// cochrane seo services
Cochrane SEO for a market keyword tools barely see
Cochrane SEO, from one person working remotely: I'm Muhammad Younus, a technical SEO consultant for WordPress, and I fix the crawling, indexing, speed and on-page problems that keep Cochrane business sites out of Google. Audits from $149, fixes from $999, booked on Upwork. The keyword tools can't agree on this town, yet a Living in Cochrane post asking who does SEO here sat on page one during both of my checks, so this page is written for an owner to send to another owner.
Eight case studies with real figures · verified Upwork reviews · every message answered within one business day
// the tools this work runs in
The keyword tools barely see this town. The work is still here.
SEMrush returns an empty result for cochrane seo and for seo cochrane. I ran a control on a term I knew had data, so I could tell a broken tool from a real answer, and the control came back with a hundred rows. That means the tool reports no measurable volume here. Ahrefs, checked on 27 September 2026, estimates about 100 searches a month in Canada for cochrane seo, so the tools don't agree, and neither is a count of real searches. It certainly doesn't mean nobody searches.
What that rules out
Anyone selling you a plan built on Cochrane search volume is working from estimates the tools don't agree on.
- A keyword forecast for this town, because the tools can't agree there's any volume to forecast from
- Ranking reports that treat Cochrane terms as the measure of success
- A content calendar aimed at search demand the tools cannot see
- Any promise that quotes a monthly search figure for Cochrane SEO
What the evidence does support
Two things are measurable here, and this page is built on both.
- The local packs: 30 measured, 14 mature, 15 contested and one wide open
- The organic results: eight agency pages, which I read in full
- A Living in Cochrane discussion on page one during both of my checks
- The jobs themselves, which happen whether or not a keyword tool counts them
The SERP suggests community recommendations may play a more visible role here than they did in the other Alberta markets I checked. That changed what I wrote below more than any keyword would have.
What is an unfindable site costing a Cochrane business?
Work it out with your own numbers. These are examples of the arithmetic using trades the pack study actually covers here, not forecasts, and none of them depends on a search volume figure.
Use your own Search Console, call volume and average job value. There's no Cochrane keyword figure the tools agree on to anchor this to, which is the honest position rather than a convenient one. If one extra job a month doesn't cover the package, don't book it.
Not sure which of those two your trade is?
Your row is in the pack table further down, with the top count, the median and the grade. Read that one before anything else on this page.
Someone in Cochrane already asked the question this page answers
Position four on one check, six on the other: a post in the Living in Cochrane group titled "Who does SEO in Cochrane, Alberta?" with the line "Anyone local do SEO?" underneath it. It appeared on page one both times, above most of the agencies competing for the same term.
I ran the same check on Airdrie, Calgary and the market on my Edmonton SEO page on 21 September 2026. None of their top tens carried a community or forum result that day. One post is not proof of how a whole town buys, and I'm not going to claim it is. But it is enough to write differently for: the useful thing here is a page an owner can send to another owner, not a page engineered for a search figure that does not exist. That same third-party context can matter when somebody compares a business across traditional search, communities and AI-assisted research, which is another reason to be checkable rather than merely well phrased.
Cochrane SEO services, priced before you book
Every project starts with the same call and the same read-only access. Local and technical SEO on WordPress and WooCommerce: what changes is how far you want it taken. Fixed prices, paid on Upwork.
Deep audit and growth report
An honest read on what's holding your WordPress site back in Google.
- WordPress SEO audit of indexing, speed and schema
- Fix list ranked by the clicks at stake
- Loom walkthrough of what I found
- Yours to keep, whoever does the work
Audit and fixes
For a site that needs the real problems found and fixed fast.
- Crawl, indexing, schema and speed fixes
- Before and after report with real numbers
- Core Web Vitals moved toward the green
- Everything documented and handed over
// Month to month: US$299 for site and SEO maintenance, US$750 for growth with maintenance. Book a call on Upwork.
Most owners don't know, and that's fine
Does this sound familiar?
- "Someone built it years ago and I've lost touch with him"
- "I don't know if it's WordPress, and I can't log in"
- "My web person and my SEO person blame each other"
- "I just know it's slow, and the phone isn't ringing"
Send the URL and I'll tell you
- What it's built on, inside a minute, at no charge
- Whether the search problems are fixable on the site you've got
- If it isn't WordPress and shouldn't move, I'll say that too
- What's a search problem for me, and what's a job for your web person
One person for the search side, start to finish.
Send the URL on Upwork. You'll know where you stand before you spend anything.
Which of the four does your site actually need?
Agencies sell SEO as one thing. It's four, and it matters here because of what the eight ranking pages leave out. Seven of them describe technical work. One names the tools it uses. None of them states what it will not do. If you are picking by recommendation rather than by search, those are the questions worth asking whoever gets recommended.
There's a fifth now: being understood and referenced by AI answers, including Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google's own guidance is that this needs no special markup or AI text file, just a crawlable, clear page, which is why GEO and AEO work sits inside the same projects rather than being sold separately.
No AI-search gimmicks either. I don't sell llms.txt as a Google ranking factor, I don't invent GEO schema Google doesn't ask for, and I won't promise that an AI answer will cite you, because nobody controls that.
What does a technical SEO consultant actually do?
Your project will use some of these, not all of them. The audit decides which, and the scope names them before you pay anything.
showing all 20
Not sure which of these your site needs? That is what the audit is for: you get the list, ranked by what each one is costing you, before anything else is agreed.
How does working with an SEO consultant actually run?
Book the call
Send your URL and read-only Search Console access. It takes two minutes, and the call is free.
Get the findings
What's broken, what it's costing in clicks, ranked. If a finding isn't in your own data, it doesn't go in the list.
Approve a fixed scope
A written scope, a date and a price on Upwork. You approve it before anything starts.
Fixes, then measurement
I do the work, one change per page per window, then you and I read the result in your data after four to eight weeks.
What happens in the first week after you hire me?
The call
Twenty to thirty minutes. You show me the site and what's worrying you, I tell you whether there's a real problem to fix.
Access and crawl
Read-only Search Console, then a full crawl of the site. Nothing changes on your site at this stage.
The findings
The written list, ordered by what each issue is costing you, with the screenshot behind every claim.
Scope, or stop
You either approve a fixed scope on Upwork, take the list to your own developer, or walk away. All three are fine.
How do you measure results, without taking my word for it?
Search performance figures come from client Search Console data unless stated otherwise. Each has a case study you can read, including the parts that didn't work.
What I measure beyond rankings
None of the eight case studies is in Cochrane, and I'd rather say that than imply otherwise. My Alberta evidence is a tile firm in Edmonton at position 1.1 on its own name, plus my own read of all 30 Cochrane packs and all eight pages ranking here. If someone recommends me to you, that is what they'd be recommending.
The full case studies, numbers and all
Eight projects, each with its own dates, its own Search Console figures and the rows that didn't go to plan left in.
Worth saying plainly: none of these eight is in Cochrane. They're in Pakistan, Canada, the UK, Jamaica and four US states, because that's where the work came from. My Alberta evidence is a tile firm in Edmonton sitting at position 1.1 on its own name, on a site that took 862 clicks last quarter, and my own read of the Cochrane map pack across 30 categories. Technical SEO doesn't change at the border, but you should judge the Alberta claim on the Alberta data, not on a jewellery store in Karachi. That one's in full here: my Edmonton SEO page.
GK Jewelers
A redesign cut its clicks to about a fifth of normal in three days. Redirects had it above the old level by 20 June, and it then doubled.
Lux Jewels
Two years and two agencies had produced nothing. She only signed because I offered to refund the lot if it stayed that way.
Bright Pathways ABA
610,963 impressions and 6,330 clicks in a quarter, with the brand holding position 1.1.
Scrap a Vehicle
From roughly 10 clicks a day in June to roughly 70 a day in September.
Areca Homes
117,541 impressions at average position 8.9, feeding villa bookings and enquiries from owners who want theirs managed.
Harmonized Getaways
Reach up 31% quarter on quarter, clicks up 16%, and the click rate down. All three are in the same picture.
Alpenglow Fireplace
Launched 9 August. A 7.42% click rate in the 28 days to 12 September, and the owner reports enquiries already coming in.
Arch and Handle
22 search clicks in a quarter, and two days later a $50,000 to $150,000 commercial enquiry through its qualifying form.
Three promises you can hold me to
On time, or discounted
Every project carries a committed date in the written scope. If I miss it, you get 10% off for every day it's late.
Green vitals, or free fixes
Speed projects ship with Core Web Vitals in the green on mobile. If they aren't, I keep fixing until they are, at no extra cost.
A reply in one business day
You'll never chase me for an update. Every message gets answered within one business day, usually much sooner.
All three sit in the terms, not just on this page. What I won't promise is a ranking position, because that's Google's call and not mine.
Renting enquiries, or owning the pipe?
Some Cochrane trades buy their work from lead sellers. What a lead costs varies by trade and I have no measured figure for Cochrane, so ask two sellers for their rate and you'll know more than any number I could print. What doesn't vary is the shape: you pay per enquiry, forever, and the price is theirs to set.
Buying leads from someone else's site
- You pay per lead, forever, and the price is theirs to raise
- Some sellers send the same enquiry to several businesses, depending on the deal
- You build no asset. Stop paying and the calls stop that day
- The customer's first impression belongs to their brand
Your own site doing the same job
- Enquiries arrive directly, with no cut taken
- They come from Google, and a site can surface in AI answers where its information is eligible
- The asset is yours, and it can keep earning after the invoice, though rankings and demand move
- Your name is on the first impression
Here's what makes owning worth considering in this particular town. In the typical Cochrane pack the middle business holds about 50 reviews, and the average top count across all 30 is 381. In Calgary the same middle figure is 275. Those are counts a working business can reach by serving people well, which is a different proposition from buying enquiries forever. Keep buying leads while this gets built, and switch the tap off against your own numbers rather than mine.
Stop renting. Start owning.
Book the call, and we'll work out whether your site can carry it.
No shopfront? Your Business Profile still matters
Half the trades I work with have no address the public can visit. In a town where a recommendation may carry more weight than a search, the profile is often the first thing someone checks after your name comes up. This section stays short and links to the full explanation rather than repeating it.
Local SEO gets sold as one service, but Google summarises local results around relevance, distance and popularity, and its detailed guidance calls that third one prominence. Distance is how far you are from whoever is searching, and no setting manufactures it. Prominence is yours to earn and I won't fake any part of it. Relevance is where most of the buyable work sits. The full explanation is on the Local SEO page, so this one stays short.
Setup and optimisation is included in the audit and fixes package. What I won't do is post to your profile weekly or manage reviews, because that's your voice, not mine.
Which market does your site actually claim?
Cochrane sits close enough to Calgary that plenty of businesses here work both, and the eight pages ranking for Cochrane SEO nearly all name Calgary somewhere on them. They're different fights, though: SEO in Calgary means packs where the middle business holds 275 reviews, against about 50 here. The question worth answering on your site is not which Cochrane neighbourhood deserves a page. It's whether you're a Cochrane business that takes Calgary work or the other way round, and whether your site says so plainly.
Worth building
- It's a market you'd actually drive to on a Tuesday in February, not one you'd quietly decline
- Search Console already shows impressions for that area attached to your service
- You can name something true about working there: the drive, the permits, the housing stock, a job you finished
- No other page on your site could answer the same query
Not worth building
- One of 27, because the neighbourhood exists rather than because the work does
- A Calgary page from a business that takes two jobs a year inside the city limits
- A page that competes with your own service page for the same query
- Anything you'd be embarrassed to have shown to the owner who recommended you
Worth noticing what the competitors do here. One of them carries a Cochrane-flavoured domain and mentions Cochrane six times in 1,867 words. Another mentions it four times in 792. If you're being recommended to someone, the page they land on should sound like it was written about their town rather than near it.
Cochrane's neighbourhoods, and how many deserve a page
Twenty-seven named neighbourhoods, which for a town this size is plenty and still nowhere near a reason to build a page for each. In a market where the keyword tools can't agree whether the head term gets any searches, 27 thin area pages would be 27 pages competing with each other for demand nobody can pin down.
What's worth building instead is a page for the work you actually do, not for the estate somebody lives on. A reader searching from any one of these wants the same thing from you, and one good service page answers all of them.
Names from the Neighbourhoods section of Wikipedia's Cochrane article, read on 20 September 2026. Pick the areas you actually work in, say something true about each, and let the trade pages do the rest.
Some trades here are much easier to challenge than others
The 30 trades I checked in the Cochrane pack study, each with the median review count in its pack and how settled it looks. This is the section to read first, because the right answer for your business is in your row rather than in the average.
Fourteen came back mature, fifteen are still contested and one is wide open. That is a more open market than Calgary or Edmonton and a less open one than Camrose or Brooks, so Cochrane sits in the middle of the province rather than at either end. Where your trade sits inside it is the part that actually matters.
Looking for someone local? Check whether they are
If an owner searches for an SEO consultant near me, proximity may affect who feels convenient to hire. It does not determine how that owner's business ranks. Those are two separate questions and they get answered in different places, so it's worth keeping them apart before you pick anyone.
What proximity doesn't change
- Your Local Pack visibility, where relevance, distance and prominence all count
- Whether Google can index your service pages
- How fast your site loads on a customer's phone
- What your schema says about your business
What to ask instead
- Can they show you client figures with dates, not testimonials alone
- Do they work on WordPress every day, or once a quarter
- Will one person do the work, or will it go to a junior
- Is the scope fixed and the money protected before you pay
Everything here runs over Zoom, Google Meet or messages on Mountain Time, and you watch the same Search Console I do. If you'd rather have someone in the room, hire locally and I'd say so on the call. What I won't do is pretend to an office on Railway Street to make a recommendation easier to pass on.
Two free tools, and no email to hand over
Both run in your own browser, nothing gets uploaded, and they'll tell you something true about your site before you ever speak to me.
Design is the hard half here. I'll take the other one.
Several of the pages ranking for Cochrane SEO sell web design alongside it, and a few read as studios first. This section is for them rather than against them. Technical SEO is also the part studios sometimes choose to outsource, and that's where I fit: when a design team doesn't want to own redirects, indexing, schema and post-launch search QA, those come to me instead of to nobody.
The awkward conversation
- The site launches and the traffic drops, because the URLs changed
- The client asks about Google and nobody on the team owns the answer
- An agency from another province arrives, blames the build, and takes the retainer
- You get the blame for a problem nobody was hired to solve
White label, in your name
- Technical work under your brand, your client never hears my name
- Pre-launch checks, so the redirects and the rankings survive
- Organic growth without buying backlinks, because the fixes are on the site
- A written report you can hand over as your own
- Fixed scope per project. No commission, no client poaching
Run a studio that serves Cochrane?
Run a studio that serves Cochrane? Send me one client site. If there's nothing worth fixing, I'll tell you that too.
Who this is for, and who it isn't
In a town this size a bad fit gets talked about, so I'd rather be blunt about who I'm wrong for than take the work.
Worth booking
- You run a small business site on WordPress or WooCommerce, or you're ready to move to one
- Your trade's row in the trade grid says contested and the visible review gap is relatively smaller
- A redesign or move is coming up, or one already cost you rankings, and you need the search side handled
- You want the person who finds the problem to be the one who fixes it
- You'd rather buy a fixed scope than a monthly retainer
Don't book
- You want Google Business Profile posts, reviews or citations managed
- You want link building or paid ads
- You want a guaranteed position by a date
- Your site is on Wix or Squarespace and staying there
- You're in a pack whose leader holds a thousand reviews and you want the map, not the site
One person, and you can check him
What I actually do
Muhammad Younus, WordPress technical SEO consultant. Based in Karachi, Pakistan, working with Alberta clients remotely on Mountain Time hours. Page first published 17 September 2026, last updated 28 September 2026.
I fix the search side of small business websites: technical and local SEO. Owners and agencies, remotely, on Mountain Time hours for Alberta clients. WordPress and WooCommerce are the platforms I work on, and there's no team here. The person who reads your Search Console is the person who writes the redirects, and the person who answers your messages.
My work is on Upwork, with the review history public, and eight projects are written up here with their figures and their dates, including the results that stalled. More about how I work.
Four minutes of due diligence
- Read a case study and check the dates against the figures
- Open my Upwork profile and read the reviews from clients
- Ask me on the call to show the Search Console screen behind a number
- Start with the audit, and stop there if the findings don't convince you
What you keep when the work ends
The change log
Every fix documented, with what changed and why, so your next developer isn't guessing.
Your own accounts
Hosting, licences, Search Console and analytics stay in your name. I hold nothing hostage.
No dependency on me
Nothing on your site needs me to stay. Remove my access and it keeps working exactly the same.
A measurement date
We agree when to read the result, and I'll tell you plainly if a change did nothing.
Bring three things, and the call is quick
Your URL
That's enough to start. I'll have looked at the site before we speak.
Read-only Search Console
Two minutes to grant, and it's the difference between opinions and evidence. I'll set it up if you don't have it.
What you want more of
Calls, quote forms, orders or bookings. The fixes get prioritised around that, not around a score.
Cochrane SEO by the numbers: packs neither empty nor settled
Everything measured, in one place. Thirty Cochrane service categories in the live map pack: fourteen mature, fifteen contested and one wide open. In the typical Cochrane pack the middle business holds about 50 reviews, and the average top count across all thirty is 381.
The keyword side can't settle much, and that is itself the finding. SEMrush returns an empty result for both cochrane seo and seo cochrane, while the same tool returned a hundred rows for a control term I ran to check it was working, and Ahrefs estimates about 100 a month for cochrane seo. So the numbers on this page come from the packs and the results page, not from a volume estimate the tools disagree on.
On the call I'll walk you through your row, not all 30 of them.
Fourteen packs have settled. Fifteen have not.
Read your own row and ignore the rest of the table. I label a pack contested when the review distribution is relatively shallow by this study's rules, and mature when it isn't. It does not mean Google considers the position unstable, and it isn't a prediction. It's a description of one signal, which is still worth knowing before you spend anything.
| Vertical | Top count | Median | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dentists | 1,100 | 270 | mature |
| Pest control | 1,100 | 269 | mature |
| Towing | 254 | 254 | mature |
| Med spas and aesthetics | 601 | 234 | mature |
| Chiropractors and physio | 498 | 192 | mature |
| Veterinary clinics | 506 | 183 | mature |
| Optometrists | 351 | 166 | mature |
| Auto repair | 290 | 115 | mature |
| IT and managed services | 341 | 102 | mature |
| Movers | 228 | 102 | mature |
| Cleaning services | 426 | 87 | mature |
| HVAC and furnace | 1,400 | 79 | mature |
| Clinics and family medicine | 182 | 77 | mature |
| Gyms and studios | 1,000 | 60 | mature |
| Electricians | 254 | 52 | contested |
| Real estate | 165 | 48 | contested |
| Mortgage brokers | 202 | 44 | contested |
| Flooring and tile | 76 | 38 | contested |
| Glass and window | 185 | 38 | contested |
| Water and fire restoration | 89 | 33 | contested |
| Plumbers | 1,400 | 32 | contested |
| Roofers | 119 | 31 | contested |
| Insurance brokers | 179 | 30 | contested |
| Law firms | 103 | 28 | contested |
| Painters | 50 | 24 | contested |
| Landscaping and lawn | 152 | 22 | contested |
| Concrete and paving | 94 | 18 | contested |
| Garage doors | 23 | 15 | wide open |
| Security and alarms | 33 | 10 | contested |
| Accountants and bookkeepers | 28 | 8 | contested |
The spread is the useful part. Accountants sit at a median of 8, security and alarms at 10, garage doors at 15 and concrete at 18. The review gap is relatively small in these packs, so reputation alone presents a much lower visible barrier than it does in HVAC or plumbing, where one listing in each pack shows 1,400 against medians of 79 and 32. That does not mean review count alone determines who ranks first. It means the same town sets two different problems, and I'd give opposite advice on each.
Who ranks for Cochrane SEO: eight agency pages and one neighbour asking
Nine organic results, of which eight are agency service pages. I read all eight end to end. The shortest runs 688 words and the longest 2,737, so this is a market being competed for, if not as heavily as Edmonton. The ninth isn't selling anything, and it's the one sitting at number six here.
Where the gaps are, from reading rather than from snippets: none of the eight states what it will not do, none mentions WooCommerce, one publishes a guarantee and one names the tools it works in. Five publish pricing. Those are the things I'd want to know if someone gave me a name, so they are all on this page.
What the eight pages here never get round to saying
I read every page ranking for Cochrane SEO in full rather than judging it from a snippet, and counted the same four things on each. These are the answers I'd want before acting on a name somebody gave me, so they're the four this page has to get right about me.
Word counts run from 688 to 2,737, so effort isn't the missing piece. Specificity is: what the work covers, what it doesn't, which platforms, which tools. Ask whoever you're considering, me included, and compare the answers rather than the adjectives.
Cochrane SEO questions, the honest answers
If SEMrush shows nothing for Cochrane SEO, is there any point?
A tool showing nothing and there being nothing are different things. SEMrush returns an empty result for cochrane seo and seo cochrane, and I ran a control on a term I knew had data to confirm the tool was working. Ahrefs, though, estimates about 100 searches a month for cochrane seo, so the tools don't agree. What is measurable is the rest: thirty local packs, fifteen of them still contested, and eight agencies competing hard enough to write up to 2,737 words about it. Nobody writes that for a market with nothing in it.
Somebody in my Facebook group asked who does SEO here. Does that matter?
It is the reason this page is written the way it is. That post, "Who does SEO in Cochrane, Alberta?", sat on page one of the commercial results during both of my checks, above most of the agencies. I ran the same check on Airdrie, Edmonton and Calgary on 21 September 2026 and none of their top tens carried a community result that day. One post is not proof of how the whole town buys, but it was enough to make me write a page you could send to someone rather than a page built for a search figure.
How do I check someone who was recommended to me?
Four things, and they work on me as well as on anyone else. Ask which tools they work in: one of the eight pages ranking here names any. Ask what they will not do: none of the eight says. Ask for the price before the call, not after: five of eight publish something. And ask for client figures with dates rather than testimonials. If the answers are vague, the recommendation was about being pleasant, which is not the same as being right for the job.
Which Cochrane trades are actually worth working on now?
The four with the shallowest review gaps: accountants and bookkeepers at a median of 8, security and alarms at 10, garage doors at 15 and concrete and paving at 18. Reputation is a lower visible barrier in those packs than in the deep ones, which doesn't mean review count alone decides who ranks first. It means less of the gap is made of something you can't move quickly. Your row is in the table above.
My competitor has 1,400 reviews. Can I catch them?
If you're in HVAC or plumbing here, not quickly, and I'd say so on the call. Both of those packs have a listing on 1,400 against medians of 79 and 32. That is a different kind of problem from the shallow packs and it moves the work towards the organic results and the specific job queries rather than towards the map.
Is Cochrane an easy market?
Easier than Calgary or Edmonton on the packs, harder than Camrose or Brooks. I ranked all 31 towns I measured and Cochrane came 18th on how open its packs are, at 53%. So it sits in the middle of the province rather than at either end, which is a less exciting answer than either extreme and a more useful one.
Should my site target Cochrane or Calgary?
Whichever the work actually comes from, and say it plainly. Nearly every page ranking for Cochrane SEO names Calgary somewhere, which tells you how tied the two markets are. The mistake is a site that leaves it ambiguous and reads as neither. If you take Calgary work, say so. If you don't, say that.
Do I need a page for each Cochrane neighbourhood?
Almost certainly not. There are 27 named neighbourhoods here, and in a market where the keyword tools can't agree on the head term's volume, 27 thin pages would be 27 pages competing with each other for demand nobody can pin down. Put the effort into the pages for the work you do.
What would this cost me?
Whatever the packages above say, because those are the real figures rather than a starting point. The audit is $149. Audit plus the fixes is $999. If you'd rather run something ongoing it's $299 a month for maintenance or $750 for growth, month to month. Everything is paid on Upwork, milestone by milestone, and you can stop at any one of them. Five of the eight pages ranking here publish a figure too, which makes comparing simple.
When would I know whether it worked?
Give it four to eight weeks before either of us calls it. Google has to recrawl the changed pages and let the results settle, and reading the numbers before that just produces arguments about noise. Some things land sooner, particularly pages that were sitting there unindexed and suddenly aren't.
Can you get me to number one?
No, and I'd be careful with anyone who says otherwise, because nobody controls that. The commitments I will put in writing are narrower and checkable: the delivery date, the Core Web Vitals figures, and a reply inside one business day. Worth noting that only one of the eight pages ranking here publishes any guarantee at all, so read closely whatever you're offered elsewhere.
Would you look after my profile and chase reviews for me?
The profile, yes, as part of the audit and fixes package, and it matters more than most owners expect on the map side. Reviews, no. I don't write them, buy them or run campaigns for them. In a town where your customers know each other, that's your reputation being described, and it shouldn't come out of my keyboard.
What do I have to hand over before you can start?
Two things: the address of the site, and read-only access to Search Console, which is about a two minute job in the settings. No Search Console yet? I'll set it up with you during the call. WordPress logins come later, and only once you've approved specific fixes.
Mine's built on Wix. Is that a problem?
For me it is, so I'd send you elsewhere. WordPress and WooCommerce are the whole of what I work on, and I'm no use on Wix or Squarespace. Worth adding that if you're running a store, none of the eight pages ranking for Cochrane SEO mentions WooCommerce at all, so the field gets short quickly.
And if the audit turns up nothing?
Then that's what I'll tell you, and it won't have cost you anything to hear it. It does happen. Given how word travels in a town this size, being the person who said there was nothing to do is a better position to be in than being the one who invoiced anyway.
Why Upwork rather than just sending me an invoice?
Mostly because it's better for you than for me. The scope, the milestones and the money all sit on a platform you can see, nothing gets charged outside it, and my entire review history is there to read before you commit to anything. If somebody passed you my name, that's how you check it rather than taking their word for it.
I'm getting a new site built but I'm scared of losing what I've got.
Reasonable fear, and the search side of that move is work I do. Whoever builds the site builds it; sites lose traffic in a rebuild because URLs change and nobody maps the old ones to the new. So I take an inventory of every page you currently rank for, map each one to its new address, and then watch Search Console for four to eight weeks to catch whatever slipped through.
I run a studio here. Can you work behind me?
Yes, and a fair few of the case studies are exactly that: work delivered under somebody else's brand. Your client deals with you, never hears my name, and I don't go near them afterwards.
What does this job actually involve day to day?
Crawling sites, reading Search Console, working out what Google can't get to or won't rank, and then fixing it inside WordPress. Much closer to diagnosing a fault and maintaining a machine than to anything that looks like marketing.
Does any of this still matter now AI answers everything?
It shifted rather than stopped. Those answers are assembled from pages that Google can crawl, render and trust, so whether you get pulled into one rests on the same groundwork as whether you rank. Different surface, same prerequisites.
If we part ways, what am I left with?
Everything, and nothing that breaks. The site is yours, the licences are in your name, the change log is written down, there's no plugin of mine quietly propping anything up and no access I keep hold of. The handover is a document, not a conversation.
To recap, here's what you're getting
- A free call, and an honest answer on whether anything's worth fixing
- Findings tied to your own Search Console, ranked by what they cost
- The fixes done by the person who found the problem
- Three written guarantees: the date, the vitals, and a reply in one business day
- Everything owned by you, with a change log, and no lock-in
No card and no form. Upwork holds the scope and the money.
Other towns in the Calgary region
Each one has its own pack data, and they don't look alike. The Alberta town comparison puts all 31 side by side.
If someone sent you here, this is what they meant.
Send the URL and read-only Search Console, and I'll come back with your row from the Cochrane pack table, what your site is losing clicks to, and whether any of it is worth paying to fix. Sometimes the answer is that it isn't, and you'll have that answer before a dollar moves. Scope and price are fixed on Upwork, there's no retainer, and you can walk after any milestone.