Improve SEO, and keep what you win.
SEO here is not a list of tricks but a structure: a technical base that holds, content that hangs together, and authority that grows. In that order, because no position survives without foundations. We have been building findability since 2017, from the Netherlands, and we work with clients wherever the work can be done remotely.
Three forces, one structure
reg. S.001Every position that lasts rests on the same three drawings. The order is not optional: content on a slow site that is hard to crawl is money thrown away, and so are links to a page Google cannot read properly.
The thresholds Google publishes itself
Core Web Vitals are the only performance standards that Google both publishes with hard numbers and weighs in ranking. There are more with a number attached, such as the threshold of 0.8 seconds for Time to First Byte, but those do not carry weight of their own. The red line is the border between good and needs improvement. This is also the only part of SEO where you see an improvement in your own measurements within weeks.
What a cluster looks like
A cluster is one page that claims a subject, with pages underneath it that each answer a sub-question and link back. The cluster wins as a whole. This page is built that way: a main page with four branches under it, each with a question of its own. A cluster does not appear all at once, though. The track under the diagram walks those four sub-questions one at a time, in the order such a thing usually grows: engineering first, then the trade, then authority, then working together.
Where the strength gets stuck
A page passes strength on to the pages it links to. If a page takes a lot in and gives little back out, that strength sits there instead of helping the rest of your site. Below is the shape of that problem, not a count: how to find it on your own site is written underneath.
Authority is not yours to write
reg. S.002All three drawings above are about your own domain: your engineering, your copy, your internal links. Your own control ends right there. The third force comes into being outside your walls, and that is exactly why it is the slowest and the most durable.
The bottom row is authority, the top row is not. That is the whole reason SEO takes time: the two green squares are the only ones that hold up over a longer period, and both come with a wait you cannot shorten with budget. How we approach those two squares is set out under link building; what we deliberately do not do is written there as well.
When you do not need this yet. If your business runs entirely on repeat customers and referrals, if you sell something a handful of people a month search for, or if you need turnover next month, this is the wrong instrument. In that last case paid search is the honest answer: it works within days and it stops within days. SEO is for the owner who wants to be found in two years' time without paying per click.
No growth percentages, just counts
reg. S.002Most SEO pages put percentages here: this much more traffic, top three within this many months. We have too few live engagements to turn that into an honest average, so we count what can be counted: what we have built, and what Google publishes.
Five steps, never mixed up
reg. S.003You can skip a step, but then you are building on sand. Most engagements that stall began at step three.
What happens while a page climbs
reg. S.003bThe five steps above sit side by side as if they take the same time and return the same amount. That is not how it works. Below, the same engagement runs as a course: at every measurement it says which step was finished and what that changed about the page. Watch the fourth measurement, because it goes back a place without anything about the page having changed. Not a fault in the figure, just the ordinary state of affairs: that list belongs to everyone and more people are working on it.
What this figure does and does not say. The places are neutral example values and do not come from a client account. They are here to show the shape: step by step, with a fall back in between, and with the slowest gain right at the end. What is not in it is a deadline, and that is deliberate. We promise no position and no date, and why that is stands further down in section 05, at the agreement. What the six states do is tie the five steps from FIG.05 to something: at every measurement it says which step was finished.
A list, or a single answer
reg. S.004In Google you compete for a place in a list: there are ten results and with work you move up. With an AI assistant there is no list. One answer comes back and you are either named in it or you are not. Position eleven does not exist. Page two is where a keyword goes to be forgotten, and no amount of copy changes that.
You sit in third place and you get clicks. Keep working and you move up. Lose a place and it falls away gradually. The names in this example are invented.
For garden design in Bristol, one or two firms tend to get named, usually the ones that have been written about somewhere other than their own site: in the trade press, in industry directories or on well read forums.
If nothing about you exists anywhere, there is nothing to draw on. Your site is findable, but it is not quotable.
Here it is not your position that decides but whether you get named at all. What other people write about you weighs more than one more page on your own domain.
This can be measured. In the AI Index we put a fixed list of customer questions per sector to a language model and record which companies it names, with the earlier measurements beside it. Want to know whether your name comes out of that? We run the list for you: 75 euro one-off, or 75 euro a month if you want to keep following it. Already buying SEO from us? Then it is included.
What you will and will not hear from us
reg. S.005This is what you may hold us to, and what we deliberately do not promise. The second list is longer than the first, and that is on purpose.
What it costs
reg. S.006Three ways to start, from free to ongoing. All three are on the rates page and they are the same everywhere on the site. There is no entry rate that turns out to climb later. Amounts are in euro, because that is the currency on the invoice, and they exclude tax. If you are a UK business, the place of supply for these services is where you belong, so you account for the VAT yourself under the reverse charge and we invoice without VAT: see HMRC notice 741A. For an Irish or other EU business with a valid VAT number the same reverse charge applies.
- Automatic scan of one page, 24 checkpoints
- On top of that we look at five pages by hand
- Broader than an audit, but an honest picture
- Engineering, content and internal coherence
- Visible every month what has been done
- One client per market, never your competitor
- Crawl, indexing, speed, structured data
- Findings ordered by what costs you most
- You may carry it out yourself, upkeep is €250 a month
Everything about SEO, in one place
reg. S.007This page is the starting point for everything to do with SEO. Below is where you can go from here, sorted by what you need now rather than by what we sell.
Find out where you stand
freeNo call and no sign-up, the result appears on screen.
Free SEO scan24 checks: engineering, on-page, content and AI readability.TOOL Local findability checkerYour Google Business Profile: opening hours, photos, reviews, score.TOOL AI brand checkerWhether a language model recognises your company, or not.TOOL All the free toolsIncluding generators for advert headlines and review replies.HUBYou know where it is going wrong
serviceThe parts we get hired for, each with a page of its own.
Technical SEOCore Web Vitals, indexing and crawl. Faults here touch every page.SRV SEO for ecommerceCategory pages, filter navigation and product structure.SRV Link buildingBuilding authority without buying links.SRV Hire an SEO specialistSomeone beside your team instead of an agency in between.SRVUnderstand it first
backgroundBackground without a sales pitch, usable as well if you do it yourself. Doing it yourself is possible straight away through LinkLoop, our own exchange platform with a free Starter of 10 credits a month.
What link building isThe basics, and why bought links are a risk.DOC What link building costsWhat the market asks and why that varies so much.DOC Local SEO checklistPoint by point, what you can go through yourself.DOC The knowledge base104 articles, searchable.HUBYou are still comparing
decidingFor anyone putting several agencies side by side, including us.
Choosing an SEO agencyEight questions to ask, plus our own score with the weak spots.DOC All the ratesSEO, Google Ads, social and branding. Work out your own quote.DOC CasesWhat we have done per service.FIG About the instituteWho is behind TheSEO and how we work.DOCBeside SEO
widerWhat helps SEO or replaces it, depending on where you stand.
Google AdsVisible faster, but it stops the moment you stop paying.SRV SEO or Google Ads firstThe order for a young business, without a slanted answer.DOC The AI IndexOur own AI visibility, including where we score badly.DOC SoftwareLinkLoop for internal links and link exchange, plus the rest.INS AI and automation100 skills with a working download.HUBTalk to a person
humanIf reading does not answer your question.
Book a callThirty minutes, free, about where you are stuck.CTA Request the free checkWe look at five pages by hand.CTA ContactEmail, telephone and where else to find us.DOCIs your business in the Netherlands?
SEO per city and regionThe work is done remotely and we work across the whole of the Netherlands. These pages exist because local findability asks for different work: your Google Business Profile, your address details and mentions in the region weigh more there than anything on your own site. Run a Dutch business but do not read Dutch? Then this is the part where the language of the profile matters most, and it is also work you can hand over.
Why SEO engagements get stuck
Your website pulls in visitors, but not the people who want to ask for anything. Usually that is the moment a company decides the SEO has to get better. The reflex is more pages, more articles, more keywords. A year later there are sixty articles and nothing has changed.
It is almost always the same four things. Writing happens without it being clear which question a page answers. Technical problems stay half solved, so Google never sees part of the work. Pages start competing with each other because nobody keeps track of which keyword is already taken. And structure is missing, so nothing stacks up into authority within one subject.
We turn it round. Not more pages but better pages, and first make sure the site can carry them. Less spectacular to sell, that, because there is no graph to show in the first month. It is also the reason it stays standing afterwards.
Improving SEO now means AI visibility as well
The basis of good SEO does not change because of AI. A clear structure, content that is actually about something, and enough coherence that a system can work out where your authority lies. What is added is that you have to be named in places outside your own site, because that is where language models get their picture of you.
And that happens to be exactly where we score worst ourselves. We say so plainly. What we do about it is the same as what we would advise a client: make things people refer to of their own accord. The 100 Claude skills we publish, the free tools on this site, the scanner, and the MCP server that puts our SEO tools inside your own AI. Slower than buying mentions, and the only thing that holds. We have tried the shortcuts; they wash out within a quarter.
Our own measurement is public in the AI Index, and how we measure those figures is written up separately, so you can decide whether you want to believe our results. To find out where you stand, the brand checker tells you whether a language model recognises you and the free scan whether your page is readable for such systems.
Would you rather not leave it at an impression? Then we run the whole question list for your sector and send back which answers you appear in and which you do not. What that costs and what we do afterwards is on measuring and improving AI visibility. If you buy SEO from us, that measurement is included in the monthly fee.
Three of those free tools do work that belongs to this service, so you can try the thinking before you buy any of it. The AI snippet previewer shows how a summarising system reads one of your pages. The title and meta description generator writes three variants inside the character limits, which is the smallest on-page job there is and the one most often left undone. And the AI traffic loss shield scores per page how much of your traffic an AI answer can take over.
Frequently asked questions
What does SEO cost with you?
Ongoing SEO costs 250 euro a month. A one-off technical audit costs 750 euro for up to twenty pages. Loose hours are 65 euro. On top of that we look at five pages by hand free of charge, so you know where you stand before you buy anything. All amounts exclude tax; a UK or Irish business accounts for the VAT itself under the reverse charge. Our service rates for SEO, Google Ads, social media and branding are on the rates page, and the subscription prices for Jarvis and the MyParcel Dashboard on their own product pages.
How long before I notice anything?
That differs per site and we do not attach a period to it. Technical improvements are often visible in your own measurements within weeks. Positions on commercial keywords move more slowly, because there you are competing with firms that have been building for years. Google says itself that changes need time to be reflected in the search results and deliberately gives no fixed period.
Can I see somewhere what results you have achieved?
Not as percentages on this page. We do not put average growth figures or client positions online, because with the number of live engagements we cannot back them up honestly. In a call we do show concrete work. What we do measure publicly is our own AI visibility, through the AI Index.
Do you also work for my competitor?
No. We take one client per market. If someone from your trade and your working area is already in the portfolio, we say no and we say why. Otherwise we would have two parties paying us to beat each other on the same keyword.
Do I have to choose between SEO and Google Ads?
Not necessarily. Google Ads brings traffic today and stops the moment you stop paying. SEO builds slowly and stays. If you want fast data on which keywords really produce enquiries, use Ads to learn that and put the knowledge into SEO afterwards.
What happens if I stop?
What has been built stays yours: the engineering, the copy and the structure sit on your own site. Positions do not disappear straight away, but they do not stand still either, because your competitors keep building and Google keeps changing. There is no notice period with a year's contract attached.
Do you work outside the Netherlands?
Yes. The work itself is done remotely, which is why the language of the site and the market it serves matter more to us than the country the company is registered in. The city pages below exist because someone searching for their own town needs different work, and those towns happen to be Dutch, since that is where most of our clients are.
Start by finding out where you stand
You do not have to buy anything to begin. The scan runs on one page and gives an immediate result on 24 points. Want more? Then we look at five pages by hand and go through the outcome with you in a half hour call. After that you know whether it is worth going on, with us or with someone else. If we do work together, we process personal data on behalf of your company and we sign the data processing agreement beforehand, which sets out what we may do with that data. That document is in Dutch and Dutch law applies to it.
Getting found in your own town for free
For these trades we wrote out the organic route in full: which page you need, what belongs on your Google Business Profile and when to ask for a review. Every guide is free to read and ends at the paid alternative, so you can choose where to start. These guides are written for the Dutch market and are in Dutch. Prefer the steps without a trade around them? Take the complete local SEO checklist.
And if you would rather hand it over
The guides above explain the organic route so you can walk it yourself. For three trades we also wrote down what it means to hand it over, because the arithmetic works out differently there than average.
For locksmiths, Google does not allow adverts in the Netherlands at all, which makes organic not the addition but the only route: see outsourcing SEO for locksmiths.
That ban is a matter of country and not of trade. Google's local services policy lists the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Sweden and Belgium as places where locksmith adverts cannot run, and the United States and Canada as places where they can only run after extra verification (source). The United Kingdom and Ireland are not on that list, so a British or Irish locksmith can advertise and does not face that particular wall. For solar panel firms the first question shifted from what does it cost to is it still worth it, and that question gets an explanation rather than a bid: see outsourcing SEO for solar panel companies.
For removal firms, the searches with the word quote in them are taken by comparison sites, and the point is which jobs you can still win: see outsourcing SEO for removal firms. In all three cases the rates on this page apply, and we work with one company per trade and per region. Would you rather keep the organic work with your own people and hire capacity in beside them? Then online marketing vacancies describes that route.
What changed in search, and what to do about it
These five pieces are free to read and answer the questions that come first. Getting your website to the top of Google walks the three pillars in the order they have to be tackled, from keyword research to link building, and says what each step costs. Fewer impressions in Search Console shows why that is usually a change in the way Google counts rather than a drop in ranking, and how one segmentation on position makes it visible.
Two are about the ground under the site. A low PageSpeed score is a sum of hosting, scripts, a cookie banner, a translation plugin and oversized images, so it takes seven steps rather than one setting. The May 2026 core update ran from 21 May to 2 June and moved the local pack, with four actions that protect a position and the source for every date.
And one looks ahead. Ask Maps answers a question in plain language with one or two businesses instead of a list of ten, which changes what a Google Business Profile has to say before anybody asks.
