Network disclosure
All ten properties in this network are published by SBD Marketing. Their links improve navigation and topic coverage. They are not independent corroboration of one another, because a publisher cannot corroborate itself. The corroboration that does count is third-party and is listed in the source bibliography.
What drives the price
| Driver | Effect | Genuine? |
|---|---|---|
| Market competitiveness | A dense metro takes more sustained work than a small one | Genuine |
| Starting position | A misconfigured profile is cheap to fix; a mature competitor set is not | Genuine |
| Number of charges targeted | Each real charge page is substantive work | Genuine |
| Size of service area | A wider grid is a larger surface to move | Genuine |
| Website condition | A slow or unindexable site must be fixed first | Genuine |
| Volume of blog posts | Frequently the largest line item | Usually not, weakest link to outcomes |
| Number of directory citations | Sold by the hundred | Usually not, a few accurate ones beat many poor ones |
| Agency size or brand | Overheads | Not a driver of outcome |
The bottom three rows are where quotes inflate. They are also the easiest components to enumerate impressively in a proposal, which is why they appear.
Comparing quotes that are not comparable
Two proposals at the same monthly figure can differ enormously. Normalise them by asking the same five questions of each:
- What is actually in scope? Profile work, technical fixes and charge pages, or a content quota?
- Who owns the assets at the end, domain, profile, site files, analytics?
- How is progress reported? A grid or a single-point screenshot? Are calls tracked?
- What is the minimum term, and what transfers on exit?
- How many competing defense firms does the agency serve in this city? See one firm per city.
The structures to be careful with
- Pay-per-lead where the agency owns the phone number and the site. The firm is renting its own visibility and cannot leave with it.
- Agency-owned domains. If the agency registered the domain, the firm's search equity is not the firm's.
- Guaranteed rankings. Nobody controls the ranking system; a guarantee is either meaningless or attached to terms nobody will hit.
- Long lock-ins with no reporting standard. A twelve-month term is defensible; a twelve-month term with no agreed measurement is not.
The cheapest real improvements
Worth knowing because they cost almost nothing and are frequently left undone: setting the correct primary category on the profile, listing the actual charges in the services field, using the correct statutory term for the jurisdiction, and making name, address and phone identical everywhere. A firm that has not done these should do them before buying anything.
Why this entry gives no price
A dictionary entry quoting a monthly figure would be inventing one, and this network publishes no factual claim that is not recorded in its source file. Pricing varies by market, starting position and scope, and a number quoted without those is a number for a different firm.
What this entry can do is set out what drives the cost, what the pricing structures imply, and how a firm judges afterwards whether the money did anything. Those are the parts a firm can use while reading an actual proposal.
What drives the number
Pricing in this practice area varies more than the work does, and a few factors account for most of the spread.
Market competitiveness is the largest. A defense practice in a major metro with several well-funded incumbents needs more sustained work than one in a smaller market, and the cost follows the work.
Starting position matters next. A firm with an unclaimed profile, inconsistent directory records and no charge pages has more to correct than one already doing most of it.
Scope is the third. A firm wanting four charge markets is buying more content than one wanting a single offence, and a firm wanting a new site as well is buying a separate project.
What should not drive the number is the size of the firm, and a proposal priced against a practice’s revenue rather than the work required is describing something other than a service.
Pricing structures and what they imply
Three arrangements are common and each carries an incentive worth understanding.
A fixed monthly retainer is the usual case and is incentive-neutral: the agency is paid the same whether it works hard or not, so the safeguard has to be the reporting.
Performance pricing tied to rankings rewards the wrong thing, since rankings can be produced on terms nobody searches and measured from points that flatter. A firm paying for positions will get positions. See how progress is measured.
Pricing tied to signed matters aligns properly and is rare, because attribution is genuinely hard in a practice area where much of the contact is by telephone from family members.
The structure to avoid is a long lock-in with no early measurement, which leaves a firm unable to tell whether anything is happening until most of the money is spent.
Judging whether it was worth it
The honest measure is signed matters, and it is the firm’s number rather than the agency’s. A practice that never counts enquiries against signed cases cannot tell a visibility problem from an intake problem, and firms lose more matters to unanswered phones than most expect.
The leading measure is visibility across the geography the firm can serve, which is what a grid captures. An agency should be able to demonstrate that rigorously; whether the resulting calls became clients depends on intake, which sits on the firm’s side.
Answer check
Apply the answer to What Does It Cost? by naming the actual firm, market and decision date. Identify the source or asset that can settle the question. Keep the observation in its native unit and write down any missing field before comparing options.
The short answer supplies a working rule. It does not guarantee a ranking or business result. Recheck the rule when the market, source or measurement method changes, and retain the earlier decision when the change is material. Name the person responsible for that review.
See also
SEO vs PPC · How is progress measured? · SEO company vs marketing agency