Who does the work?
Whether you are talking to an SEO agency, a consultant or a freelancer, ask who will build the pages, who answers email and whether any part is subcontracted. A straight answer matters more than a particular one.
Choosing an agency 
5.0 Rating on Google
Choosing an Anchorage SEO Company: What a Good Proposal Contains
An Anchorage SEO company can sell you the same words it sells in every county, or it can show it understands why Anchorage is different. This page is a checklist for reading any proposal, ours included, with the county's own numbers so you can judge whether the scope fits the size and the crowd of your trade.
5.0 Rating on GoogleThe crowd your proposal faces
How many competitors a proposal must beat, trade by trade
The more crowded your trade is, the more detailed and the more patient a proposal should be. The table lists employer locations only, so sole proprietors are missing and the real crowd is a little larger.
| Trade | Locations | Per 10,000 residents | Versus typical county | Under 10 staff | With 20+ staff | Change since 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Law offices | 211 | 7.4 | 2.5 times | 85 of 100 | 6 | -17.6 percent |
| Physicians offices | 250 | 8.7 | 2.1 times | 71 of 100 | 38 | -16.9 percent |
| Real estate agents and brokers | 164 | 5.7 | 2.1 times | 96 of 100 | 0 | +31.2 percent |
| Residential remodelers | 146 | 5.1 | 1.6 times | 97 of 100 | 0 | +52.1 percent |
| Dentists | 153 | 5.3 | 1.9 times | 71 of 100 | 8 | -11 percent |
| Accounting and CPA firms | 79 | 2.8 | 2 times | 87 of 100 | 4 | +6.8 percent |
| Janitorial services | 103 | 3.6 | 2.1 times | 75 of 100 | 17 | -4.6 percent |
| Roofing contractors | 34 | 1.2 | 1.4 times | 74 of 100 | 0 | +17.2 percent |
Census County Business Patterns 2022 (employer locations only, so sole proprietors are not counted) against 2017. Typical county means the median county with 20,000 or more residents.
Reading the table
Why trade crowding changes the proposal you should accept
Look at the ratio column for Anchorage. Law offices sit at 2.5 times the density of a typical county, physician offices at 2.1, janitorial services at 2.1 and real estate agents at 2.1. If you are in one of those trades, a proposal that promises results from five pages and a profile is not credible. Expect a longer plan, more pages by service and by pocket, and a budget for paid search in the meantime.
The opposite also deserves honesty. In trades close to or under typical density, such as insurance agencies at 0.8 times, plumbing and heating at 1.0 and the other quieter ones, a smaller scope may do the job and a large package is a warning sign.
Size matters too. Residential remodelers show 97 of every 100 locations with under 10 staff, which means the competition is many small firms, each with a thin website. Restaurants have 63 locations with 20 or more staff. A company that treats the two the same has not read the numbers.
Before you sign
Eight questions to ask any company, in this order
Any company should be able to answer these without a sales deck. They apply to us as much as anyone, and we would rather lose a deal on an honest answer than win it on a vague one.
Which places will you build for?
The answer should name zones such as the Bowl, Eagle River, Girdwood or Hillside, and say why, not just repeat Anchorage.
How do you handle the service area?
If you meet customers at your address the answer differs from a business that drives to them. See the page on Google Maps for the split.
What will you send me each month?
Calls, forms and bookings tied to channels, in plain language, not a list of keywords.
What happens if I leave?
Your website, listings, analytics and content should stay in accounts you control. Ask for that in writing.
What do you not promise?
Nobody can promise a ranking or a lead count. A company that does should be asked how.
How long is the commitment?
Month to month is common and fine. Ours is no contract and no setup fee.
What would you do first?
The first month should have a clear order, not a bundle of everything at once.
What goes in
What a proposal for this municipality has to contain, beyond the standard list
A proposal that could be pasted into any county's file fails the first test. For the Municipality of Anchorage, look for four things. First, a geography section that separates the Bowl from Eagle River and Chugiak, from Girdwood and the Turnagain Arm side, and from Hillside, instead of treating 1,707 square miles as one market. Second, a reach section: customers and patients arrive through the airport, the Glenn Highway and the port, so the proposal should say whether you want to be found by people planning a trip in.
Third, a calendar. About 79 percent of out-of-state visitors come in summer and the snow season runs from October to April, so a plan for a seasonal business without a calendar is incomplete. Fourth, a trade section built on numbers like the ones above. The change since 2017 is part of the story: law office locations fell 17.6 percent while staying 2.5 times the typical density, and remodelers grew 52.1 percent. A company that has not looked at either should be asked why.
Proposal check
How to compare three Anchorage proposals side by side
Put scope next to scope
List the pages, listings and ad platforms each proposal includes, in numbers. Vague phrases such as full optimization are not a scope.
Check the geography
Which zones are named, and are they zones you actually serve? A proposal for all of Anchorage that ignores Eagle River and Girdwood is a generic one.
Ask for the first 90 days
The digital marketing page shows what a sensible first quarter looks like for three kinds of business.
Compare the exit
Month to month, no setup fee and ownership of your accounts should be the baseline, not a concession.
Warning signs
Red flags and what a better answer sounds like
These come up across the industry. None is peculiar to this municipality, but each matters more where a long winter makes every enquiry count.
| If you hear this | Why it is a problem | What to ask instead |
|---|---|---|
| A promised first-page ranking | No one controls Google. A guarantee in that form usually hides conditions. | What is guaranteed, in what form and under what terms? |
| One package for every trade | Law offices and landscapers face different crowds and seasons. | How does the plan change for my trade in this county? |
| Reports full of impressions | Traffic is not calls. | Which numbers will show phone calls and booked jobs? |
| Years in a place or an office claim | Irrelevant to whether the work fits. | Show me the work plan for my zones. |
| You do not get the logins | Your accounts should be yours. | Will I be an owner of the profile and the analytics? |
Plans
What our plans cost, so you can compare
For reference, our SEO plans: RankGuarantee™ at $495 a month for 25 landing pages, and Organic Growth at $1,495, $2,495 and $3,495 a month. No setup fee and no contract. Paid ads management is separate.
Questions
Questions about hiring an Anchorage SEO company
What does an Anchorage SEO company charge?
Our plans run $495 a month for RankGuarantee™ landing pages, then $1,495 for Silver, $2,495 for Gold with a managed website and $3,495 for Platinum. No setup fee, no contract. Other companies will quote differently, so compare the scope behind the price, not the price alone.
Does an SEO company need an office in Anchorage?
Not by itself. What matters is whether the work reflects the municipality: its pockets, roads, seasons and trades. Ask to see a plan that names your zones. A local address is not evidence of local understanding, and its absence is not evidence against.
How do I judge a company that has never worked in my trade?
Ask how the provider would research your trade's competition in Anchorage. A company with a method for reading competitors, search names and seasons can learn a trade. A company with only a template cannot. Ask for the first month in detail.
What should a first month look like?
An audit of your site, listings and tracking, a decision about which zones and services come first, and fixes to the basics. New pages and content should follow once the base is sound. Anyone who starts with link buying or a large package of pages deserves questions.
Is the cheapest SEO consultant or agency a bad sign?
Not automatically, but a very low price in a crowded trade should prompt questions about scope. In Anchorage trades near typical density, a smaller plan can be right. Compare monthly deliverables, such as pages, listings and reports, not headline cost, and ask what is left out of the lower price.
How many proposals should I collect?
Three is usually enough. Give each company the same list of zones and services, ask the same questions and compare scope line by line. More than three tends to blur the differences, and fewer than two leaves you without a reference point for either price or scope.
Should I accept long contract terms for a lower price?
Be careful. Search work does take months, but that is a reason to judge by what is delivered each month, not a reason to be locked in. A plan with no contract and no setup fee lets you leave if the work does not fit. If you do sign a term, ask what you keep and who owns the accounts at the end.
Who owns the website and listings?
You should. Ask for owner access to the Google Business Profile, analytics, Search Console and the domain, and keep a record of the logins yourself. If a company will not agree to that in writing before you start, treat it as a red flag, because getting accounts back later is slow and sometimes impossible.
How do I know whether it is working?
Track calls, forms and booked work against the months before. Ask for a report that ties each to a channel. Patience matters, because search work takes months, but you should still see a plan and a measure from the first month.
Explore more
Compare What Each Part of a Proposal Should Say
Start Here
- Search Engine OptimizationAnchorage SEO services, name by name: which places and services get their own page, and how each page is built.
- SEO Company (you are here)What to ask any Anchorage SEO company before you sign, and how the county's size and trade crowding change what a proposal must contain.
- Digital MarketingWhich digital marketing work comes first, second and third for three kinds of Anchorage business, read from the trade counts and Census numbers.
- Online MarketingAn audit of the website, listings, reviews, social, email and tracking for each kind of Anchorage business, read against Census benchmarks.
- Anchorage SEOAnchorage SEO first, then digital marketing, online marketing and PPC, planned zone by zone for a municipality of separate pockets.
Get Found in Search
- Google Maps and Local SEOAnchorage local SEO for storefronts, service-area businesses and companies that work across several pockets of the municipality.
- AI Search OptimizationAnchorage AI search optimization: the questions people ask assistants about Anchorage places, trades and seasons, and what to publish.
Paid Advertising
- Google Ads ManagementGoogle Ads for Anchorage businesses: which zones to target or exclude, running a call-driven account, and pacing spend against the weather and the calendar.
- PPC ManagementPay-per-click for Anchorage businesses across Google Ads, Bing, Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) and a small ChatGPT ads test, and when paid beats organic.
- Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram)Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) for Anchorage businesses: audiences by age and household, targeting by zone, event timing, offers and honest limits.
Website and Content
- Anchorage lead generationWhere inquiries come from for each trade in Anchorage, how fast to answer, and how to count them without renting anyone else's audience.
- Anchorage web designOne website with a page for each service and each pocket of the municipality, built so a phone user can call or get directions in one tap.
- Anchorage content marketingA publishing calendar set by daylight, snow, events and the names people use for places in the municipality.
Around the County
- Anchorage coverage mapThe municipality area by area: which zones sit near each other, which roads join them and how a business should cover them.
- Anchorage business landscapeFifteen trades read one by one: how crowded each is, how large the businesses are, what changed since 2017, and how many new homes were authorized.
Get in Touch
Ask Us the Same Questions
Put these questions to us as well. Send your trade and the zones you serve and we will answer them in writing. Call 610-825-4363 or email hello@getphound.com.