// blog / hiring, pricing and results
Hiring for SEO, without the guesswork
What SEO costs, how long it takes, what a contract can promise and how to pick a consultant. Every post is a job I do myself, written in the order I do it, and it's always the answer first.
What these posts cover
Buying SEO is hard because most of the work is invisible and the results take months. That gap is where the vague contracts, the ranking promises and the monthly reports full of charts nobody reads come from. It doesn't have to be that way, but a buyer needs to know what a fair offer looks like before signing one.
These posts are how I price, scope and report my own work, written so you can hold anyone to the same standard, including me. They cover what an SEO contract can truthfully promise, how long results usually take and why, when a one-off project beats a monthly retainer, what belongs in a monthly report, and the questions I'd ask if I were the one vetting a consultant. Any price that appears comes from the same package list as the rest of this site.
If you'd like to start small, a fixed-price technical SEO audit is the first step, and it's booked on Upwork.
If you're still deciding whether to spend anything at all, start with is SEO still worth it with AI, which answers that before any of the hiring questions.
All seven posts, newest first
Each one opens with the short answer, so you'll know in a few lines whether it's the one you need.
How I decide if SEO is still worth it for a business
SEO is worth it when people already search for what you sell, one new customer is worth more than the work costs, and you can wait months rather than weeks for it to pay back. If nobody searches for it, or you need leads this month, paid ads or other channels come first.
September 28, 2026Read the post →How I decide between a one-off SEO project and a monthly SEO retainer
An SEO retainer is worth paying for only when there's continuing work, like content, updates or measurement. Technical faults usually get fixed once: an audit finds them and a fixed-price project clears them. So I start one-off, and I only suggest a monthly plan once the fixes show what's actually left.
September 28, 2026Read the post →How I decide which SEO guarantees a contract can honestly make
An SEO guarantee is only honest when it covers work the consultant controls, and Google's rankings aren't that. What I put in writing instead is named deliverables by a date, 10% off for every day I'm late, Core Web Vitals green on mobile for speed projects or free fixes until they are, and a reply within one business day.
September 28, 2026Read the post →How I price SEO work, and how much SEO costs across the market
How much SEO costs comes down to three things: how big the site is, how much of it's broken, and whether the fixes are included or only listed. Ahrefs' survey puts most SEO budgets between 500 and 5,000 US dollars a month. My own prices are fixed, published and agreed on Upwork before I start.
September 28, 2026Read the post →How I work out how long SEO takes to work, from real client data
How long SEO takes to work depends on where the site starts: a technical fault can show results within weeks of the fix, while a site that begins on page four needs quarters, not months. I set every timeline from the site's own Search Console baseline, never from a stock range.
September 28, 2026Read the post →How I would vet an SEO consultant if I were the one hiring
To hire an SEO consultant well, I'd ask to see past results in Search Console on a live screen share, a written scope with dated deliverables, two references and a straight answer about what they won't do. The red flags are ranking promises, secret methods, and any plan that doesn't start with your own data.
September 28, 2026Read the post →How I write a monthly SEO report a business owner can read
What to include in an SEO report: the changes made on the site with dates, Search Console clicks, impressions and position against last month and last year, the pages that went down as well as up, leads where they're tracked, and what happens next. I send those sections every month, in the same order.
September 28, 2026Read the post →When you'd rather not do it yourself
The posts show the method. If you'd rather one person did the whole job, here's the service it belongs to, and it's scoped in writing on Upwork before anything starts.
Comparing SEO quotes? Start with a fixed-price audit.
Book a call on Upwork
Want this done on your own site?
Book a call on Upwork, send the URL and read-only Search Console access, and you'll get a written scope for the search side before any work starts. There's one person on the whole job, and it's all done remotely.
Book a call on Upwork