What does an SEO retainer include? A month of work, the report, and how to judge one

An SEO retainer is a monthly agreement for ongoing search work. A good one says in writing what each month includes: technical health, content, local search with your Google Business Profile, and AI search, with how much of each. It sends a report you can check against your own Google Search Console, it promises the work rather than a ranking, and you can end it without a fight.

This guide is for a UK business owner deciding on a monthly SEO retainer, or checking the one they already pay for. It leans on two frames from elsewhere in the Workshop: the five places your business can be visible in search, which sorts the work, and the six stages every page has to pass, which says what a report should be measuring.

What does an SEO retainer include each month?

Four kinds of work, and every task in a month should belong to one of them. Google’s own guide to hiring an SEO lists the useful services in much the same terms, including a “review of your site content or structure”, “technical advice on website development”, “content development”, “keyword research” and “optimizing for generative AI”.

Work	What a month of it covers	Where it shows in search
Technical health	Crawling and indexing, Core Web Vitals, broken links and redirects, structured data	The door (your website) and the links
Content	New pages and posts planned from what customers search for, and existing pages improved	The links and the answer
Local search	Your Google Business Profile kept accurate and active, review requests to real customers, the same name, address and phone everywhere	The map and the reviews
AI search	Pages that answer customers’ questions clearly enough to be cited, and business details that agree everywhere	The answer

Technical health is the base the rest stands on. In the first month or two it is mostly finding and fixing: pages Google cannot reach, pages marked noindex by mistake, redirects that chain, structured data that describes something the page does not show. After that it becomes a monthly check that nothing has slipped back. This is the work of technical SEO, and a retainer should say whether the agency makes the fixes or writes them up for your developer.

Content is the biggest variable, so the agreement should say how many pieces a month, what kind, and who writes them. More is not better by default. Google’s spam policies name “scaled content abuse”, where “many pages are generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users”, and a retainer that promises a fixed number of posts whether or not anyone needs them is buying that risk for you.

Local search is the map. Google says “businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local search results”, and also that “there’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google”. So the month’s work is keeping the profile right, asking real customers for reviews, and making your details agree everywhere they appear. Our field-by-field guide to the Business Profile covers what that involves, and local SEO and the Business Profile is the same work done for you.

AI search is less exotic than it is often sold. Google says “there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary”, and that to be shown as a supporting link a page “must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet”. The work is the fundamentals done clearly, plus checking what answer engines say about you. That is what our AI search work covers.

How much of each a month holds depends on how competitive your searches are and where the site starts. That is why an honest retainer is quoted to the business, with the month’s scope written into the agreement.

What should a monthly SEO report show?

Three things, in plain English: what changed in the numbers, what was done, and what comes next. Every figure in it should be one you can open and check yourself.

Part of the report	Where the figure comes from	What it tells you
Clicks and impressions for the searches that matter	Search Console’s Performance report	Whether you are being shown, and chosen
Appearances in AI Overviews and AI Mode	Search Console’s generative AI performance reports	Whether your pages are being used in AI answers
Pages indexed, and why others are not	Search Console’s Page indexing report	Which stage your important pages have reached
Calls, direction requests and website clicks	Your Business Profile’s performance figures	Whether the map is sending customers
Visits from search, and enquiries	Your website’s analytics	Whether search visitors become customers
Work done	The agency’s own log, with dates	What the month paid for
What comes next	The agency’s plan	What next month is for

Google’s definitions are worth knowing, because a report should use them. A click is “the number of times a user clicked your site from Google Search results”. An impression is “how many times your site appeared in Search results”. Average position is “the average position of the topmost result from your site”. On the Business Profile, calls are “the number of times a customer clicked on the call button on your Business Profile”.

For AI search there is now real data. Google’s generative AI performance reports show how often your pages appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country and device, and Google says it had rolled them out to all websites worldwide by 31 August 2026. The same appearances are also counted in the overall Performance report, so they are not extra traffic on top of it.

Two things should not be a report’s headline. A ranking for a phrase nobody searches for proves nothing. And a third-party “authority” score is a tool vendor’s estimate, not a Google figure. Neither is a customer.

One habit catches a lot: when your report says you rank for something, search for it yourself, then remember Google’s warning that “even if a query appears in your list, you might not see your site in results”, because results vary by time, place, device and search history. That is why the report should come from Search Console rather than from somebody’s own searches.

How long does SEO take to work?

It depends on the change, and an honest agency says so. Google’s SEO starter guide puts it plainly: “Some changes might take effect in a few hours, others could take several months.” Before any change can show, Google has to fetch the page again, and Google says “crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks”. Asking again does not help: “requesting a recrawl multiple times for the same URL won’t get it crawled any faster.”

In practice that gives a shape rather than a date:

1. The first month sets the baseline from Search Console and the Business Profile, and fixes what is blocking pages from being crawled and indexed.
2. Technical fixes tend to show first, once Google has crawled the pages again.
3. Content and local work build over months rather than weeks, because they depend on pages being indexed, ranked and chosen, one stage at a time.
4. The report shows the direction each month, so you are never asked to take progress on trust.

Google suggests you ask any SEO, before hiring, “What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe?” A good answer is specific about the work and honest about the uncertainty.

Why can nobody promise you a ranking?

Because nobody outside Google controls how Google ranks a page. Google’s guide to hiring an SEO says it in one line: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.” Its starter guide adds that “there are no secrets here that’ll automatically rank your site first in Google”. For the map, Google says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.

What an agency can promise is the work: what it will do each month, how it will report it, and what it will not do to your site. That is the promise to hold it to.

What are the red flags in an SEO retainer?

Most of these come straight from Google’s own warnings.

1. A guaranteed ranking, or page one by a date. See above: Google says no one can guarantee it.
2. Links bought, swapped or made by software. Google defines link spam as “the practice of creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings”, and its examples include “buying or selling links for ranking purposes”, “excessive link exchanges” and “using automated programs or services to create links to your site”. Sites that break the policies “may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all”, and it is your site that takes the hit, not the agency’s.
3. A link to the agency as a condition. Google’s words: “You should never have to link to an SEO.”
4. Pages made to rank rather than to help. A page for every nearby town that says the same thing can fall under what Google calls doorway abuse, where “sites or pages are created to rank for specific, similar search queries.”
5. Bought or fake reviews. Against Google’s rules and, since April 2025, against UK law: are fake reviews illegal in the UK? sets out what the Act bans.
6. No list of what was changed. Google suggests asking “Will you share all changes and provide detailed reasoning?”, and says that an SEO with access to your server “should be willing to explain all the changes they are making to your site.”
7. An offer out of the blue. Google says to “be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that email you out of the blue.”
8. Your accounts in the agency’s name. If the agency owns your Search Console property or your Business Profile, leaving means asking for your own business back.

What access does an SEO retainer need, and who keeps it?

The rule is simple: every account stays in the business’s name, and the agency is added as a user with no more access than the work needs.

Account	Who owns it	What the agency gets	When the retainer ends
Google Search Console	The business, as verified owner	A user role on the agency’s own Google account	The user is removed, and any verification token the agency added is deleted
Google Business Profile	The business, as primary owner	A manager role	The manager is removed in People and access
Website content system	The business, or its developer	An editor login, or changes made through your developer	The login is deleted
Analytics	The business	Read access to the figures	Access is removed

Google’s own advice, if an SEO offers you an audit, is to “only grant read access to Search Console (at this stage, don’t grant them write access).” A monthly retainer needs a little more, but still not ownership: a full user can see all the data and a restricted user most of it, while ownership, and with it the power to add and remove other people, stays with you. On a Business Profile, Google says managers “have mostly the same access to the profile as owners. The only exception is they can’t add or remove users or remove the profile.”

The step people miss is at the end. If an agency verified your Search Console property itself, removing it as an owner is not enough: Google says “if you do not delete these tokens, the removed owner will be able to re-verify ownership if they choose to.”

Which contract terms should you look for?

Before you sign, check the agreement says each of these in plain words:

1. What a month includes, and how much of it, including who writes any content.
2. How changes are approved on a site the agency does not run, so nothing changes on your website without your say.
3. What the report shows, how often, and where its figures come from.
4. No ranking guarantee. An honest contract says it does not promise one.
5. How it ends: whether there is a minimum term, how much notice either side gives, and what happens to anything paid for and not yet done.
6. Who owns the content: the pages and posts written for you should be yours once paid for, and stay on your site when the retainer ends.
7. What happens to access at the end: the agency takes itself off your accounts, and you can remove it at any time.

Our own terms for an SEO retainer on a website we do not run are in section 3b of our terms, if you want to compare them with what you have been offered.

A worked example: an SEO review of our own site

We would rather show our own record than invent a client’s. In November 2026 we reviewed the Workshop on this site the way we would review a client’s, and made these changes:

• Posts that competed with each other. Ten posts that went after the same search as another post were retired, each with a single permanent redirect to the page that now covers its subject. Three posts that all competed for “getting found on Google” were each given a different question to answer.
• What a search result shows. Every post now has a search title of 60 characters or fewer and a description of 120 to 160 characters, and a test that runs on every change catches one that drifts.
• Sources. Every post cites at least one primary source, such as Google’s own documentation or the legislation, held by another test.
• Structured data. Each post’s markup now describes only what a reader can see on the page, which is what Google’s guidelines ask.
• Where each post leads. Each post names the one service it leads to, so it ends on the right next step.

What we have not published is a ranking or traffic figure for any of it. Our own case study says we claim none, and in the first weeks after a change that is the honest position: the report says what changed and what to watch next, such as whether the retired addresses give way to the posts they now point to in the Page indexing report, and whether each post starts to earn impressions for its own search.

Should you do SEO yourself or pay for a retainer?

A lot of it is within reach of any owner: claiming the Business Profile, setting up Search Console, writing pages that answer customers’ real questions. Google itself says a good time to hire help is “when you’re considering a site redesign (the earlier, the better), or planning to launch a new site.” A retainer earns its keep when you want the work done every month, measured, and reported, without it becoming your second job.

If that is where you are, SEO every month is our retainer, for sites we run and for websites you keep, quoted to your business: tell us what you need.