Why Should I Pay For A Google Ads Audit?

“This agency I contacted said they’ll just do a PPC audit for free. Why should I pay?”

Beware The Free PPC Audit

This is a common question I get. Why in the world would someone want to pay $500, $1000, or even $3000 for a paid media audit? Any agency that recommends doing an audit and is offering it for free, typically isn’t spending a whole lot of time researching your website or doing a deep dive into your account.  The agency likely has someone who is very new to the team assigned to your company as an opportunity. This person conducting the audit is likely just using a checklist. The person auditing may not even be in marketing, they may be in sales or some other area of Business Development.

Cheap Marketing For CRM Subscription

Anyone offering a report or services for free of anything should be taken with some skepticism. Free consultations or a free Discovery call is likely the only exception to this rule. There are some agencies whose primary way of making money is to get you to buy into a CRM subscription or to lock you into a hosting contract.  Free audit companies really don’t make a whole lot of money on marketing support services or they focus on services outside of marketing like web hosting. Some agencies may underprice marketing services way below market rates to win long term contracts. Their goal is to get small businesses into hosting contracts or other software subscriptions to become a gatekeeper. Once they own the keys to your analytics and website maintenance, moving on from these firms can be very challenging.

Your Agency Becomes The Gatekeeper

Hosting and software contracts make switching to a new agency harder. In the gatekeeper example, you may be stuck paying $1,000s in fees forever for secondary services instead of getting the help you need to grow your business. Prioritize finding a partner that will help you grow and expect to pay reasonable fees for their services, including an audit.

Why Should I Pay For An SEO Audit?

“Hey, this DIY software is pretty neat. Can’t this just do the SEO audit for me?”

The DIY Software Audit

Similar to agencies pitching free paid media audits, several software companies and agencies pitch the DIY SEO audit. Some offer DIY tools that you just plug in your website URL and out comes an audit. Some companies may offer to do the SEO audit for free. It’s highly likely that company is using automated software to generate the reports. They could be checking off of a list with a dozen very basic recommendations. The goal may be to demo the software and get you to subscribe. There are several resources available that do not require expensive software subscriptions.

Free Resources For Managing SEO

Meaningless Data

“Your business is missing these two META tags, oh no!”  Have you ever heard of a company tanking their SEO because of a few missing meta tags? SEO isn’t about fixing a few tags and submitting a new sitemap to Google. It goes way beyond small updates from a checklist. Software can be great for monitoring and maintenance, software tends not to be great at building a strategy and telling you what opportunities are going to drive growth.

Don’t Seek Out Free Consulting Or Free Reports (It’s a trap!)

Companies that seek out free SEO reports and agencies that provide free audit services are usually disappointed or they don’t know what to do with any of the information.  It’s important to have a partner who can walk you through all the data and recommendations. It also helps to have some guidance as to which tactics make sense for your business.

“What’s All This GEO I’ve Been Hearing About?”

The SEO/GEO landscape is changing rapidly. You want a partner that can stay up to date with current trends and tactics. Just because someone says they’re the AI SEO expert doesn’t make them so. Find a partner that understands the GEO / AEO / AI landscape but doesn’t focus all their efforts on getting recommended in AI Overviews or ChatGPT. Check out my POV on SEO & GEO below for more information.

GEO vs SEO