Frequently asked questions

With an agency you're usually sold by a senior strategist and then handed to a junior executive managing 15 other accounts. Here, the person you speak to is the person doing the work. You get senior-level SEO, web development and paid media from a single point of contact, lower overheads (so more of your budget goes into actual work), replies within hours instead of days, and complete transparency over what was done and why. If a channel isn't working, I'll tell you and recommend stopping it — an agency rarely recommends spending less with them.

Every engagement starts with a diagnostic: a full technical crawl, Core Web Vitals audit, keyword and SERP analysis against your top three competitors, a review of your analytics and conversion tracking, and a look at your Google Business Profile if you serve a local area. From that I build a prioritised roadmap ranked by impact against effort — the fixes that move revenue soonest are shipped first, not the ones that pad a report. You see the roadmap before any work starts.

Technical and on-page fixes often show movement within 4-8 weeks because you're removing things that actively hold the site back. Meaningful ranking gains for competitive commercial keywords typically land in months 3-6, and compound heavily from months 6-12 as content and authority build. Local SEO is usually the fastest of all — a properly optimised Google Business Profile can produce more calls within weeks. Anyone promising page one in 30 days is either targeting keywords nobody searches for or using tactics that will get you penalised.

A single high-converting landing page typically starts around $1,500. A full small-business website with 6-10 pages, a blog and lead capture usually runs $2,500-$5,000. Larger custom builds, e-commerce and web applications start at $5,000+ depending on functionality. Every quote includes mobile-first responsive design, speed and Core Web Vitals optimisation, on-page SEO, schema markup, analytics and conversion tracking, a contact/lead system, and a handover walkthrough so you can update content yourself. You always get a fixed price in writing before anything begins.

Yes. A typical retainer month includes technical monitoring and fixes, on-page optimisation of priority pages, one to four pieces of publish-ready content, digital PR and link acquisition, Google Business Profile management for local clients, competitor tracking, and a short report covering rankings, traffic, conversions and next month's plan. Retainers are month-to-month — no minimum term.

Yes, and this is where a lot of redesigns go badly wrong. Before anything changes I record your current URL structure, rankings, internal links and top-performing pages, then map every old URL to its new destination with 301 redirects. Content that already ranks is preserved and improved, not deleted. After launch I monitor indexation, crawl errors and rankings daily for the first fortnight to catch anything unexpected. Done properly, a redesign usually improves rankings because the site becomes faster and better structured.

Some of my best results come from local businesses — dentists, trades, clinics, restaurants, law firms and independent retailers — outranking national chains in their own city. Local search rewards relevance and consistency more than budget, so a well-optimised local business can genuinely beat a much larger competitor. Small businesses also make decisions quickly, which means work ships faster and results arrive sooner.

Yes: account structure, keyword and audience research, ad copy, dedicated landing pages, conversion tracking, negative keyword management and ongoing optimisation. Everything is judged on cost per qualified lead and return on ad spend, never on clicks or impressions. Paid works best alongside SEO — ads buy immediate visibility while organic builds the long-term asset that keeps producing after you stop paying.

You get a live dashboard plus a short monthly summary in plain English: keyword positions, organic traffic, conversions and enquiries, page speed scores, work completed this month, and priorities for next month. You keep full ownership of every account — analytics, Search Console, ad accounts, hosting and domain are all in your name. Nothing is held hostage if we ever part ways.

That works well. I can operate as the strategy and technical lead, delivering prioritised specs your team implements, reviewing their work, and training them on the reasoning so knowledge stays in-house. Alternatively I handle implementation directly and keep your team free for other work — whichever gets results faster.

No, and neither should anyone else — no one controls Google's algorithm, and guarantees usually come with a loophole such as ranking for a phrase nobody searches for. What I do commit to is a clearly scoped plan, work delivered on time, honest reporting, and measurable progress against agreed targets. If something isn't working, I'll say so early and change course rather than quietly running out the contract.

Send a message using the form below with your website and what you're trying to achieve. Within one working day you'll get an initial read on your site — the biggest opportunity I can see and the biggest thing holding you back — plus a free 30-minute call. If it's a fit, you receive a scoped proposal with fixed pricing and timelines. If it isn't, I'll tell you that too and point you in the right direction.

Most small-business clients sit between £400 and £1,200 per month depending on how competitive their market is and how much content and technical work is needed. One-off projects — a technical SEO audit, a local SEO setup or a website build — are quoted as a fixed price, typically £500-£1,500 for an audit and roadmap. There's no minimum contract on retainers, and you always see the scope and the price before anything starts.

Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific searches like 'emergency dentist open Sunday in Leeds' rather than just 'dentist'. They have lower search volume but far less competition and much higher buying intent, so a newer or smaller site can realistically rank for them within weeks instead of years. I usually build a base of 20-50 long-tail pages and blog posts first — they bring in enquiries quickly and the authority they build makes the bigger head terms winnable later.

It's almost always one of five things: pages aren't indexed or are blocked in robots.txt, the site is too slow or unusable on mobile, the pages don't actually target the phrases your customers search for, there's thin or duplicated content, or competitors simply have more relevant pages and links. A free initial review tells you which of these applies to your site, and the audit puts a priority order on fixing them.

Yes. Send your website through the form and within one working day you'll get a short, honest read on the biggest opportunity and the biggest problem I can see, plus a free 30-minute call to talk it through. There's no obligation and no pressure — if SEO isn't the right spend for you right now, I'll say so.

I work with clients across the UK and internationally, most often dentists and clinics, solicitors and accountants, trades and home services, restaurants and hospitality groups, and small ecommerce brands. Because everything is delivered remotely with clear reporting, your location matters far less than whether the search demand in your market is worth chasing.