Choosing an SEO copywriting company

Agencies with a verified published price

How to compare SEO copywriting companies

1. Read a sample in your own category. Ask for two published pages in a subject close to yours, then read them as a buyer rather than as a marketer. You are checking whether the writer understood the subject well enough to say something specific, or whether the page circles the topic in fluent sentences that could describe any business in the sector.
2. Ask who writes and who researches. Find out whether one person does both, whether subject matter experts are interviewed, and whether drafts are edited by someone other than the writer. Ask what happens when the writer does not understand the topic. The answer tells you whether you are buying research and judgement or assembly from search results.
3. Ask how they use AI tools, and get it in writing. Most production now involves AI somewhere and that is not disqualifying, but you need to know where. Ask which stages use it, who verifies factual claims, and what the disclosure is. Google's guidance judges content by whether it is helpful and original rather than by how it was produced, so the risk is unverified claims and sameness.
4. Check the brief before you check the price. Ask to see the content brief format they work from. A good brief names the query, the reader, the decision the page supports, the questions to answer and the evidence to cite. Providers who write from a keyword and a word count produce pages that read like they were written from a keyword and a word count.

What Google actually rewards, in its own words

Google's guidance on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content is the clearest published statement of the standard. It asks whether content provides original information, reporting, research or analysis, whether it offers substantial value compared with other pages in results, and whether a reader would feel they had a satisfying experience. It also asks whether the content was produced mainly to attract search traffic rather than to help people, which is the question most cheap SEO copy fails. Notably, the guidance treats how content is produced as less relevant than whether it is helpful and original.

The spam policies draw the harder line. Scaled content abuse, meaning generating many pages primarily to manipulate rankings rather than to help users, is named explicitly, and sites violating the policies may rank lower or not appear at all. That is the practical risk in buying volume: a provider selling several hundred near-identical location or service pages is selling the exact pattern the policies describe. Ask any candidate how they would resist a request from you to publish at that scale, and listen to whether they have a view.

Pricing models and what they hide

Per-word pricing is the most common and the least informative, because it prices the output and ignores the research. It also creates a mild incentive toward length, which is the opposite of what most buyers need. Per-page pricing is better when the page type is defined, so agree what a page includes: research, interview time, drafting, one or two revision rounds, internal linking, meta title and description, and image direction. Retainer pricing suits ongoing programmes and should state a monthly output, a revision allowance and who owns the calendar.

Whatever the model, ask for the hour estimate behind one page and check it is plausible. A researched, specific page in a technical category is several hours of work before editing. If the quote implies well under an hour per page, the provider is either using templates, using unverified generated text, or subcontracting to a rate that cannot support research. Any of those may still be acceptable for low-stakes pages, but you should be choosing that trade deliberately rather than discovering it in the drafts.

How to judge a draft when it arrives

Read the first two paragraphs and ask whether they say anything that could only be said about this subject. Generic openings are the reliable symptom of a writer who did not have enough material. Check whether claims are attributed to a source you can verify, whether numbers are cited rather than asserted, and whether the page answers the questions a buyer would actually ask in the order they would ask them. Check the internal links point somewhere useful rather than to whatever page needed a link.

Then check what the page is aimed at. Every commissioned page should have a query it targets and a decision it supports, agreed before writing. If nobody can say which query the draft is for, the page was written from a topic rather than from demand, and it will compete with your own existing pages as often as it wins new visibility. That single discipline, one page per real query with a stated purpose, separates a content programme from a content invoice.

Questions people actually ask

How much should one SEO page cost?

It depends far more on research depth than on length. A page in a technical or regulated category needs interviews and verification and is priced accordingly, while a straightforward service page is quicker. Ask for the hour estimate behind the quote and judge whether the promised research fits inside it.

Does Google penalise AI-written content?

Google's guidance focuses on whether content is helpful, original and people-first rather than on how it was produced. What its spam policies do name is scaled content abuse, meaning many pages produced primarily to manipulate rankings. The practical risks with AI drafts are unverified claims and sameness, so ask who checks facts.

Should I buy per word, per page or on retainer?

Per page or on retainer, with a defined page specification, is usually clearer than per word, which prices output and ignores research. Whichever you choose, write down what a page includes: research, revisions, metadata, internal links and image direction, so both sides are quoting the same thing.

How many pages a month is realistic?

Fewer than most proposals suggest, if each page is researched. Volume is easy to promise and easy to deliver badly. A steady cadence of pages that each answer a real query outperforms a burst of near-identical pages, and it avoids the pattern Google's spam policies describe as scaled content abuse.

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