an AI workforce carries the cost of one marketer instead of an agency. There is no account manager between us and no office. It also means you do not have to interview me for a month before finding out whether the work is good.

I will not promise you a position, because nobody controls where Google puts you. I will promise that every change is dated on the page it touched and you can check all of it without asking me first.