I hired a marketing agency to handle SEO for my website. A few months ago, I was receiving a couple of visits each week, but I asked the agency to pause the work. They told me I needed to keep paying $350 per month just to prevent my website from falling in Google's rankings. I've now paid that amount for about six months, but they're saying I need to increase the fee to $700 per month before I'll start getting phone calls again. They've only published about one blog post per month, and I'm also paying a separate $80 hosting fee. Is this a legitimate SEO arrangement, or am I paying for work that isn't actually being done?
3 Answers
Search rankings don’t automatically disappear just because you stop paying a monthly retainer. Ask the agency for Google Search Console data showing impressions, clicks, and average position over the past six months. Also request a detailed record of the work they completed: new pages, technical fixes, content, outreach, and backlinks. If they can’t provide clear reports and evidence, the monthly fee may not be doing anything useful.
Before agreeing to $700, ask exactly what changes at that price. Have them provide a written strategy, a monthly activity report, Search Console and analytics access, and measurable goals. Check where visitors are coming from and whether any calls or leads can be attributed to their work. If they can’t explain what they’ve done with the current payments or show meaningful results, consider ending the arrangement and finding a more transparent provider.
You can also review your site’s backlinks and indexed pages yourself, but don’t rely on a simple Google search as a complete audit. Search Console and a proper backlink report will give you much more useful evidence.
There’s no universal fee you pay to Google to reserve a position in the search results. SEO agencies charge for ongoing work, such as improving site structure, creating useful content, earning legitimate links, and fixing technical problems. If the $350 is only supposed to keep the site ‘up’ in the rankings, that explanation is suspicious. Paid advertising is separate from organic rankings, and neither guarantees phone calls.
A single blog post each month isn’t much evidence of an ongoing SEO campaign. You should ask for actual deliverables and data rather than accepting general promises about ‘maintaining rankings.’