Picking an SEO agency as a tradie is a high-stakes call. Twelve months of money out the door is the cost of getting it wrong, and most of the people taking those calls have never run a service business. Five questions filter the field down fast.
The five questions to ask before signing
- Can you show me a tradie case study with the numbers redacted? If the answer is "we work across industries", they don't know your industry.
- Whose name is the Google Business Profile under? Should be yours. If they want it under theirs, walk away.
- What's the first 30 days of work? If the answer is vague, they're padding the contract.
- How do I leave? 30 days notice, no exit fee, full handover. Anything else is a hostage situation.
- What won't you do? Any agency that can't name a tactic they refuse is selling everything to everyone.
Red flag #1 — guaranteed rankings
"We guarantee page one in 60 days." This is the oldest tell in the book. Google's algorithm doesn't take instructions from agencies. Anyone promising a position is either lying or planning to rank you for a phrase nobody searches.
One agency we've seen ranks tradies #1 for the phrase "sparky service western Sydney NSW Australia near me" — eight keywords stacked together, two AU searches per month, no commercial value. Technically a #1 ranking. Practically worthless.
Red flag #2 — flat monthly fee, "anything you need"
"$1,500 a month, we'll do whatever you need" reads great in a sales call. In practice it means they'll do the minimum that keeps you from cancelling. Specifics never appear, deliverables never get committed, the conversation drifts to whatever the client raises in the meeting.
A real SEO contract names what gets done each month. The monthly report should leave no ambiguity about where time went.
Red flag #3 — agency-owned anything
Your Google Business Profile, domain, hosting, ad accounts, Search Console — every one of these should be in your name. If the agency creates them under theirs, you don't own your own marketing. You're renting access to it.
One sparky we picked up in 2025 had spent three years with an agency that owned his GBP. Reviews, photos, posts — all of it tied to a Gmail he didn't have the password to. The transfer took six weeks and a legal letter. Don't let it happen to you.
What an honest scope looks like
Three-month blocks, named deliverables, monthly check-in. A first three months on a tradie SEO engagement usually contains GBP cleanup, 6 to 10 suburb pages written and live, citation audit, schema markup added, the technical fixes from the audit closed. Months four to six pivot to content velocity and review systems — building on the foundation of the four moves.
What a fair price looks like in 2026
For a tradie operating in one metro, $1,500 to $2,500 a month buys real SEO work in 2026. Below $1,000 you're getting templates and excuses. Above $3,500 you're paying for an enterprise account manager you don't need. The pricing page shows where we sit and what's included, and the SEO offer details the scope at each engagement length.
The takeaway
Five questions, three red flags, one honest scope. Bring that to your next agency call and you'll know inside 20 minutes whether to keep talking. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so — and we'll often point you at someone who is.