The short version
- A managed campaign solves the real problem for most businesses: the diagnosis exists, the hands do not.
- AutoSEO ($149/mo, flat) keeps a steady rhythm. FullSEO (from $500/mo) adds deeper implementation and a configurable mix.
- The strongest feature is verifiability: delivery is checked against free analytics, not against a PDF.
- It does not replace business judgement — target selection and conversion stay yours.
- Quick rule: under 30 pages with one person on marketing, start with AutoSEO.
The previous three articles in this series were about measurement: search analytics, rank tracking and AI answer visibility. Measurement is the cheap part. The expensive part — the part that decides whether a project grows or stalls into an attractive dashboard — is execution.
And that is exactly where most of the businesses we talk to get stuck. The diagnosis is done, sometimes twice over. The task list exists. What does not exist is anyone to work through it in the third week of the month, when running the business eats the calendar. This article is an honest look at Semalt's managed campaigns — AutoSEO and FullSEO — from the perspective of an agency that works with both kinds of client: those who execute internally and those who outsource.
The real problem: the gap between knowing and doing
Let us do the arithmetic almost nobody does out loud. A decent SEO plan for a mid-sized local business means, per month: reviewing data and prioritising (3-4 hours), writing or supervising two serious pieces of content (8-12 hours), implementing on-page changes (3-5 hours), working on external presence and links (5-8 hours), and maintaining listings, reviews and local data (2-3 hours). Twenty to thirty hours of skilled work every month.
| Option | Real monthly cost | Main risk |
|---|---|---|
| In-house hire | Salary + overheads + training + tools | Long learning curve; single-person dependency |
| Bespoke local agency | Retainer, typically from €800-1,500 | Highly variable quality; annual contracts |
| Managed campaign | From $149 (AutoSEO) or $500 (FullSEO) | Less fine-grained adaptation to business context |
No option is better in the abstract. What changes is the point at which each one makes sense, and that depends on three variables: site size, market competitiveness, and how much informed judgement you already hold.
What a managed campaign actually does
Worth grounding, because "managed SEO campaign" has meant wildly different things in this industry, not all of them honourable.
Keyword strategy
Targets selected on intent and viability, not a list of high-volume terms that are unreachable.
On-site optimisation
Concrete per-URL recommendations: titles, structure, content to expand, internal linking.
Link building
Authority building with delivery tracking, so you know what was placed and where.
Delivery tracking
Status of each block of work. This is what separates a campaign from a monthly invoice.
The difference between the two plans is less about "what gets done" and more about how much depth and how much control you have over the how.
| AutoSEO | FullSEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $149/month, flat | From $500/month |
| Focus | Efficient campaign centred on the essentials | Broader coverage and deeper optimisation |
| On-site implementation | Recommendations | Advanced implementation options |
| Authority mix | Standard | Configurable |
| Fits | Small sites, mid-competition markets, tight budget | More pages, more competition, need for control |
AutoSEO is a maintenance plan with progression: it keeps a project from stalling. FullSEO is a growth plan: it makes sense once you know which targets are worth having and want to push harder on several fronts at once.
How to decide which one (or neither)
These are the four questions we ask before recommending anything. Answering them honestly saves months.
- Is the technical base sound?If your site takes six seconds to load, carries massive duplication, or has an impossible architecture, no campaign compensates for that. Fix the house first. Investing in promotion on a broken base is the most common way to waste budget in this industry.
- Do you know which targets are worth having?A campaign executes against targets. If target selection is poor, flawless execution simply gets you to the wrong place faster. This is where two or three months of your own free analytics changes the outcome completely.
- Does your business convert the traffic it already gets?If your conversion rate is 0.3% and the sector runs at 2%, tripling traffic triples a problem. It is uncomfortable to say when someone arrives asking for SEO, but sometimes the profitable work this quarter is on the contact page, not on Google.
- How much time can you give it?No campaign works without a counterpart. Someone in the business has to validate messaging, supply real service details and approve changes. With nobody able to give two hours a month, the output will be generic by necessity.
If a business is unclear about its audience, changes its service offering every six months, or expects results in four weeks, the honest recommendation is not to buy SEO at all — managed or agency — until that settles. SEO amplifies what already works; it does not fix what is undefined.
What interests us most about the model: verification
There is a structural problem in buying SEO that this arrangement handles better than the market average: information asymmetry. The client pays for work they cannot evaluate, receives a report written by the people doing the work, and decides on renewal based on that report. It is bad incentive design and it explains much of the industry's reputation.
When analytics are free, independent of the deliverable and held in the same account, the relationship changes. You can check what you are handed against three sources that do not depend on the report:
| Report claim | Where to check it | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| "We optimised these pages" | Search Console analytics | Impression and CTR movement on those specific URLs |
| "We gained positions" | Google SERP | Movement by query group, not isolated queries |
| "We published and submitted content" | Indexing log | Bot visits and new URLs entering |
| "Visibility is growing" | Share of visibility vs competitors | That the whole market did not rise equally |
Insist that evaluation metrics are fixed before starting and not changed mid-quarter. That goes for Semalt, for us, and for anyone else. A supplier who accepts that condition without argument is usually a good supplier.
Realistic timescales
This is where the industry tells the most lies, so here are numbers we have seen repeat on mid-sized local businesses.
Anyone promising head terms in two months in a genuinely competitive market is either selling smoke or counting irrelevant keywords. And the reverse also holds: if there is no positive signal in the commercial tail after six months, something is not working and it is time to revisit targets rather than wait longer.
The business case, with numbers
Outsourcing decisions are made better with arithmetic in front of you than with a feeling. This is the framework we use with clients, simplified but complete.
First, work out what a client is worth: average ticket times purchases per year times years retained. An accountancy practice at €120 a month with three-year average retention has a lifetime value near €4,300. A workshop with a €300 ticket and two visits a year over five years, around €3,000. Second, look at your real conversion rate from organic visit to client: in local services it usually sits between 1% and 3% when the website is decently built.
With those two figures, "is it worth it?" stops being philosophical. If you need two new clients a month to justify an investment, and you convert at 2%, you need a hundred additional qualified organic visits a month. That figure can be checked against the real search volume of your target queries — data you already have for free. In plenty of cases the exercise shows the goal is comfortably reachable through the commercial tail; in others, that the local market for that query simply is not that big, and the answer is broadening services or catchment area.
This calculation has an extra virtue: it makes any supplier conversation concrete. Instead of debating methodology, you debate how many qualified visits are needed and by when. Most inflated proposals do not survive that question.
What to ask before signing, with anyone
This applies to a managed campaign, a local agency or a freelancer. Six questions whose answers predict fairly well how the relationship will end.
Which specific targets will we work on, and why those? If the answer mentions neither commercial intent nor competitive viability, that is a bad sign.
How will I know the work was done? There must be a verification route independent of the supplier's own report.
What do you need from me each month? A supplier who says "nothing" is announcing generic output.
What happens if there are no results after six months? Look for an answer that includes revisiting targets, not just "it needs more time".
Do the links and content remain mine if I stop paying? An awkward and necessary question.
What will you not do? A supplier who states limits clearly is more trustworthy than one who claims to do everything.
The mixed model, which we recommend most often
The question is not always "in-house or outsourced". For a good number of our clients a split by competence works better, and we think it is the most profitable approach for a local business with some capacity.
Internal: target selection (nobody knows your margins and your customers better than you), technical validation of sector content, local listings and review responses, and conversion on the site.
External: sustained content production, authority building, repetitive technical implementation, and maintaining month-to-month rhythm — which is precisely what collapses when it is handled internally.
That split plays to each side's strength and avoids the classic failure of full outsourcing: technically impeccable campaigns describing a business that does not exist, because nobody from the business took part.
Measure first, decide after
The analytics are free with no time limit. Two months of your own data before committing to anything is the best possible investment: it tells you whether you need a campaign, and against which targets.
Sign in to Semalt See plans and pricingFrequently asked questions
Does AutoSEO suit a small local business?
That is its clearest use case: small sites, mid-level competition and a tight budget, where consistency matters most. The value lies in the work not stopping in August or at quarter end.
When does moving to FullSEO make sense?
Once you have data confirming which targets are worth having, more pages to look after, and competition that demands pushing on several fronts at once. Upgrading before that clarity means paying more to move faster in an unverified direction.
Can I use only the free analytics?
Yes, indefinitely. It is what we recommend to anyone with a person on marketing: free analytics plus two well-directed days a month produces perfectly respectable results.
Does it replace a local agency?
It covers execution, not business judgement or local market knowledge. In practice the best results usually come from combining both, with the campaign carrying the repetitive volume.
What if the site has serious technical problems?
Fix them first. No promotion campaign compensates for a broken base, and starting in that state wastes the first months of spend.
Conclusion
The SEO industry has spent years selling two incompatible things: expensive tools so you can diagnose yourself, and opaque services so you never have to understand anything. Separating free analytics from paid execution is simply more honest: you can see the problem before paying, and verify the work while you pay for it.
Our practical recommendation does not change with who executes: measure for two months before committing to anything. With your own data you will know whether the problem is visibility, conversion or proposition — three things fixed with very different budgets. If after those two months the conclusion is that you need hands, compare the plans deliberately and pick the one matching your actual size, not your ambitions.
And if you would rather we ran that prior analysis and told you frankly whether you need a campaign at all, get in touch. The initial audit is free, delivered within 24 hours, and includes the recommendation even when the recommendation is not to spend.