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Search Retainer
Measured on enquiries. Not impressions.
You want search to compound, not another jargon report
The foundation is right, or about to be. The tracking tells the truth, the technical base is sound, and you know search can carry real weight for the business. What you need now is consistent work, month after month, from someone measured on the same number you are.
You've probably heard the other version of this story, or lived it. Thousands a month for the best part of a year. A monthly PDF nobody understood. Calls full of jargon that made asking questions feel stupid. Rankings that moved sideways while the invoices didn't. "Are all SEO companies scammers" is a question real business owners genuinely post, and the fact that you might be nodding is exactly the problem this page has to answer.
What you actually want is plain. More qualified enquiries this quarter than last. A report in English that says what was done, what it cost and what it produced. And fixes that ship, rather than sitting in a recommendations deck waiting for a developer who was never going to read it.
What you
actually get
Every line below is a deliverable, not an intention. If it's on this list it's in the proposal, and if it's not on this list it isn't included.
Monthly technical SEO, with the fixes implemented
I built websites before I optimised them. When the month's work finds a slow template, broken markup or a crawl problem, I open the code and fix it, usually the same week. Most agencies email recommendations to your developer, and the email dies there.
Two to four content briefs per month
Built from the keyword map: what to write, for whom, targeting what, structured how. Your writer or I brief an outside one, and nothing gets published into a void.
On-page optimisation, continuously
Titles, internal linking and page structure, tuned against what Search Console shows is actually being searched, not what we guessed in January.
Google Ads management up to R60,000 a month of spend
Inside the same fee, run by the same person, on the same keyword strategy. Flat fee, never a percentage of spend, so I have no incentive to inflate your budget.
Search term and negative keyword hygiene
The unglamorous work that stops your budget buying irrelevant clicks. Badly run local accounts waste a quarter or more of spend this way, which is your money, not Google's.
Google Business Profile management
Posts, services, photos and review responses, kept current monthly. For local enquiries the profile is often the first page of your website.
A monthly report on leads and revenue
Not impressions, not sessions, not positions dressed up as progress. What was done, what it produced, what happens next. If you can't understand a sentence of it, that's my failure, not yours.
A monthly strategy call
Thirty minutes, the report on screen, your questions answered in plain language.
How it runs
So you know what's happening and when, and so nobody has to ask for a status update.
Baseline and priorities
I verify the tracking, read the history in Search Console and the ads account, and we agree the numbers this retainer gets judged on. In writing.
First fixes shipped
The highest-impact technical items go live, the ads account is restructured, negative keywords go in, and the first content briefs land.
The rhythm
Fixes implemented, two to four briefs delivered, ads managed weekly, and the report on leads and revenue in your inbox by the fifth, followed by the strategy call.
The honest review
Progress against the plan, what worked, what didn't, what changes. At month six you decide whether to continue, with data rather than hope.
What I need from you
The projects that run late almost always run late for one of these reasons, so they're worth reading properly before we start.
- Manager access to GA4, Search Console and the Google Ads account, all owned by you, created if absent
- Access to the site, so fixes ship instead of being recommended
- Content approvals within the agreed window, a brief that waits three weeks doesn't compound
- Ad spend paid directly to Google on your own billing, it never touches my invoice
- One person who can tell me, monthly, which enquiries were actually good
What's not included
On the public page rather than buried in the proposal, so there's no argument in week five.
- Ad spend (paid to Google directly)
- Ad spend above your tier allowance, then 10% of spend
- Writing the content itself, only briefing it
- Paid link placement
What happens if you don't do this
Do nothing. Search compounds for whoever does the work. A competitor who starts today is at month fourteen when you're at month two, and that gap doesn't close by spending harder later, only by starting earlier.
Go cheaper. The R8,000-a-month operators exist and some are honest. What that money buys is a slice of a junior's attention, a tool-generated report and no implementation, because at that price nobody can afford to open your code. If your ambition for search is modest, it can be a rational buy. This retainer is for when it isn't.
Start in the wrong place. If your tracking has never been properly audited, do not start a retainer on top of it, mine or anyone's. Six months of optimisation measured against numbers that lie is six months wasted with confidence. Search Foundations fixes the measurement first, and most retainer clients start there.
Straight
answers
How is this different from the agency that burned me?
Why do you cost more than the R8,000-a-month guys?
Do you guarantee rankings?
You're one person. What happens if you're unavailable?
Who owns the ad account and the data?
Why the 3-month minimum?
Sound like
your problem?
One call, no deck. If this isn't the right package I'll tell you which is.