SEO FAQs

Pricing runs in tiers: Local Starter $800–$1,500/mo (GBP optimization, 5–8 core service/city pages, basic technical fixes, monthly reporting), Standard Campaign $1,800–$3,500/mo, Aggressive Growth $3,500–$6,500/mo, and Multi-Location/Franchise $6,500–$15,000+/mo. A one-time SEO audit runs $1,500–$3,500.

Scope drives the price — how many service and city pages you need, how much content you want published per month, how aggressive the link-building needs to be, and whether you're a single-location shop or multi-location/franchise.

Both. Ongoing campaigns are billed monthly by tier. A one-time SEO audit ($1,500–$3,500) is available as a standalone project if you want a technical, content, and competitive audit with a 90-day action plan before committing to a retainer.

Yes, bundled by tier — every tier includes technical fixes; Standard and above add ongoing blog content and link acquisition, scaling up with each tier.

Toughjobs builds SEO programs for trade contractors across the Midwest.

For local trade searches, expect early movement in 60–90 days, meaningful lead volume by month 4–6, and full campaign maturity around month 9–12. Anyone promising page one in 30 days is selling paid ads, black-hat tactics, or a fantasy.

Most SEO engagements kick off within 1–2 weeks of signing. Exact start date depends on current workload — we will give you a real date on the strategy call, not a placeholder.*

The technical audit, on-page fixes, and initial service-page work typically take 2–4 weeks with AI-assisted workflows. That is the work we control the speed of — where you actually rank afterward runs on Google's own timeline, not ours.*

SEO is a long-term asset, not a project with a finish line — you own the pages, content, and rankings you build, and they keep compounding as long as the work continues. Most contractors run it alongside paid ads rather than treating it as a short campaign.

Talk to us about your market — no pitch, just a straight read on what would actually move the needle for your business.

Yes — a one-time SEO audit ($1,500–$3,500) covers a full technical, content, and competitive review with a prioritized 90-day action plan.

Four layers: technical SEO (crawlability, speed, Core Web Vitals, schema), on-page SEO (a page for every service and every city you serve), content (an editorial calendar built around the questions customers Google before they call), and links and authority (local news, supplier pages, chamber and BBB listings, trade associations).

Yes — every service page is written for the exact phrase a customer types, not a generic industry term.

Yes. Before any content goes up, we make sure Google can crawl the site, render it fast, and understand it — fixing broken pages, cleaning up redirects, tightening Core Web Vitals, and implementing LocalBusiness and Service schema.

Yes. Every service you offer gets its own page written for the exact search, every city or neighborhood you serve gets its own page with real local context, and blog content is built around a 12-month editorial calendar tied to seasonal demand.

Yes — local news mentions, supplier and manufacturer partner pages, chamber and BBB listings, trade association profiles, and earned community-sponsorship coverage. No spammy directories, no PBNs, nothing that risks a penalty.

Trade contractors trying to own the ten to forty searches homeowners and property managers actually type when they need that trade in that service area.

Yes — the Local Starter tier is built for single-service, single-city shops: GBP optimization, 5–8 core pages, basic technical fixes, and monthly reporting.

No. Trade SEO wins on service and city pages plus a steady drip of high-intent content — 2 to 4 pieces a month targeting real customer questions. Publishing daily fluff is a waste of your budget.

Technical SEO first (so Google can crawl and understand the site), then on-page SEO (a page per service and city), then content (an editorial calendar tied to seasonal demand), then links and authority (earned local coverage, not spammy directories).

Around real search intent — the specific phrases homeowners and property managers actually type when they need your trade in your service area, not generic industry terms.

Every service you offer gets its own page, and every city or neighborhood you serve gets its own page with real local context — not the same template with the city name swapped out.

It scales by tier — Standard Campaign includes 2 blog posts a month, Aggressive Growth includes 4+ pieces of content a month plus heavier link building and quarterly strategy resets.

We record the starting assets, access, tracking, market, budget, and operating constraints before work begins — that baseline is what the whole campaign gets built around.

They're different tools. Ads produce leads today at a per-lead cost. SEO produces leads for years at a declining cost per lead. Most contractors we work with run both — ads for immediate cash flow, SEO for long-term margin. Cutting SEO because ads work is like paying rent forever instead of buying the shop.

Yes. Campaigns are built around your capacity, your margin services, and the searches that actually put both to work — not a one-size-fits-all template.

Yes — that's the core of on-page work: a dedicated page for each service and each city or neighborhood you serve.

Yes. Most contractors we work with run SEO and paid ads together — ads for immediate cash flow, SEO for long-term margin — with the channels kept distinct in reporting.

Yes — the Aggressive Growth tier explicitly includes quarterly strategy resets, and campaigns generally adjust as performance data comes in rather than running a fixed plan on autopilot.

You can still win. Most established local competitors got to page one and stopped working. We audit their gaps — thin service pages, weak local content, aging backlink profiles — and build a plan to outflank them on the specific searches that drive the most valuable jobs.

Milestone-based expectations, not a 30-day promise — think 6-month and 12-month checkpoints. Anyone selling first-page rankings in 30 days is selling paid ads, black-hat tactics, or a fantasy.

No agency controls a ranking position. We can improve the signals a business controls, document the work, and track visibility and inquiries — without presenting a guaranteed placement as fact.

With us, yes. You own your site, your content, your Google Business Profile, and your analytics accounts. Some agencies build content on their own domains or use rented assets — always ask this before you sign, because it decides who owns your leads five years from now.

Yes — white-hat link building only, and every link is explainable before it goes live.

No. No spammy directories, no PBNs (private blog networks), nothing that risks a Google penalty.

Month-to-month or short-term contracts after an initial ramp period — SEO takes time to build, so the first stretch is structured around getting the foundation in place, not locking you into a long contract before you've seen results.

Reach out through the contact page for a straight read on your market, or book the one-time SEO audit directly for a full technical, content, and competitive review.

Three layers: a baseline (starting assets, access, tracking, market, budget, and constraints before work begins), a work log (what changed, when, who approved it, and what still depends on you or another vendor), and verified outcomes (calls and forms connected to lead quality or booked work when the data is available).

Monthly reporting is standard across every tier.

Reports focus on leads and booked revenue, not just rankings and traffic — vanity ranking screenshots for keywords no one searches don't make the cut.

Yes — call tracking analysis is part of the Standard Campaign tier and above, connecting calls and forms back to the pages and searches that produced them.