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Is this SEO package good value? Looking for honest feedback before committing
Posted by on January 29, 2026 at 9:15 pmHey everyone!
I run a Shopify site with a lot of product and collection pages (B2B, very niche). I just finished it about a week ago and I’ve already done some on-site cleanup (titles, meta descriptions, structure) and now talking to an SEO freelancer about ongoing work to rank on Google / AIs. I wanted to get your feedback on if his base package is good value, and if I should get any of his add ons:
Base package
$600/month + tax
Includes:- Keyword research (up to 50 keywords) – Additional Keywords is $50 for 50 more.
- Site audit + recommendations – first month
- Citations
- Blogger outreach high quality backlinks (3 per month)
He mentioned that because I have a lot of products, 50 keywords may not be enough, and that 100–150 keywords would give better coverage. I offer services on my site as well as virtual products (documents) for companies to purchase, download and use.
Add-ons:
- 20 “diversity links” for $325 (Q&A links, audio/video links, slideshows, Web 2.0s, social signals, etc.)
- Competitor analysis for $175
- Extra 50 keywords researched for $50
My main questions were:
- Is $600/month reasonable for this scope of work? Considering I'm still needing to write the blogs and create content.
- Are “diversity links” at $325 worth it, or are they worthless?
- Would you prioritize competitor analysis early, or wait until after keyword mapping and technical fixes?
- Am I getting good value or getting scammed?
Not trying to cheap out, just want to make sure I’m putting budget into things that actually move rankings and not outdated tactics.
Sorry I am not comfortable providing the link to my website. I know that will make some people upset but thats just where Im at.
Thank you!
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1 Reply
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All that matters is if he is bringing you more sales. That’s more important than a checklist of tasks
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That might actually be too cheap although I really don’t know what he’s going to do. Ask to see his work. Ask for references. Look up some SEO myths and ask him about those and see what he says.
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Honestly if he’s not talking about optimizing your category pages, good site architecture. Conversion rate optimization. Proper analytics in place you are just gonna waste your money
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1. Can’t comment for sure until & unless we know what kind of backlinks you will be getting… as I am sure that the keyword research + audit is something you can do with a $29/ahrefs plan ( which I am guessing is going to be the case at that price point )
2. Not sure what kind of links he means, but if it has traffic and the links are from a page with proper internal linking, then yes!
3. Competitor analysis is one of the 1st step when building out an SEO strategy, so it should have been included in the initial pricing.
4. Can’t comment for sure & I don’t wanna put another professional down as there have been instances where people got 10x the value for peanuts and instances where people got nada even after spending tens of thousands of $$.
But, given what you have mentioned, it looks more gimmicky rather than something with value.
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I don’t see any mention of strategy here. Everything looks random, along the lines of *’you’ll just get links.’* I know the industry inside out and I understand yo won’t make teh same questions, but reading this makes me want to ask this person: *Why? For what purpose? How do these fit into a global strategy? Where are these links even coming from? Did you even bother to check my website to see what I actually need?*
I might be wrong, but this sounds like a templated checklist. They might deliver what they promised, but I suspect the quality will be extremely low.
**PS:** The price is cheap, but well… it’s up to you.
PS2: On. the other hand, this
>20 “diversity links” for $325 (Q&A links, audio/video links, slideshows, Web 2.0s, social signals, etc.)
is extremely expensive, paying $20 for this would be a lot.
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I didn’t read the whole thing, but capping the number of keywords for the keyword research and the links per outreach seems odd.
Wouldn’t the person just do keyword research, and if there are 97 good keywords, they list them. If it’s only 12 good keywords, they list those. Striving to hit exactly 50 just doesn’t make sense. If you have a certain number of products, maybe they should be doing keyword research for 10 products per month or something.
For blogger outreach, don’t they just send an outreach campaign and you get whatever links you get? Maybe they send 100 emails and get 5 links back, sometimes they send 100 emails and get 1 link back.
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It really depends on the quality of those links – does it align with your marketing strategy or is it junk links to try boost your domain, meaning you wont see a spike initially
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Does it sounds like a lot to someone who is not an SEO? Yes
Will it move the needle and get you ranked on Google? If you have no competition then maybe but 99% of the time no
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You won’t find a good SEO for $600/month. For the limited, and nearly worthless, activities this freelancer is offering, the price looks about right.
I would automatically run from anyone that sells packages. And I would definitely run from anyone offering anything about X number of keywords.
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These won’t do much:
diversity links” for $325 (Q&A links, audio/video links, slideshows, Web 2.0s, social signals, etc.)
Especially web2.0 links, you’re better off building actual backlinks
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Ask if he he had more budget like lets say $1500 per month. What would he be able to do with that. Then if he doesnt start speaking actual strategy and alignment with driving sales, you need to be worried about this freelancer. Especially if he starts increasing the base package only because of more. Budget. This is a easy method to weed out a potential BS seo freelancer.
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Competitor analysis goes, from my experience, hand-in-hand with keyword research. I wouldn’t trust anyone trying to do SEO on my site if they hadn’t scoped out competitors. What’s the point of them even getting links or doing content if they will only look at what competitors are doing for an additional $325? I’d run away from that offer and I wouldn’t look back if I was you.
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