FAQ
The questions we get asked before every engagement — answered plainly, including the ones with answers you might not want to hear.
How long does SEO take to work?
For most Mid-Michigan service businesses, meaningful movement in local rankings shows up between month three and month six, and compounding results follow from there. Technical fixes and Google Business Profile work can move things faster — sometimes within weeks — while authority building and content genuinely take longer. Anyone promising top-three rankings in thirty days is either working in an empty market or not telling you the whole story.
What does SEO cost?
There is no flat rate, because building out a company's SEO is never cookie cutter and there are many factors that need to be considered before a plan can be put in place. Scope depends on how competitive your market is, what condition your site is in today, and whether you need content and authority work or just technical cleanup. The audit and proposal are free, and the proposal shows you the scope and the number before you commit to anything.
Do you work with businesses outside Mid-Michigan?
Yes. Grand Ledge is home and the Lansing and Grand Rapids markets are where we have the deepest local knowledge, but the work itself is not geographically limited. Rollin's background spans national brands including TWO MEN AND A TRUCK, Merry Maids and Aftermath, so multi-location and out-of-state engagements are familiar ground.
What is AI search visibility, and does it actually matter yet?
It matters now. A meaningful share of buying research has moved into ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI agents that never display a traditional results page. Those systems decide what to recommend based on structured data, entity clarity and citations from sources they trust. The work overlaps heavily with good traditional SEO, but it is not identical, and the businesses treating it as a separate discipline are getting recommended while their competitors are not.
Will you tell me exactly what you're doing each month?
Yes — that is the point of transparent reporting. Every month you receive a plain-language report covering exactly what moved, what didn't, and what we're doing next. No black boxes, no dashboards full of vanity metrics you have to interpret yourself.
Do I need a new website, or can you optimize the one I have?
Most of the time we optimize what you already have — that is almost always the faster and cheaper path. Sometimes an audit turns up problems no amount of content can fix: a page builder that emits unusable markup, a theme that cannot pass Core Web Vitals, a structure that was never designed to convert. In those cases we will tell you plainly, and Grand River SEO partners with Unyx Web Solutions to rebuild the site properly before we optimize it.
How do you measure results?
Rankings for the terms that actually produce revenue, map-pack position for your service area, organic traffic, and — most importantly — leads. Rankings that do not turn into phone calls are not results. We agree on what counts as a win at the start of the engagement so there is nothing to argue about later.
What do you need from me to get started?
Access to your website and Google Business Profile, a short conversation about which services and which service areas actually make you money, and whatever analytics history you already have. The audit runs from there, and the free consultation is where we work out whether there is enough opportunity to be worth your money in the first place.
Still have a question?
Ask it directly — the consultation is free and there is no obligation.
Let's talk about your SEO goals
Tell us what you're working with and what you want to rank for. We'll tell you plainly whether there's enough opportunity to be worth your money.