We sell a tool, so it’s only fair to say where the line is straight away: a tool doesn’t replace the person making the decisions. It shortens the work that person would otherwise do by hand. Which option pays off depends on two things — how much time you have and what one customer is worth to you.
Three options, without the gloss
| Cost per month | Time it takes from you | When it makes sense | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yourself, with a tool | £0–40 | 4–8 hours a month | small company, one site, somebody who can write |
| Freelancer | £400–1,200 | 2 hours a month | there’s budget, there’s no time |
| Agency | £1,200–4,000 | 1 hour a month | bigger site, a shop, several languages or towns |
These are prices for a fair scope of work. Quotes well below the lower bound usually mean something isn’t being done.
When you genuinely need an agency
Not by company size, but by whether at least two of these are true:
- you have a shop with over 300 items or a site with over 200 pages
- you operate in several towns or several languages
- the competition in your industry has had their own SEO person for years
- you need development, not just content — somebody who can change the code
- one customer is worth over £500 to you and you have the capacity to take twice the work
If none of this applies, an agency is the most expensive way to get what you could do yourself.
When you don’t need an agency
- The site is new and technically broken. Fix the foundation first, then pay for monthly work. Otherwise you’re paying somebody to push a car with flat tyres.
- There’s nobody to write. An agency writing texts for you writes them without your experience from the field — and that’s the one thing the competition can’t copy.
- You don’t know what one customer is worth. Then you can’t judge whether a result is good, and you’ll pay for a year to find out.
Seven questions before signing
These questions separate a serious supplier from a seller of reports. Ask all of them.
1. Who owns the accounts? Search Console, analytics, tools — they must be on your email, with them as invited users. If it’s the other way round, at the end of the relationship you’re left without your own data. This is the most important question on the list.
2. What exactly do you do in the first month? “Site optimisation” isn’t an answer. Ask for a list: audit, fixes, keyword selection, how many articles.
3. How many articles a month and who writes them? If AI writes them — fine, but say that you know, and ask who checks them afterwards.
4. How do we measure success? Acceptable: the number of queries we appear for, clicks from search, enquiries and orders. Not acceptable: “number of optimised pages” and “number of links placed”.
5. Where do the links come from? If the answer is vague or “we have our own network of portals”, that’s buying links. Know what you’re paying for.
6. What happens when we end the relationship? Do the texts stay yours, do the links stay, do you get access to everything. Ask for it in the contract.
7. Who specifically will work on my site? In smaller agencies it’s common for one person to sell and somebody else to do the work. That isn’t a problem — the problem is when you don’t know who.
Red flags
- A guarantee of first place. Nobody can guarantee that, because nobody controls Google.
- A 12-month contract with no exit. Six months is a fair line for first results; an obligation longer than that with no break clause is for their security, not yours.
- A report listing activities carried out instead of results.
- “We know somebody at Google.”
- No questions about your business. Anyone who doesn’t ask what one customer is worth to you and where your enquiries come from now isn’t planning to measure the result.
If you do it yourself: how much time is enough
Realistically, half a day a month if the tool does the measuring and tracking for you:
- 1 hour — review findings and positions, fix whatever jumped out
- 1 hour — Search Console: titles with poor click rates, keywords in positions 8–20
- 2–3 hours — one or two articles on a topic the data chose
- 30 minutes — Google profile, reviews, replies
That’s a pace that produces a result within a year for most small companies. It isn’t fast, but it’s the only thing that doesn’t stop working when you stop paying.
The middle road nobody mentions
The best ratio of effort to return is often a combination: a tool plus a person occasionally. You keep the monthly rhythm, and you pay a specialist two or three times a year for what requires expertise — a technical review after a redesign, a six-month content plan, an analysis of why a competitor is ahead.
It comes to a few hundred pounds a year instead of a few thousand, and most of the benefit stays.
In short
- An agency pays off with a bigger site, several towns or languages, or when one customer is worth a lot.
- Fix the technical foundation first, then pay for monthly work.
- The accounts must be yours — that’s question number one.
- The result is measured (queries, clicks, orders), not the activities carried out.
- A guarantee of first place and vague links are a sign to keep looking.
- Yourself with a tool: half a day a month is a realistic and sustainable pace.