Every guide, cost guide and research piece on goodatmarketing.com is listed here by service, each with a line on what you get from it. They are written for business owners who are weighing a choice, such as SEO or Google Ads first, or how to read an agency’s report.
Six are cost guides that put our published ranges beside outside data, and the pricing page lists every range. Three are research pieces that state how their data was collected and where it falls short.
The cost guides and research come first, then one section for each group of services. Pick the section that matches your decision, because each section ends with a link, usually to the matching service page. The full list of services covers questions that sit between two groups.
By Donnie Strompf. Updated October 2026.
Pricing and cost guides
- How much does digital marketing cost for a small business? Monthly range for a full local program, with each single channel priced beside it so you can add the pieces and test a combined quote.
- How much does SEO cost for a small business in 2026? Local SEO’s monthly range, what pushes it higher in competitive markets, and one outside survey of provider retainers to compare against.
- How much does Google Ads management cost? Agencies bill ad management by flat fee, share of spend or a mix, and this guide shows how the fee sits beside Google’s charges.
- How much does Google Business Profile management cost? Creating a profile is free, so this guide explains what a management fee pays for and how to compare scope before price.
- How much do Local Services Ads cost? Per-lead pricing and management fees: Google charges by the valid lead and lists no typical price, so this guide shows where our management fee sits on top.
- How much does AEO cost in 2026? Add-on range for AI visibility, why it is sold beside an SEO plan, and the reason no fee buys a guaranteed mention.
If you are pricing a combined plan, the Small business marketing program: SEO, Google Ads and local search in one plan page describes it.
Research
- What AI recommends for local services in Palm Beach County: a 120-answer study: Answers from three AI engines to 120 Palm Beach County questions on one day in October 2026, and how often they named the same business.
- Do agencies that rank for Florida searches publish prices? A 10-city survey: Forty-nine agency sites ranking in ten Florida cities were checked for any published price, with the counting rules and the full per-site table.
- Local SEO, Google Ads and AI Search Statistics for 2026: Where local searches start, how often Google searches end without a click, and how often AI answers cite Business Profiles, each tied to its publisher.
The service behind the AI findings is described on AEO services: get your business recommended in AI answers.
SEO and AI visibility
- What to expect from SEO: timeline, cost and results: Two dated national examples, one that took a few months and one that took 12 to 16 months, plus what makes rankings slip.
- Is SEO dead? What AI Overviews did to clicks and what still works: Studies from July 2025 to June 2026 on clicks lost to AI Overviews, with figures for local searches shown separately.
- Local SEO Index: What Ranks a Business in Google Maps in 2026: Google’s three local ranking factors set beside Whitespark’s 2026 survey, with a linked guide for each factor you can change.
- How Content Marketing and SEO Work Together for Local Businesses: Page types a local business should build first, with example searches for a South Florida air conditioning company.
- Why Your Local SEO Stopped Bringing In Customers: Checklist of five areas for local SEO that has stopped producing leads, starting with a comparison against nearby competitors’ profiles.
- Google Search Console Tips for Finding Pages That Get Seen but Not Clicked: Using the Performance report, sort by impressions, read the clicks beside them, and decide which low-click pages deserve attention.
- How Small Businesses Can Use Google Search Console to Find Missed Keyword Opportunities: Filtering the Queries tab for searches where you sit at position 8 to 20 with few clicks, then choosing the page to improve.
- E-E-A-T for Small Business Websites: What to Put on a Page Before You Publish: Three questions from Google’s guidance on who wrote a page, how it was made and why it exists, applied to the pages to check first.
- Schema markup for a small business: which types to add first: Organization and LocalBusiness first, then Breadcrumb and Article, plus Google’s retired FAQ and HowTo results and its view that AI search needs no special markup.
- What is answer engine optimization (AEO)? Plain definitions of AEO and GEO, Google’s July 2026 statement that the work is still SEO, and two search studies on clicks.
- How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews: Let AI crawlers reach your site, say what you do and where, and keep listings accurate, with each vendor’s own documentation dated.
- Can you pay to be recommended by ChatGPT or Google AI answers? OpenAI and Google both show ads near AI answers, and this guide reports what each says about paying for a place inside the answer.
- How to fix wrong information about your business in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews: Tracing a wrong AI answer back to its source, fixing that source in a set order, then reporting it through each engine’s channel.
- How AI search engines choose their sources, compared: One engine searches its own index, another sends rewritten queries to search providers, and none publishes a ranking formula.
- Which AI crawlers to allow in robots.txt, and whether llms.txt does anything: Allow-list of AI search crawlers for robots.txt, how training crawlers differ, and what Google says about llms.txt.
- How to track ChatGPT traffic in Google Analytics 4 and Search Console: Look for the chatgpt.com source in Traffic acquisition, the utm_source tag OpenAI adds, and why counts are a floor.
- Does AI Make Mistakes in Digital Marketing? A Channel-by-Channel Reality Check: Public cases of chatbot errors that a business had to answer for, including a February 2024 airline refund ruling.
Our SEO service is described on SEO services from Good At Marketing in Boynton Beach, Florida, and the AI-visibility work on AEO services: get your business recommended in AI answers.
Google Ads and Local Services Ads
- SEO vs Google Ads: which should a local service business fund first? Situation-by-situation table for choosing a first investment, plus Google’s statement that running ads has no effect on organic rankings.
- How much should you spend on Google Ads? A break-even method: Break-even method that turns profit per customer and close rate into the most you can pay for one lead.
- Google Ads Optimization Tips for Small Businesses in 2026: Older tips that no longer match Google’s help pages, and the order to work in, starting with the search terms report.
- How to set up Google Ads conversion tracking for a service business: Conversion actions to create for form leads and calls, how to fire them from Tag Manager and how to test each one before raising budget.
- Google Ads vs Meta ads for lead generation: which should a local business run? Decision table by goal and budget, with a 2026 lead-cost benchmark for each platform.
- Local Services Ads vs Google Ads for a service business: Billing per valid lead set against billing per click, with the August 2026 move of Local Services Ads into Google Ads noted.
- Local Services Ads are moving into Google Ads: what changes and what to do now: Phased dates for Google’s move of Local Services Ads into Performance Max, and what to save before your account migrates.
- How to get Google Verified on Local Services Ads: requirements and timing: Screening steps behind the Google Verified badge, with Google’s average wait of 3 to 4 weeks once documents are in.
Our paid search work is described on Google Ads management for small businesses in South Florida and beyond and Google Local Services Ads management.
Google Business Profile and reviews
- 5 Signs Your Google Business Profile Is Costing You Customers: Self-checks you can run from your own profile, starting with views that never turn into calls.
- How to Get More Google Reviews Without Breaking Google’s Rules: Request email and reply templates, plus what Google and the FTC allow when you ask customers for a review.
- Why Google Suspends a Business Profile and How to Get It Reinstated: Finding the stated reason for a suspension, fixing the violation first, then using Google’s one-time appeal.
- Google Business Profile for a Service-Area Business: Hide Your Address and Set Service Areas: Hiding your address, listing up to 20 service areas, and telling a service-area business from a hybrid or storefront.
- Google Ask Maps and Gemini: What Local Businesses Can Do: What Google has and has not said about Ask Maps, why no page documents paid placement, and which profile details to check.
- 5 Strategies for Google Maps Marketing in 2026: Maps strategies ordered against Whitespark’s 2026 survey and BrightLocal’s local AI citation study, rewritten from a 2017 post.
- Which Business Listings Beyond Google Are Worth Claiming: Directories worth claiming after Google, with Bing Places and Apple Business first and Yelp next, and why AI tools cite them.
Our profile work is described on Google Business Profile Marketing.
Websites, email and social
- Website Redesign SEO Checklist: What to Do Before, During and After Launch: URLs to list and redirect before launch, the staging blocks to remove, and what to watch in Search Console afterward.
- WordPress vs Wix vs Squarespace vs Shopify: which fits a small business? Platform comparison on redirects, structured data, robots.txt and what you can export if you leave, from each vendor’s own help pages.
- Email Automation Triggers for Service Businesses That Want More Bookings: Triggers to build in order, from booking confirmation to win-back message, plus how CAN-SPAM treats a confirmation email.
- Klaviyo vs Mailchimp vs HubSpot vs Constant Contact: how the email platforms differ: Plan limits on automation, how each platform bills contacts, and what you can export when you leave.
- What SPF, DKIM, DMARC do and what Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook.com require of email senders: Receiving servers check three authentication records, and this guide explains each one and the sender thresholds Gmail and Yahoo publish.
- Is social media marketing worth it for a local business? A test of whether your customers browse before they buy, plus Pew’s figures on Facebook and Instagram use.
Our service pages cover Website design and development built for search and AI answers, Email marketing services for small businesses and Social media marketing services for small businesses.
Reporting and choosing an agency
- How to choose an SEO company: 20 questions to ask and red flags to avoid: Interview script covering named past work, two references you can call, a written monthly scope and notice terms.
- In-house marketer vs freelancer vs agency: who should run your small business marketing? Loaded cost of a marketing hire from BLS data, so you can test a salary against your budget before choosing.
- Who owns your website and marketing accounts? What to hold yourself and how to give an agency access: Open the accounts under your own login, hand the agency the lowest role that works, and review the user list when the work ends.
- What a monthly marketing report should include, and how to check it yourself: Lead with leads and sales, then trace every channel number to a report in an account you can open.
- How to Measure Content Marketing ROI for a Local Service Business: The formula, which costs to count including your own hours, and how to count returns when the sale is a booked job.
- Marketing funnel optimization for local service businesses: Steps from found to booked, with the rate between each pair, so you fix the weakest one first.
- How we report SEO ranking results, with dated examples: Six details every ranking claim should carry, shown with two dated results and where each record stops.
These guides are written by Donnie Strompf, who leads SEO strategy at Good At Marketing.
Next step
If a guide leaves a question open about your own business, start with the Get your free AI-visibility audit or Book a 15-minute call.