Mavix Marketing: what an SEO engagement in Texas includes, what drives the price, and how to check the answers

My Favorite Therapists, a paediatric therapy practice, came to Mavix with about ten referring domains, no page for any of its four services and almost no keyword visibility.

Three months later Search Console showed 99.6K impressions, 1.72K clicks and 26 keywords in the top ten, and organic sat beside direct as a top source of visits. That is the kind of account this page is about, because it is the kind of account most Texas businesses are.

Small, specific, and previously promised page one in thirty days by someone who stopped answering once the cheque cleared.

This page sets out what an engagement includes, what moves the price, and how to tell a real answer from a rehearsed one while comparing agencies. Mavix works with businesses in Georgetown, Southlake, San Antonio and across Williamson County, from single-location service firms to brands selling statewide.

What is in an engagement

The audit comes first, and it is the same audit whether or not you sign. What is indexed, what loads slowly on a phone. That pages exist for the things you sell and which do not, where the tracking is lying. The audit decides the scope. A scope quoted before anyone has looked at the account is a template with your name on it.

Technical work. Crawling, indexing, page speed against the thresholds Google publishes, structured data, a clean sitemap. This removes the ceiling. It does not climb anything on its own.

Pages for what you sell. One page per service, written in the words a customer types, before any blog post. All Dogs Rock, a dog daycare account, was rebuilt on one keyword per page, and organic became its top channel.

The Google Business Profile. For a local business the profile decides most of the map pack position: primary category, services, photos of real work, reviews with replies. Whitespark’s Local Search Ranking Factors survey puts profile signals at roughly a third of map pack weight.

Links that can be shown. A trade association, a local newspaper, a supplier, a piece of original data someone cited. Never a network or a marketplace, because Google names bought links in its spam policies and the penalty lands on your domain.

Content that sends readers to the pages that sell. La Vela Coffee’s organic clicks went from 1.16K to 2.85K over six months against the previous six, on pages written for what people in its town searched. Nothing in that work was written for a search engine.

A report that opens with enquiries. Branded and non-branded search split out from month one, because ranking for your own name proves nothing. The reporting guide shows the format.

How Texas changes the work

Georgetown has been among the fastest-growing cities in the country for several years, and its new residents find businesses by searching. Williamson County customers travel between Georgetown, Round Rock, Cedar Park, Leander and Taylor, so a dentist in Georgetown usually wants to be found from Round Rock too. The work maps the real service geography rather than one zip code.

Southlake is a high-income market close to Grapevine, Keller, Colleyville and Fort Worth, where buyers research thoroughly and judge on credentials, reviews and design before they call. San Antonio businesses usually arrive already running ads, and the question is how paid feeds organic instead of competing with it. Fort Worth gets lost inside Dallas campaigns that never account for its own searches. The locations pages cover each.

What drives the price

There is no rate card, for one reason: the number depends on what you already have. A site with clean tracking, healthy indexing and a base of content needs a fraction of the work of one that has to be rebuilt before anything can rank. The SEO pricing page sets out what moves the figure, and the figure comes after the audit.

Two things are true of every quote. A round monthly package offered before anyone has looked at your account is a warning sign, and a very cheap plan is a stronger one. There is not enough money in it to do the work, so the work being done is templated content or a link farm. Paid ads engagements here are priced per qualified lead, which is a different model and is set out on the same page.

When search is the wrong answer

If you need to know this quarter whether anyone is searching for what you sell, paid search answers it faster and cheaper than content does. A fortnight of ads on the right terms says which searches convert, and that list is the list of pages worth writing. Paid and organic run as one system here for that reason.

And if nobody types your category into Google yet, search cannot create the demand. The honest first channel is paid social or a longer content game, and an agency that says so on the first call is worth more than one that takes the retainer.

The seven questions to ask before you sign anywhere

1. Can you show me a report where the first number is enquiries? 2. Which of my current pages would you delete, and how would you decide? 3. What would you stop doing if traffic went up and enquiries did not? 4. Where do the links come from, specifically, and can you show me one? 5. Who will be on the monthly call, and are they in the room now? 6. What happens to my accounts and my content if I leave? 7. What happens if it does not work?

The answers here are on this site before the first call: the report format, the link sources, the people, and the terms of leaving. Those terms are that you own your Search Console, your analytics, your content and your ad accounts on the day you go. The last question has a written answer too. A measurable target with a penalty for missing it, not a promised ranking, because nobody controls Google’s results.

Where the line is

Search does not work in six weeks, and cancelling at week six is paying for the setup and leaving before the return. Months one to three are foundation. Months three to six are the first traction. The compounding shows in the second half of the first year, if the work was done and the business did not quit at month four.

Nothing on this page is a promise about your account. The accounts the work has been done on are public, with the periods and the caveats, so you can judge the pattern before anyone talks about your business.

Choose on the report, the links and the exit terms. Everything else is the pitch.

Questions people ask about this

How do I know if my site needs the technical work first?

Open Search Console and compare the number of indexed pages against the number you expect. Then run the Core Web Vitals report and look at the mobile field data. If either shows a large gap or a failing grade, the ceiling is technical and content will not move until it is lifted. If both are clean, the missing piece is usually pages for the things you sell, not more code.

What should I have ready before the first call?

Access to Search Console and Google Analytics, or the willingness to grant it. A list of the services you sell, in your customers’ words rather than trade terms. The towns you actually serve, not just the one on your letterhead. And last month’s enquiry count, however rough. With those four things, the audit can start the same week and the scope is built on your account rather than a template.

Does a business outside Georgetown, Southlake or San Antonio qualify?

Yes. Those cities are named because the work has been done there and the search patterns are familiar. The method is the same anywhere in Texas: map the real service area, write a page per service, fix the profile and the tracking. What changes is the competition. A trade in a small town faces a handful of firms. The same trade in Austin or Dallas faces far more, and the plan has to reflect that.

Why does branded search get split out of the report?

Because people searching your business name were already going to find you. Counting those clicks as a result of the work flatters every report and hides whether anything changed. Non-branded search is where new customers come from. If that line rises and enquiries rise with it, the work is paying. If only the branded line moves, something else, such as a referral or an ad campaign, deserves the credit.

Can I run ads and SEO at the same time?

Yes, and on most accounts it is the better order. A short paid search test shows which searches produce enquiries in weeks. That list becomes the priority list for the pages worth writing. Once a page ranks for a term, you can reduce the paid bid on it and move the budget to the next term. Run them as one system with one report, not as two suppliers competing for credit.

What happens to my accounts if I leave?

You keep them. Search Console, analytics, the ad accounts and the content are set up in your name from the start, so leaving means removing a user rather than rebuilding. Check this before signing anywhere. Ask to see where the accounts sit and who the owner is. If the agency owns the property and adds you as a viewer, the work is not yours, whatever the contract says.

How many pages does a small service business need?

One per service, one per location you seriously serve, plus the homepage, about page and contact page. A plumber offering four services in two towns has a clear list. Do not write a page for a town you would not drive to, and do not split one service into several thin pages. Each page needs enough substance that a customer could choose you from it alone.

Should I fix my Google Business Profile before paying for SEO?

Yes, and you can do most of it yourself in an afternoon. Choose the correct primary category, list every service, add photos of real work and reply to every review. For a local business the profile decides much of the map pack position, so this is the cheapest win available. An agency that starts anywhere else on a local account is starting in the wrong place.

How can I tell if a link is safe or bought?

Ask where it came from and whether you could explain it to a customer. A link from a trade body, a supplier, a local paper or a piece of data someone cited has a story. A link from a site that exists only to sell links does not. Google names paid link schemes in its spam policies, and the penalty lands on your domain, not the seller’s. If a provider cannot show you the source, assume the worst.

What if my traffic goes up and enquiries do not?

That is the most useful signal a report can give, and it usually means one of three things. The traffic is arriving on pages that do not sell anything. The pages that do sell have no clear next step. Or the tracking is missing enquiries that happen by phone. Check the phone first, because it is the most common. Then look at which pages the traffic lands on.

Is a very cheap SEO plan ever worth it?

Rarely, and the post says why: there is not enough money in it to do the work. What a cheap plan usually buys is templated content and links from a network, and both can cost you more later than the fee saved. If the budget is small, a better use is a one-off audit and a page for each service, then pause. Doing less, properly, beats doing everything badly.