Most people come to us asking about an SEO retainer before they ask about anything else, because that is how the industry trained them to think about search.
Pay monthly, forever, and hope something good happens.
But we do things a little differently.
There are four different ways we work with our clients over here at Duo.
- You can learn it yourself
- You can hand us one day,
- You can hand us three months,
- Or you can keep growing with us after your foundation is built. This one is the SEO retainer, and we only offer it to people whose foundation we have already seen.
We have this conversation with every inquiry, and we’ve known this for a while, but our SEO service page is extremely unclear about what we offer.
So we decided: first, let’s bring this to the pod… second, let’s add this handy little podcast to the SEO service page so that if you are extra shy about booking a call, you can start right here.
But please don’t be shy! We love to chat.
What we cover in this episode:
- Why we will not sell you a monthly SEO retainer on day one
- How we decide which package someone needs, including the questions we ask on every call
- A breakdown of each doorway into our business… the DIY, the one-day, the foundational work, and the SEO retainer.
- The add-ons and sometimes custom work we do.
Why We Don’t Start With a Monthly SEO Retainer
An SEO retainer only works when there’s something solid to build on. Before we can grow your traffic month over month, your foundation has to be in place.
When we say foundation, we mean the core pages of your website:
- Home
- About
- Contact
- Services
- Product pages
- Collections
Those pages need to be optimized, error-free, and indexed in Google Search Console. Google should understand what each page is about and when to show it to someone searching for what you offer.
Once that’s working, we can amplify it with content that builds your authority, new pages, and expanded collections. Without it, we can’t confidently promise that monthly work will pay off.
You can build that foundation yourself through SEO on Tap, or our team can build it for you. Either path opens the door to the retainer.
You Don’t Need an SEO Retainer to See Results
Every SEO project ends with a clear plan for what to do next. Plenty of our clients take that plan and run with it on their own.
The retainer is for business owners who’ve outgrown doing it themselves. As your business grows, you need to step out of the weeds and wear the CEO hat. Writing blogs stops being the best use of your time, and that’s the work we take off your plate.
We’ve also seen too many businesses pay an agency a couple hundred dollars a month with no idea what that money covers. We’d rather build a structure where you always know what you’re paying for.
Door #1: Learn It Yourself With SEO On Tap
SEO On Tap® is our self-paced online course. It teaches everything we know about SEO, and we update it every year as search changes. When we make updates, students get an email pointing them to the modules and resources that changed.
This door is for you if you have more time than budget. Every module runs under 10 minutes, so the learning fits into your day. The implementation is where the real work happens. You have to take what you learn and apply it to your website, and if you skip that part, you won’t see results.
That’s the biggest thing to understand before you buy. The course costs less money than having us do it for you, but it costs you time. For a real-world look, episode #110 features Katy, who walked through her experience doing SEO inside the course.
Door #2: SEO in a Day
SEO in a Day is our newest offering. It fills the gap between the course and our three-month foundational program, for businesses with smaller websites that still want experts to take the work off their plate. It also pairs well with the course if you want to learn SEO and hand off the initial setup.
In one day, our team sets the SEO foundation on your website. That day can include:
- Keyword research, a competitive snapshot, and an AI visibility check to see where you show up in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and similar tools.
- Setup and cleanup for Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Bing Webmaster Tools so your pages are indexed and working.
- Metadata, heading tags, URL slugs, and alt text fixes across your core pages.
- A technical health check, when time allows.
At the end of the day, you get a recorded walkthrough of everything we touched and why, a keyword wish list prioritized by page, and five next steps. You also get a week of Voxer access to ask questions or get coaching on those next steps.
Door #3: Duo-It-For-Me, Our Three-Month Foundation
Duo-It-For-Me is our three-month foundational program, and it’s our favorite work by far. We used to call it an SEO audit. Today it works more like a mini SEO retainer, with three months of deep work on your website.
We offer two versions: one for service-based businesses and one for product businesses, since product sites have more collections and product pages to optimize.
Month One: Research
You start by filling out a questionnaire, which is the only heavy-lifting homework in the whole program.
From there, we run:
- A competitive analysis from an SEO perspective, which often reveals that your real search competitors aren’t the brands you’ve been watching on Instagram
- An AI visibility scan to see where you and your competitors show up in AI answers
- Keyword research that accounts for the long, conversational questions people type into ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini
- Tool setup, including Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager, plus key events that show who converted and where they came from
Month Two: The Audit
Now we audit your website for missing SEO titles, messy URL slugs, broken links, heading tags, and more. Lots of tools can run an audit, including ChatGPT and Claude. What they’re missing is the research that tells you how to act on the results.
Say an audit flags a missing SEO title. Before writing one, you need to know if that page is the right page, which keyword belongs on it, whether it should become three pages, and whether it has enough copy for search engines to find. The research answers all of that.
Before we make changes, we hop on a call to walk through our findings and get your nod on any bigger updates. You’ll be maintaining your website long after we’re done, so understanding the why matters. Then our team makes the updates for you, and you get a few weeks of Voxer access to ask questions while we work.
Month Three: Content and Handoff
We write and publish two full blog posts built around keywords chosen to drive traffic and help you compete. Then we spend 30 days monitoring indexing and watching what moves.
This is also the handoff, with tutorials and resources so you can maintain your website going forward. About three to five months later, we meet for a check-in call to review what’s working and what you need next.
The goal is a foundation that keeps working for years. Unless you change your offerings, audience, or business name, your ongoing work comes down to creating content that shows you’re relevant and authoritative.
Door #4: The SEO Maintenance and Growth Retainer
Here’s the SEO retainer everyone asks about. It’s only available to past clients, because once your foundation is set, the work shifts from small metadata tweaks to big-picture strategy.
Each month includes:
- Two new blog posts, written start to finish
- Two content refreshes that update older posts and weave in internal links to your newer content
- Six hours of on-site work across the team, from SEO strategy to copy to web design
Those refreshes keep your whole blog working together, so every post supports a bigger story. The six hours go toward SEO-specific work, so brand projects outside of SEO fall outside the retainer.
At the start of each month, we send a strategy for how those hours and posts will be used. You give it a thumbs up, and we handle the rest.
A Dashboard That Shows Exactly What We Did
Too many business owners have worked with SEO agencies and had no idea what they were paying for. Our retainer clients get a custom dashboard that pulls their analytics into one place, compares month over month, and lists everything we worked on. If Google Analytics and Search Console intimidate you, this gives you the full story without logging into either.
The retainer runs in three-month blocks, because that’s the minimum time it takes to show a trend. You can renew for as long as it makes sense.
Good SEO Already Works for AI Search
Lately, it seems like everyone says you need a GEO strategy, an AIO strategy, or a plan built only for ChatGPT.
Here’s the deal: authentic SEO already covers it.
Our approach skips the tricks. We create content that grows your expertise and authority, and that helps you show up across every platform.
SEO is more relevant than ever because Google isn’t the only player anymore. We monitor and track it all, and the same strong foundation helps you get found everywhere people search.
Ready to figure out which SEO package is for you?
Here’s what we want you to remember…
- Every strong SEO strategy starts with a solid foundation, which is why our SEO retainer comes last.
- There are four doors: learn it yourself, hand us a day, hand us your foundation, or keep growing with us.
- The right traffic matters more than the most traffic.
If you’re still unsure which door is yours, book a discovery call. We love to chat, and we’ll help you find the right fit.
Quick Answers About Our SEO Retainer
A complete SEO engagement usually includes:
Keyword research
Competitive analysis
A technical and on-page audit
Hands-on optimization of metadata, headings, and URL structure
Google Analytics and Search Console setup
Content written around the keywords with the most opportunity
A full three-month program covers all of that plus an AI visibility scan, two written blog posts, thirty days of monitoring, and tutorials so the client can maintain the work afterward.
We figure out what your ideal customers are searching for, check whether your website gives search engines and AI tools enough information to answer those searches, and then fix what is missing.
That means research first, then technical and on-page edits, then content. We’re also honest about which traffic is worth having. Ranking for a search that brings visitors who will never buy from you is not a win, no matter how large the number looks in a report.
Both work. The deciding factor is time, not budget. If you want to understand your own website and you will make room to do the work, a course will take you further than a one-time service, because the skill stays with you. If your calendar is already full and the SEO to-do has been sitting there for a year, hiring it out is the faster path.
We price in fixed packages with payment plans available, so the number quoted is the number charged. Current pricing for every SEO service lives on the SEO services page.
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Abbey Oslin and Courtney Petersen are Minnesota-based marketing experts with over 20+ years of combined experience working with big brands. They are educators and co-founders of Duo Collective; a boutique organic marketing agency specializing in SEO, branding, and custom websites for women-led small businesses and creative entrepreneurs.
Ready to grow your visibility and become unforgettable?
Learn more or work with our team here.
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