What's Included in an SEO Package?

This guide is about what goes into a package. For what packages cost per month, see our SEO cost and pricing guide. If you're picking one on a tight budget, read how to choose an affordable SEO package.

What Does an SEO Package Include?

An SEO package is a monthly bundle of work meant to get more people to find and contact you from Google. Most include technical fixes, on-page work on your service pages, Business Profile updates, listings and reviews, links or mentions, and a monthly report. Better packages also cover AI search and track calls and form leads, not only rankings.

• Technical SEO: making sure Google can crawl and index your pages, that they load fast on a phone, and that the code describes your business, services and hours.
• On-page and service pages: one page per service you sell, with titles, headings and copy that match how customers search, plus town pages where you have real local work to show.
• Google Business Profile: the right categories, services, service areas, hours and job photos, kept current. This is what shows in the map results.
• Reviews and listings: a routine for asking every customer for a review, and the same name, address and phone across the directories that matter.
• Links and mentions: links from suppliers, local groups, sponsors and press, which tell Google and AI tools that real people know you.
• Tracking and reporting: Search Console, analytics and call and form tracking, summarized in a report you can read in five minutes.

What's in a Basic vs Mid vs Full Local SEO Package?

A basic local SEO package fixes what's broken and cleans up your Business Profile. A mid package adds new service pages, a review routine and local links each month. A full package adds town pages, content planned from search data, outreach and lead tracking. The difference is how much new work ships, not the list of services.

A typical pattern from the packages we see quoted to local businesses, not an industry standard. Providers name and bundle these differently.

When you compare quotes, line them up against these rows. Two packages at the same price can sit in different columns: one spends the month on new pages and reviews, the other on a report. For price ranges by level, the monthly SEO cost guide uses survey data from Ahrefs. Contractors can also see what SEO costs for contractors.

Which SEO Deliverables Matter Most for a Service Business?

For a business that serves customers in a set area, four deliverables matter most: the Google Business Profile, one strong page per service, a steady flow of reviews, and call and form tracking. The first three decide whether you show up in local results. The fourth tells you whether showing up turns into work.

Google's own explanation backs this up. Google Business Profile Help says local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and how well-known a business is, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking. You can't move your shop, so a package should spend its effort on relevance (a complete profile and pages that say exactly what you do and where) and on reviews, links and mentions.

• Business Profile: it feeds the map results, where urgent jobs come from. See our guide to ranking in the map pack.
• Service pages: a roofer who also does gutters needs a gutter page, or Google has nothing to rank for gutter searches.
• Reviews: a request after every job beats a burst once a year. Our post on getting more Google reviews covers the routine.
• Tracking: without tracked calls and forms, a report can only show rankings, and rankings don't pay invoices.

Which SEO Package Items Are Padding?

Padding is anything that makes a package look bigger without bringing customers: bulk directory submissions, search engine submission, reports counting hundreds of tracked keywords, meta keywords and keyword-stuffed press releases. Some are harmless filler. Some, like low-quality directory links, are listed as spam in Google's own policies.

Padding usually shows up in cheaper packages because it's easy to automate, but it isn't a price problem. A low-priced package with five real tasks is better than an expensive one with fifty filler items. Count the tasks that change your pages, profile or reputation, and ignore the rest.

How Does AI Search (AEO and GEO) Fit Into an SEO Package?

AI search work, often called AEO (answer engine optimization) or GEO (generative engine optimization), is mostly the same SEO work aimed at a second audience. Google says there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. A modern package adds a few checks on top, not a separate product.

Google's page on AI features and your website says you don't need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special structured data to appear in them. ChatGPT is different in one way: OpenAI's crawler documentation says sites that block its OAI-SearchBot crawler won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers.

So the AI part of a package should cover four things:

• Crawler access: robots.txt and firewall settings that let Googlebot, Bingbot and AI search crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot in.
• Answer-first pages: each service page answers the obvious question (what it costs, how long it takes, which areas you serve) in the first few lines.
• Consistent facts: the same name, services, area and hours on your site, profile and listings, so every source agrees.
• Mentions: being named on the local and industry sites AI answers draw from.

Be careful with an "AI SEO" add-on that is only an llms.txt file or a schema plugin at an extra monthly fee. We add an llms.txt file because it takes minutes, but Google says it doesn't need one, so it isn't worth paying extra for. Our AI SEO cost guide covers how that work is priced, and our GEO explainer goes deeper on how AI tools pick sources.

What Are the Red Flags in an SEO Package?

The biggest red flag is a guaranteed ranking. Google's guide to hiring an SEO says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Also watch for a package with no list of monthly work, a site or Business Profile set up in the agency's name, and reports that never mention calls or leads.

• Guaranteed rankings or a "special relationship" with Google. Google's hiring guide tells site owners to beware of both.
• A cold email that found you "not listed in the major directories." Google says it gets those emails too, and to treat them with the same skepticism as diet-pill spam.
• No named deliverables. "Ongoing optimization" is not a deliverable. Pages, profile updates and review requests are.
• Your assets in their name. The domain, website and Business Profile should belong to you, so you keep them if you leave.
• Rankings-only reports. Ask how they'll show calls and form leads by month.

Questions to ask before you sign

Google suggests asking any SEO for examples of past work, what results to expect and in what timeframe, and how they measure success. We'd add two: what exactly ships in month one, and what happens to your site and accounts if you cancel. A good provider answers all five without hedging.

What Does Verlua's Monthly SEO Include?

Verlua's monthly SEO covers being found on Google, being found in AI answers, more calls and form leads, reviews and listings, and a plain-English monthly report. It runs $2,500/mo a month during launch months, usually the first 2, then $1,500/mo a month ongoing. No minimum contract.

• Found on Google

  Your Google Business Profile, a page for each service and area, technical fixes, and the internal links that move important pages up.

• Found in AI answers

  Answer-first pages, business schema, an llms.txt file, AI crawler access and mentions on the sites ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews cite (AEO and GEO).

• More calls and form leads

  Conversion fixes on the pages that already get traffic, plus call and form tracking so you can see which searches turn into inquiries.

• Reviews and listings

  A simple review-request routine and consistent business listings, which Google and AI tools both use to decide who to recommend.

• A plain-English monthly report

  What shipped, what moved in Search Console, which pages brought calls and forms, and the plan for next month.

• No minimum contract

  Billed month to month. Your website, Google Business Profile and accounts stay in your name.

Exact pricing depends on scope, competition, and timeline. These figures reflect what we typically quote for local service businesses; every engagement is confirmed after a free audit or discovery call.

Here is what that looks like on a real site. Sacramento Gutter Guard, a gutter company site we built and run, had 60 organic Google clicks from Jul 27–Oct 18, 2025 and 776 over the same 12 weeks a year later. That's the chart at the top of this page, and the Sacramento Gutter Guard case study shows the work behind it. It's one site, and those are search clicks, not booked jobs.

To compare our packages side by side, including launch months, redesign plus SEO and website-only options, see Verlua's SEO packages and prices. We work with businesses in Sacramento, Roseville, Rocklin and Folsom; if you're in the city itself, our page on local SEO in Sacramento covers the local market.

Frequently Asked Questions About SEO Packages