The eight questions
Run these past any Norwich SEO agency, freelancer or national firm pitching for your account. Write the answers down, because the comparison only becomes obvious side by side.
- What exactly lands each month, and in what volume? You want numbers: pages, fixes, links, citations, reports.
- Who does the work, and how senior are they? A named specialist beats an unnamed team every time.
- Is the price fixed, and is it plus VAT? Fixed monthly pricing removes the incentive to pad hours.
- Is there a set-up, onboarding or audit fee? Ours is nil. Many are £500 to £2,500.
- What is the minimum term and the notice period? Six months to prove it, then rolling, is fair to both sides.
- What does the monthly report contain? Rankings alone are not a result. You want traffic, conversions and next month's plan.
- How do you handle AI search visibility? It should be the same engagement, not an upsell.
- What will you not do? An agency that names its limits is telling you the truth about scope.
8
Questions that decide whether a quote is comparable at all
6 months
Long enough to prove a fit, short enough to walk away
£750 to £2,000
Per month plus VAT for genuine local SEO in Norwich
Rather we just did this for you?
Message us with your site and sector. We will tell you which parts of this actually matter for you, and which plan covers it.
Monthly + VAT. Six month proving period, then rolling monthly. No 12-month lock-in.
Does the agency need to be in Norwich?
Technically no. The work is remote either way, and the best specialist for your category might sit in Leeds. Two things do genuinely favour a Norwich agency: you can sit in a room together when a quarter goes sideways, and they already know the local competitive picture, seasonality and the way Norfolk buyers search.
The other advantage is price. The same monthly scope in London is typically 40% to 60% more, because you are funding central London overheads rather than more senior hours on your account. We compared the two line for line in Norwich versus London agency pricing.
Comparing two quotes fairly
Reduce every proposal to the same seven lines. When you do, the cheaper monthly number often turns out to be the more expensive year.
Monthly fee
- What good looks like
- Fixed, published, plus VAT
- What to question
- Quoted on a call, varies by month
Set-up fee
- What good looks like
- None
- What to question
- £500 to £2,500 for onboarding or an audit
Deliverables
- What good looks like
- Countable volumes named in writing
- What to question
- A number of hours, or nothing specified
Who does the work
- What good looks like
- Named senior specialist
- What to question
- Unnamed team, often offshored
Minimum term
- What good looks like
- 6 months to prove it, then rolling
- What to question
- 12 months signed up front
AI visibility
- What good looks like
- Included in the same scope
- What to question
- A separate retainer on top
Reporting
- What good looks like
- One monthly report: rankings, traffic, conversions, next month
- What to question
- A dashboard link and a call
Red flags
- Guaranteed rankings. Nobody controls Google's index, and the guarantee is usually on terms with no volume.
- No named deliverable volumes, only a monthly retainer and a promise of effort.
- A twelve-month contract signed before a single month has been delivered.
- Reporting that celebrates keywords you already ranked for, or impressions with no conversion line.
- An unwillingness to say who does the work, or a sudden change of team after signature.
- AI visibility sold as a separate product on top of SEO you are already paying for.
If the deliverables are not countable, you cannot tell whether you were delivered to.
A realistic Norwich timeline
Local SEO is faster than national SEO, but it is not instant. In practice: weeks one to four are technical fixes, local profile and entity clean-up, and the first content. Weeks six to ten bring movement on long-tail local terms. Months three to six are where core terms such as your service plus Norwich move, assuming content and links keep landing. Competitive category terms take six to twelve months.
That is why we run an initial six-month proving period, then rolling monthly. Six months is long enough to see leading indicators and short enough that you are never trapped. The scope at each tier is on the SEO and AI Visibility page, and the price ladder is on the SEO packages page.
Questions we get asked
Ask for the monthly deliverable volumes in writing, the name and seniority of the person doing the work, the reporting cadence, the notice period, and whether the price is fixed. An agency that answers all five plainly is usually worth a trial. Anything vague about volumes or people is selling hours, not outcomes.
Not technically, because the work is done remotely either way. A Norwich agency helps in two practical ways: you can meet in person when it matters, and they understand the local search landscape, competitors and seasonality in Norfolk. Price is usually 40% to 60% lower than London for the same scope.
Expect early movement on long-tail local terms in 6 to 10 weeks, meaningful movement on core terms such as your service plus Norwich in 3 to 6 months, and competitive terms in 6 to 12 months. Anyone promising page one in 30 days is either targeting terms nobody searches or is about to buy links.
£750 to £2,000 a month plus VAT for local SEO, and £2,000 to £4,000 for competitive or national terms. Below roughly £600 a month there is not enough senior time in the budget to do technical work, content and links, so you are paying for a report.
A countable list: technical fixes shipped, pages optimised or written, links or citations earned, local profile updates, and one report showing rankings, traffic, conversions and what is planned next. If the deliverable list is not countable, you cannot tell whether you got what you paid for.
Guaranteed rankings, no named deliverable volumes, twelve-month contracts before any proof, percentage-of-spend fees on organic work, reporting only on vanity keywords you already ranked for, and an inability to say who will actually do the work.
Yes, and it should not be a separate invoice. Getting cited in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews uses the same crawl access, entity clarity, structure and authority work as SEO. Any agency treating it as a second retainer is selling the same work twice.
Put both on one line each: monthly fee plus VAT, set-up fee, minimum term, notice period, countable deliverables per month, who does the work, and what the report contains. Nine times in ten the cheaper quote has fewer deliverables or a longer lock-in.
Written by
Sam, co-founder, growth and paid media
Runs growth and paid media at Mesmerise Marketing. Ten years of paid and organic campaigns for challenger brands across DTC, B2B services and hospitality.
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