FAQ

Every question we get, answered straight

No sales-page fog. These are the questions owners actually ask on first calls, with the same answers we give when the call is private.

Working with us

What does Google Arsenal do?

We are a search marketing company for local businesses. We run SEO, Google Ads, web design, and social media, with every deliverable itemized and a hard number next to every line. Our job is simple to describe: when someone in your market searches for what you sell, you show up first, in the Map Pack, the organic results, and the AI answers.

How is Google Arsenal different from a big national SEO agency?

Three ways. Our deliverables are itemized with quantities, where national agencies stay vague on purpose. Our terms are 3 months, where they demand 6 to 12. And there is no account management layer between you and the people doing the work.

The national agencies are good at what they do. They are also built for budgets that start where ours end.

How do you measure success?

Against a day-one baseline we screenshot before any work starts: rankings, geo-grid positions, traffic, calls, and reviews. Every monthly report measures against it. We track rankings because they lead the other numbers, but the goal we manage toward is calls and booked jobs.

What do I get in the monthly report?

One readable document: what shipped this month with quantities, your geo-grid map, ranking movement against baseline, traffic, calls, review growth, and what ships next month. Plus a live dashboard when you want to look deeper. Five minutes to read, receipts included.

What happens if I want to cancel?

Finish the current 3-month term and walk. Everything we built goes with you: content, citations, profile work, tracking, and every credential. We keep clients by re-earning them each quarter, not by holding their assets hostage.

Pricing and contracts

How much do your services cost?

SEO is packaged and public: $500 per month for Local Foundations and $2,500 per month for Local Domination, both 3-month terms. Details are on the SEO page.

Google Ads, web design, and social media are performance-based, with the fee structure agreed on your first call, because markets and margins differ too much for one honest flat price.

Why are your contracts only 3 months?

Because search marketing cannot prove itself in 30 days, and you should not need 12 months to find out if we deliver. Three months is long enough to show real movement against your day-one baseline and short enough that we have to re-earn your business four times a year.

Is there a setup fee?

Local Foundations carries a $750 setup fee that covers the launch sprint, and we will sometimes waive it, so ask. Local Domination is a $1,500 setup fee unless months one and two are paid up front. The setup fee exists because the first month contains most of the heavy one-time work.

How much does local SEO cost in 2026?

Industry-wide, a single-location local SEO campaign runs about $500 to $3,000 per month. Managed platforms sit near $1,300, and national agencies start at $3,000 plus large up-front investments. Our packages are $500 and $2,500 per month, and our blog has a full cost breakdown with the receipts.

What does performance-based pricing mean?

For Google Ads, web design, and social media, our fee is tied to agreed performance targets instead of a flat retainer that gets paid regardless of results. The structure is set in writing on your strategy call. When the work underperforms, our fee feels it before you do.

SEO

What are local SEO services exactly?

The work that makes a business show up where local customers search: Google Maps, the Map Pack, localized organic results, and now AI Overviews. In practice that means Google Business Profile optimization, citations, reviews, locally targeted content, on-page fixes, and rank tracking across your actual service area.

How long does SEO take to show results?

Expect 60 to 90 days before rankings move in a way you can feel, and 4 to 6 months for the full effect in calls and leads. Citations, review growth, and on-page fixes land earliest. Promises of page one in two weeks come from people selling something other than SEO.

What is a geo-grid and why does it matter?

A geo-grid scans your rankings from dozens of points across your service area instead of one. Most businesses rank well at their own address and poorly two miles away, and a single rank number hides that completely. We track every SEO client on a geo-grid so the map shows the truth.

Do you guarantee first-page rankings?

No, and neither does anyone honest. Google does not sell guarantees to anybody. What we guarantee is the work: every itemized deliverable ships on schedule, tracked in a report you can verify. That discipline is why our clients rank.

Will you get me into ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews?

We optimize for it and track it, yes. AI answers get built from Google Business Profiles, reviews, structured data, and content the models can read. Both SEO packages include AI visibility tracking, and Local Domination includes active optimization: schema markup, entity cleanup, and llms.txt.

Do you write content with AI?

AI is part of our drafting process, and a human reviews, edits, and approves every piece before it publishes. Everything is built from your real keyword data and written for your market. What we never do is auto-publish machine output and call it a content strategy.

Web design, reviews, and everything else

Will a website redesign hurt my rankings?

It can, badly, when URLs change without redirects. Our redesigns include a full URL map, redirects for every page, and a pre-launch ranking benchmark so nothing quietly disappears. Ranking protection is part of the build plan.

How do your review automations work?

After a job or visit, your customer gets a short request by email, and on the Domination package by SMS too, with a direct link to your Google review page. QR cards handle in-person asks. Requests go to real customers who chose you, which is why the system works and stays inside Google's rules.

Can you buy Google reviews for my business?

No, and walk away from anyone who offers. Purchased reviews violate Google's policies and FTC rules, and businesses get caught because the patterns are obvious. What works is asking every real customer at the right moment, automatically. That is what we build.