The seven things, whoever does them
Almost all SEO work falls into these seven categories. Knowing them makes a proposal much easier to read, because you can ask which ones are included and what gets produced in each.
- Technical fixes. Someone crawls the site the way Google does and finds what is broken: slow pages, broken links, pages Google has refused to index, missing structured data, mobile layout problems. Then they fix them or hand them to whoever runs the site.
- Keyword research. Working out the words your customers type before they call, how often, and how hard each one would be to win. This is the step that decides whether the rest of the year is spent on searches that bring work or searches nobody makes. How to find out what your customers actually type into Google is the free version of it.
- On-page work. Rewriting and restructuring each page against its target search: titles, headings, the copy itself, links between your own pages, and the structured data that states your facts outright.
- Content. Service pages, area pages, and posts that answer real questions. This is the part that compounds, and the part that gets cut first when a budget is thin.
- Local SEO. The Google Business Profile, consistent details across directories, and a steady flow of reviews. For a trade this often matters more than the website, because the map pack sits above everything.
- Links. Getting other real sites to link to yours through suppliers, associations, local sponsorship, press, and work worth referencing. Slow, and still one of the strongest signals there is.
- Reporting. What was done, what moved, what it produced, and what is next. If you are paying for SEO and cannot say what changed last month, the reporting is failing you even when the work is happening.
Where a monthly fee actually goes
This is the part that rarely appears in a proposal, and it is the difference that matters once you know the seven categories are the same everywhere.
An agency has to cover everyone involved in running it. A sales team that found you and closed you. An account manager who takes your calls and passes requests on. A project manager who schedules the work. Then the specialists who do it. On top of that sit office costs, a software seat for every person, and the margin the business needs to grow.
None of that is dishonest. It is how agencies are built, and a large client benefits from it: several people working at once, cover when someone is away, and specialists in each discipline. For a single location business, the same structure means a share of the fee pays for the layers between you and the work.
The second effect is quieter. The person you speak to is often not the person making the changes, so your request travels from you to an account manager to a project manager to a specialist, and detail leaks at every step. That is where you get a month of work you did not ask for.
What you get from one person instead
A one-person studio does the same seven categories with the same professional tools and without the layers. That is how I run Sato Solutions. I do the technical work, the research, the pages, the profile, and the reporting myself, and the person you talk to is the person who is in the site.
The honest trade-offs are real and worth saying out loud. One person has a ceiling on capacity, cannot turn around a hundred pages in a week, and is one person to be away on holiday. A business with dozens of locations or thousands of product pages needs more hands than that, and an agency is built for exactly that job.
I am also not the cheapest monthly number available, and I would rather say so than pretend otherwise. What I am is the whole of SEO, GEO, and AEO done by the person accountable for the result, with the prices published rather than quoted per conversation.
Four questions that decide it for you
You need someone doing this work consistently. Whether that someone is an agency, one person, or you comes down to four answers.
- How big is the job. One location and a few dozen pages is steady, focused work that fits inside what one experienced person does well. Dozens of locations or thousands of products needs a team, and pretending otherwise wastes your year.
- Who do you want to talk to. If you want the person doing the work on the other end of the phone, a solo specialist gives you that by default. With an agency it depends entirely on how they are structured, so ask before you sign.
- Can they show you what they did. Ask what a typical month produces and how it gets reported. A specific answer is a good sign. "Improved rankings" is not an answer.
- Are they promising a position. Nobody controls Google's algorithm, so nobody can guarantee a rank. A guarantee of first place is either a misunderstanding or a sales line, and it is usually where the "is SEO a scam" question starts.
How to tell a real provider from a bad one
The good ones, agency or solo, look similar from the outside.
They look at where you stand before quoting a plan, rather than selling the same package to everyone who answers the phone. They explain the work in plain language and tie it to calls and booked jobs rather than to rankings alone. They report monthly on specific changes you can click on. They will tell you when something is not worth doing, including when the answer is that you do not need them yet.
The bad ones share a shape as well: a cold call with a claim that your site has errors they can list before looking at it, a guaranteed position, a long contract with a cancellation penalty, a monthly report that is a rankings screenshot with no work attached, and no willingness to say who is actually doing the work.
There is one more test that catches most of it. Ask what they would do in month one and why. Anyone who has looked at your business will answer with specifics about your business.
So is SEO a scam
No. It is measurable work with a delay on it, and that delay is what makes it easy to sell badly.
A business that publishes pages for the searches its customers make, and keeps its profile and reviews current, gets found more. That has been true for twenty years and it is still true now that a share of the questions go to an AI instead of a search box, because the same specifics are what an AI can quote. The mechanism is not mysterious.
What is true is that the industry has sellers who charge for a subscription with nothing behind it, and the delay gives them cover for several months. The protection is not skepticism about SEO. It is asking what will exist at the end of each month, and checking that it does. What ongoing SEO actually means lays out what a real month produces.
Before you hire anyone
Find out what your site actually needs first, because the answer changes what you should buy. Some businesses need a rebuild before any monthly work makes sense. Some need nothing but the profile fixed and reviews asked for. Some are being held back by one technical setting.
My free consultation goes through the site, the profile, and what the AI tools say about your business, and tells you what would move it and in what order, whether you end up working with me or not. If you want to compare costs directly, what SEO costs and what changes the number goes through the pricing models and what each one rewards, and every plan and its terms are on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
- What do SEO agencies do?
- Seven things: technical fixes, keyword research, on-page work, content, local SEO including the Google Business Profile and reviews, link building, and monthly reporting. The list is the same whoever does it, so a proposal is easiest to judge by asking which of the seven are included and what each produces.
- Do I need an SEO agency?
- You need someone doing the work consistently, and that can be an agency, one specialist, or in part you. The decision comes down to the size of the job, whether you want to talk to the person doing it, and whether the provider can show you what they did each month.
- Are SEO agencies worth it?
- For a business that needs several people working at once, across many locations or thousands of products, yes. For a single location business, a share of an agency fee covers sales, account management, and office costs rather than hands-on work, which is why one specialist often suits that job better.
- Is an SEO agency or a freelancer better?
- An agency gives capacity and cover when someone is away. One specialist gives direct contact with the person making the changes and fewer layers between the fee and the work. For most local businesses, the monthly scope fits inside what one experienced person can do well.
- Is SEO a scam?
- No. It is measurable work with a delay on it, and the delay is what lets bad sellers charge for months without producing anything. Ask what will exist at the end of each month, then check that it does.
- Can an SEO provider guarantee first page rankings?
- No, because nobody controls Google's algorithm. What can be committed to is the work, the schedule, and the reporting. A guaranteed position is a sales line rather than a service.
Find out what your site needs before you hire anyone.
The consultation goes through the site, the profile, and what the AI tools say about your business, then tells you what would move it and in what order. The consultation is free, and the pricing is published.