The three ways to do local SEO
There are really only three paths to showing up on Google for a local business: do it yourself, hire an agency, or use done-for-you software. Each one trades money for time in a different way.
- DIY — you do the work. Cheapest in dollars, most expensive in hours, and the easiest to get wrong if you've never done it.
- Agency — a person or team does it for you. Most hands-off, most expensive, and quality swings a lot from one agency to the next.
- Done-for-you software — a tool handles the recurring work and tells you in plain English what's happening. Middle on cost, low on effort, predictable.
There's no single right answer. The right one depends on how much time you have, how much you can spend, and whether you actually want to learn SEO. Here's an honest look at all three.
SEO software vs. agency vs. DIY at a glance
All cost cells below are typical ranges, not quotes — actual pricing varies by provider, market, and scope.
| DIY | SEO agency | Done-for-you software | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | Tools only (often free to a modest monthly fee) | Highest of the three — usually multiples of software pricing | Mid-range monthly fee (SEOmonster: $149–$699/mo) |
| Your time per month | High (many hours) | Very low | Low (minutes to review) |
| Speed to start | Slow — you're learning as you go | Slow — onboarding, contracts | Fast — set up and it runs |
| Control | Total | Low — you trust their process | Medium — you approve, it executes |
| Quality consistency | Depends on you | Varies a lot by agency | Consistent — same process every time |
| Risk | Mistakes from inexperience | Overpaying, black-hat tactics, lock-in | Less hands-on nuance than a great agency |
| Best for | Owners with time and curiosity | Bigger budgets, complex needs | Busy owners who want it handled cheaply |
SEO is never guaranteed work no matter which path you pick. Anyone promising you the #1 spot is telling you what you want to hear. Good SEO improves your odds steadily over months — it doesn't flip a switch.
Can I do SEO myself?
Yes, you can do SEO yourself, and plenty of local owners do. The basics aren't secret: claim and fill out your Google Business Profile, get honest reviews, make sure your name, address, and phone are identical everywhere online, and write clear pages for each service and town you serve.
The catch is time and consistency. DIY SEO isn't one afternoon — it's a few hours a week, forever. Google rewards businesses that stay active, and the work that moves the needle (fresh content, new reviews, fixing technical issues) never really stops.
DIY makes sense if:
- You have a few spare hours each week and don't mind learning.
- Your market is small or low-competition.
- Budget is tight and your own time is the cheapest resource you have.
DIY gets painful if: you're already slammed running the business, you compete against established players, or you tried it, fell off after two weeks, and nothing happened. That's the most common DIY outcome — not failure, just the work quietly stopping.
Is an SEO agency worth it for a small business?
An agency is worth it when SEO is genuinely off your plate and the results justify the spend — but for many small local businesses, the math is hard. A good agency brings real expertise, strategy, and a team. A bad one charges a steep monthly fee for a generic report and not much else.
How much does an SEO agency cost?
There's no fixed rate, and agencies rarely publish prices. For local small-business SEO, expect a monthly retainer that runs into the low thousands per month in most markets — typically several times the cost of done-for-you software, and more in competitive cities. Project work and one-time audits can be cheaper. Because there's no standard rate card, always ask exactly what's included before signing.
The bigger issue isn't just price — it's variance. Two agencies at the same price can deliver wildly different work. Watch for these warning signs:
- Ranking guarantees. No one can guarantee a #1 spot. Promising it is a red flag.
- Vague deliverables. "We'll optimize your site" should come with specifics.
- Long lock-in contracts with no clear exit.
- Black-hat shortcuts — buying links or spammy tactics that can get you penalized later.
An agency is often the right call for businesses with bigger budgets, multiple locations, or complicated needs where a strategist earns their fee. For a solo plumber or a single dental office, the price frequently outruns the return.
Where done-for-you SEO software fits
Done-for-you software fills the gap between DIY and an agency: the recurring work gets handled for you, at a fraction of agency pricing, without you needing to learn SEO. You're not staring at a dashboard full of charts you don't understand, and you're not paying agency rates either.
This is the lane SEOmonster is built for. It runs the ongoing local-SEO work, optimizes your pages, and reports back in plain English — what changed, what it means, and what (if anything) you should do. Pricing is published up front (Starter $149/mo, Growth $349/mo, Pro/Multi-location $699/mo), so there's no custom-quote guessing game.
Software won't replace a top-tier strategist on a complex, high-stakes campaign — that's an honest limit. What it does well is the steady, repeatable work that most local businesses need and most owners never get around to: consistent execution, every month, without homework.
Does SEO software help me show up in AI answers (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews)?
Yes — some SEO tools now optimize for AI answers, but most don't. This matters because people increasingly get answers straight from ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews instead of clicking through to websites. Google AI Overviews now appear in roughly 45% of searches (industry estimate), and they can reduce clicks to websites by up to about 58% (industry studies). If an AI answer never mentions your business, you're invisible to those searches.
Getting cited in AI answers — sometimes called AEO or GEO — is a real, learnable discipline. The Princeton "GEO" study (KDD 2024) found that citing credible sources can lift a page's AI visibility by around 40%, and that keyword stuffing actually *hurts* visibility. Most SEO tools and many agencies still ignore this entirely. SEOmonster treats it as a core part of the job, not an add-on. (For Google Maps and Business Profile specifically, our sibling tool GBPmonster covers that surface.)
What's the cheapest way to do local SEO?
The cheapest way to do local SEO is to do it yourself, starting with the free essentials: claim your Google Business Profile, keep your business details consistent everywhere, and ask happy customers for reviews. That costs nothing but your time and is the single highest-leverage starting point for any local business.
If your time isn't actually free — and for a busy owner it usually isn't — "cheapest" changes meaning. The real comparison is cost *per result*, including your hours. Done-for-you software is typically far cheaper than an agency while still taking the work off your plate, which makes it the lowest-cost *hands-off* option for most local businesses.
How to choose: a quick decision guide
| Your situation | Best starting point |
|---|---|
| Lots of time, tight budget, like learning | DIY |
| Big budget, complex or multi-market needs | Agency (vet carefully) |
| Busy owner, modest budget, want it handled | Done-for-you software |
| Want AI-answer visibility, not just rankings | SEOmonster, or a specialist agency that does AEO/GEO |
Start with the free DIY basics no matter what — claim your profile, fix your listings, get reviews. Then decide whether to keep doing it, hand it to an agency, or let software run it. The worst choice is the one you won't stick with.