Full-service in this trade means the supplier will do all of it, and says nothing about how much of each. One agency's version is a monthly technical review and a report; another's is four substantial pages, developer time to implement, outreach and a quarterly strategy session. The prices differ by a multiple and the phrase is identical, so the whole of the buying decision is in making the scope explicit before comparing anything.
The four parts, and how much of each
Technical work on the site, content production, earning links and mentions, and measurement and reporting. Ask for the proposed monthly effort split across those four, in hours or in deliverables. Suppliers who have thought about your situation give different splits for different clients; suppliers selling a package give the same one to everybody, which is the tell.
Establish who implements the technical work
The most common failure in a full-service arrangement is recommendations queued behind a developer who never has time. Settle whether the agency can change the site directly, whether they wait on your team, and what happens in a quarter when your developers are busy. An agency with its own implementation capacity is worth a materially higher fee for this reason alone.
Content is the expensive part and the first to be thinned
Because it is the largest cost, it is where a squeezed retainer quietly shrinks: fewer pieces, shorter, written further from anybody who knows the subject. Ask how many pieces, of what length, written by whom, and whether your people will be interviewed. Those answers explain most of the price difference between otherwise identical proposals.
Ask what the link work actually is
Earned coverage through research and outreach is slow, honest and priced as skilled time. A monthly quota of placements is bought links with the risk on your domain. Full-service proposals frequently include a link line without saying which, and it is the one item where the wrong answer can cost you more than the whole engagement.
Reporting should be a written account, not a dashboard
What changed, why, what is queued, what was learned and what would have been done with more of your time. Half an hour of somebody's month and the only thing that lets you tell diligence from drift. A full-service retainer without it is a monthly invoice with a chart attached, which is how these arrangements usually end.
Questions people ask about full-service seo
What does full-service SEO include?
Whatever the scope says. The phrase covers technical work, content, links and reporting in any proportion, and the proportions explain the multiples of price difference between proposals.
What is the most important thing to settle?
Who implements the technical recommendations. Work stalling in a developer queue is the commonest failure, and an agency with its own implementation capacity is worth a higher fee for that alone.
How do we compare two full-service quotes?
Ask both for the monthly effort split across technical, content, links and reporting, in hours or deliverables. Identical splits for every client indicate a package rather than a plan.
What should we ask about the link work?
Whether it is earned outreach or purchased placements. A monthly quota means bought links, and the risk sits on your domain rather than the agency's.