Practical Guide — 2025

local agency to look after website

How to choose and work with a local agency that keeps your site ranking, updated and growing

Hiring a local agency to manage your website can save time and drive growth — when you choose the right partner and set clear processes. This guide gives a step‑by‑step approach for selecting an agency, protecting your SEO, creating an efficient update workflow and measuring digital growth.

How to choose See a demo

Ongoing SEO

On-page, local & technical

Unlimited updates

Fast change requests

Monthly reporting

Traffic & conversions

Growth plans

SEO + paid ads + content

In this guide

Why hire a local agency How to choose the right agency Questions to ask SEO maintenance checklist Update and approval workflow Contracts, SLAs & pricing Measuring growth Starter checklist

Why hire a local agency to manage your website?

A dependable local agency brings productised processes, accountability and easier communication than an ad‑hoc freelancer. The right agency will:

Keep SEO working month after month (content, schema, technical fixes)
Deliver timely updates and special offers without delays
Provide measurable reporting and a growth plan
Offer secure hosting, backups and patching

Tip: a local agency also makes face‑to‑face meetings and in‑person discovery easier when needed, but great communication and processes are the real value.

How to choose the right agency — 8 practical steps

1. Define outcomes, not tools

Start with the results you want: more enquiries, better local rankings, faster load speed, or a reliable website process. Outcomes guide scope and pricing.

2. Check proven local SEO experience

Ask for examples of local businesses they’ve helped. Look for improvements in Google Business Profile visibility, organic local keywords and “near me” search performance.

3. Review their update process

How do you request changes? WhatsApp, ticketing, email? Faster is better — ideal providers accept simple text requests and deliver updates within hours or a couple of days.

4. Confirm hosting, backups and security

Make sure the agency includes robust backups, SSL, malware monitoring and staging environments. Ask how they handle emergency restores and uptime guarantees.

5. Ask for reporting & KPIs

Monthly reports should show organic traffic, keyword trends, leads and conversion sources. A growth plan with quarterly goals is a sign of a strategic partner.

6. Check ownership and portability

Confirm you own your domain, content and analytics data. Ensure there are clear handover steps if you move providers.

7. Evaluate communication & culture

Fast responses, transparent timelines, and a collaborative approach matter. Trial the agency with a small request before committing.

8. Compare predictable pricing models

Subscription pricing that bundles hosting, updates and SEO into one monthly fee reduces surprises. Beware of add‑ons for basic items like SSL or schema.

13 important questions to ask a potential agency

Can you show live examples and data for local SEO wins?
How do clients request changes and what are typical turnaround times?
Do you provide staging sites before going live?
What is included in hosting, backups and security?
Who owns the content, domain and analytics accounts?
How do you handle SEO migrations and URL changes?
What KPIs do you report on monthly?
What is your SLA for uptime and critical fixes?
How are urgent issues triaged outside business hours?
Do you provide content — copywriting and images — or do I supply them?
How do you measure and improve conversion rate?
Can you run paid campaigns and integrate tracking with the site?
What does it look like to stop the service and export everything?

SEO maintenance: what good agencies do each month

Technical & performance

Run speed audits and optimise images, caching and critical CSS
Apply security patches, update plugins and check for vulnerabilities
Verify successful backups and test recovery process monthly
Check canonical tags, hreflang (if applicable) and redirects

Content & local signals

Publish or refresh service pages with targeted local keywords
Audit Google Business Profile (GBP) and citations for NAP consistency
Encourage and publish customer reviews; respond to them
Monitor backlinks and disavow spammy links when needed

On-page & schema

Review page titles, meta descriptions and H1s for priority pages
Implement or update structured data for products, services, FAQs and local business
Ensure new pages are added to XML sitemap and submitted to search engines

Tracking & reporting

Confirm analytics and conversion tracking are working after updates
Track key local keywords and report positioning changes
Provide a succinct monthly report with insights and next steps

Minimum monthly deliverables to expect:

Technical checks, one or two on‑page edits, GBP / citations audit, one short content update (e.g. offer or blog post), and a clear monthly report with traffic and leads.

Update & approval workflow — keep changes fast and safe

Agree a simple, repeatable workflow so updates are carried out quickly without risking SEO or uptime. A good workflow looks like this:

Request: You send a request (WhatsApp, ticket or email) with a short brief and deadline.
Confirm scope & ETA: Agency replies within agreed SLA with estimated time and any clarifying questions.
Staging preview: Agency implements changes on staging and shares a preview link for review.
Approval: You approve or request a small tweak. Approvals should be timeboxed to keep momentum.
Publish & monitor: Agency publishes to live site, runs quick checks (forms, links, analytics) and reports completion.
Document: Keep a shared log of changes for SEO and compliance history.

Best practice: have a 24–48 hour turnaround for routine content updates and an expedited path (same day) for urgent issues like broken forms or promotions.

Contracts, SLAs and pricing — what to negotiate

Key contract items

Scope of included updates: number and type of tasks per month
Ownership: domain, content, analytics and code
Data access: admin access to Google Analytics/GBP/hosting
Exit & handover: export formats and migration support

SLA examples to request

Response time for critical issues: 2 hours
Standard request acknowledgement: within 8 business hours
Uptime guarantee: 99.5% and regular uptime reports
Backup restore SLA: restore within 24 hours

Pricing models

All‑inclusive monthly subscription — predictable and usually best for small businesses
Retainer + hourly — useful if you have fluctuating needs
Fixed project fees for larger redesigns (separate from monthly management)

Red flags to avoid

Ambiguous ownership terms
No staging or testing process
Hidden fees for basic updates
Refusal to provide monthly reporting

Measuring growth — KPIs and reporting cadence

Agree the right KPIs and reporting cadence up front. Monthly reports should show trends; quarterly reviews should focus on strategy.

Example KPIs

Organic sessions (month vs month)
Local visibility: ranking for key “near me” queries
Leads: phone calls, form submissions, bookings
Conversion rate on priority pages
Average revenue per lead (if trackable)

Reporting cadence

Monthly: Traffic, keyword movement, conversions, tasks completed and the next month's plan.
Quarterly: Growth plan update, A/B test results, content calendar and paid media decisions.
Ad hoc: Immediate alerts for critical incidents (downtime, security breach, major ranking drop).

Use automated dashboards that connect Google Analytics, GBP insights and call tracking so your agency spends time on improvements, not manual reporting.

Starter checklist to hand to an agency

Access & accounts

Domain registrar login or transfer instructions
Hosting / control panel access or permission to set up hosting
Google Business Profile access
Google Analytics / GA4 property access
Admin access to CMS (WordPress/SaaS admin)

Business & brand

Short business description and key services
Logo files and approved brand colours
High-quality supplier/customer images (or permission to use stock)
Primary contact details and hours

SEO inputs

Top 5 priority keywords or service phrases
List of competitor sites you admire
Preferred service areas for local targeting

Initial tasks

Speed optimisation and baseline PageSpeed report
GBP optimisation and citation check
1 promotional banner or limited-time offer
Set up monthly reporting dashboard

If you prefer a fully managed subscription model that handles these items for you (domain, hosting, SSL, updates and SEO), look for agencies that offer unlimited updates and simple request channels. Many modern services, including AI‑assisted platforms, can deliver fast turnaround and predictable costs.

Example: a modern, managed approach

Some agencies now combine human specialists with AI workflows to deliver fast, predictable websites and ongoing SEO. For example, Congero provides an all‑inclusive managed website service that includes hosting, domain, unlimited updates and local SEO for a flat monthly fee. This kind of productised model can be ideal if you want:

Rapid turnaround for updates (often within hours)
Clear ownership of content and domain
Monthly analytics and simple growth recommendations

Note: use this as a comparison point when speaking to local agencies — predictable delivery, transparent pricing and unlimited updates are indicators of a mature service offering.

Frequently asked questions

Will a new agency hurt my SEO?

Not if migration is handled carefully. Ensure the agency documents existing URLs, preserves on‑page titles and meta descriptions where needed, sets up 301 redirects and monitors rankings and traffic for the first 30–90 days.

How quickly should routine updates be done?

A good target is 24–48 hours for standard content updates and same‑day support for urgent issues. Agree SLAs in your contract.

What is the minimum monthly SEO work needed?

For most small businesses: monthly technical checks, one or two content updates, GBP and citation audit, and basic link monitoring. More competitive niches will require ongoing content creation and link building.

Should I use an agency or a freelancer?

Agencies bring processes, redundancy and broader skill sets (design, SEO, dev, copy). Freelancers can be great for specific tasks but can create single points of failure. If reliability and growth are priorities, an agency is usually the safer choice.

Ready to find the right agency partner?

Start with a short discovery: share your priorities, get a clear scope, and agree KPIs. A short trial project or a single update is the best way to test speed, communication and results.

Request a demo Compare agency options

Pro tip: ask for a 30‑day trial or a one‑off audit so you can evaluate the agency without long-term commitment.