Is $3,500 a month for local SEO worth it for a plumber?

SEO services range from $1k to $10k a month in the U.S. I do not recommend paying less than $1k. I’ve never seen that work out well. I would enroll in an SEO class instead.

“Local pack visibility” and “authority building” are vague terms, though. If you feel like you have a connection with the team, I would want to know more about the work they will be doing each month.

Ask them three things:

• What will you do in the first 90 days, in order? You want specifics: fix the Google Business Profile categories, build service pages for drain cleaning and water heaters, start a review program. Not “optimization.”
• Who does the work after I sign? Get a name. A senior person selling and a junior person running a template is the most common setup in this business.
• How will we measure calls? Calls and form fills from Google, tracked with a call tracking number. Not rankings alone.

Also ask for month-to-month terms, or a three-month trial. A good shop will show you movement in three months, not usually in new revenue, but you can see traffic changes.

Also, I always try to warn people: if you need new business this month, SEO is the wrong tool. SEO is the slowest of the online marketing channels. Slowest, but also most powerful.