Frequently asked questions

Things I’m asked the most by prospective clients.

What types of services do you offer?

Here are some of the core services I provide:

What exactly is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the method and science of improving the quality and quantity of organic users to a website directly from the search engines. Although it may seem simple at first, there’s a remarkable amount that goes into ranking and organizing the internet. In a nutshell, SEO is the method of optimizing a website to ensure that search engines understand your offering’s relevance and quality to ensure you are ranked appropriately and optimally to be discovered by the users searching.

What are the main ways you do business?

Depending on the services you might require, there are four main ways I do business: Project-based, Ad-hoc consultancy, Long Term Embedded Service & Pro Bono.

I enjoy using my expertise to help a good cause or organization in the community — it is good karma. If there is a worthy cause, I am always on the lookout for one I should get involved in (must be non-political and non-religious).

To be clear, I do not accept any requests for free work. I am sure you don’t either.

What does an SEO Specialist do?

A search engine optimization consultant has expertise running successful organic search campaigns and knows SEO strategies inside out. My role as an SEO expert is to provide you with the most helpful advice, the best tools, and the most efficient bespoke strategy for your business and its customers.

Typically, SEO experts will audit a website to highlight any technical issues, content gaps, and UX weaknesses. They should also perform intense competitor research to see what your competitors are doing great and look for missed opportunities.

After the research, the goal is to build a solid digital strategy to improve their business goals. Typically, business owners that I talk to want to achieve:

• More sales
• New customers walking into their local business
• More leads to their service business
• Increased brand awareness
• More focus on their most valuable service or product
• More visibility online
• Elevated thought leadership

Are there any requirements/prep before you start?

One of the essential requirements is that you have full access to develop your website from top to bottom. SEO experts need to be able to access, correct, and implement code changes. It can be a huge challenge to improve search visibility without access to the core of a website.

Be prepared to work through your legacy tech issues - for example, your CMS is behind the times and creates inaccessibility on the front end; this is something we will need to work with to grow.

Sometimes in this situation, I discuss the possibility of using my time to rebuild a website or section of a website from scratch, implementing optimization recommendations along the way, and laying solid foundations. If you don’t feel the above example applies to you, the only other requirement I need is your understanding that my input will require some resources to facilitate.

For example, content or technical audit may require a web developer resource to fix your website’s architecture or setup issues. Or, I may need your in-house experts to create quality written content. Generally, I find that the more my clients are invested and can facilitate recommendations, the faster and more impactful the results I can achieve.

How much do you usually charge?

My hourly rate is €120 per hour.

An average retained embedded service for a medium sized business fully managed with me, will roughly cost between €3,000-€5,000 per month depending on the size of the company and complexity of services. Even though I recommend at least 6 months on retainer with me to be able to see the lasting results, I will never bind you into any contracts, you can leave and continue working with me anytime.

There are many cheaper SEO service providers, why are you so expensive?

I am not the cheapest, but my pricing is more than fair. I am a firm believer that SEO is a huge part of business growth in the 21st century, so I advice you to invest in SEO carefully. It’s like hiring a cheap electrician to ‘patch’ your damaged wires back together, yes it will work OK for a while, but down the road you run the risk of an even bigger bill to fix the damage caused by the ‘patch’.

The same goes for the SEO, you get what you pay for. If you get cheap and unethical services, Google can and will deindex your business from the search results if their guidelines are broken, usually without any warning.

Given what I just explained, don’t patch your SEO. Invest and nurture it with quality time & services, just as you would do for any other aspect of your business.

Are there minimum commitments?

No there aren’t. I will always advice that the SEO strategy is a long term work and investment, however, I regularly do project-based campaigns to assist in-house marketing teams, agencies or provide consultancy on a short term basis for a tech/website migration.

Will I be locked into a very long contract with hidden fees?

The answer is NO! There are no hidden costs or setup fees. There is only a simple hourly or monthly retained rate. I generally advise clients to stay working with me for at least 6-12 months to ensure that we can see the results of our efforts. If you want to stop the work at any point, you can do so by giving me 30 days notice, so I can prepare and pack your assets and data. I keep everything safe for up to 6 months, and at any point you can continue where you left off.

How long does it take to see the SEO results?

I generally advise clients to stay working with me for at least 6-12 months to ensure that we can see the results of our efforts.