SEO and GEO: Technical Fixes and Content
A site with no traffic usually has one of two problems. Either search engines cannot read it properly, or the site never answers what people are actually searching for. The first is technical and stays fixed once fixed. The second only comes from producing content over time. They work differently and take different amounts of time, so they are priced separately.
What technically gets changed
Technical SEO is about whether a machine can retrieve and understand a page correctly. This part has right answers, and once it is done it is done, unlike content, which accumulates.
Check yourself
- Heading structure: one main heading per page, with a hierarchy that lets a machine work out what the page is about.
- Titles and descriptions: cut to a length that will not be truncated in results, with the words that matter moved to the front.
- Sitemaps and indexing settings: generated from the content rather than hand-maintained, with a check that nothing is being blocked by mistake.
- How content is produced: confirming the document the server sends already contains the text, so a machine does not have to run a browser to read it.
- Structured data: machine-readable markup for the organisation, the articles and the questions, with a check that the markup matches what is visible on the page.
- Load performance: how fonts, images and code are loaded. Mobile usually improves most.
- Internal linking: turning scattered pages into a structure, rather than every page pointing back at the home page.
GEO: getting AI engines to read you and cite you
Some people no longer look through search results at all; they ask an AI. Those engines read the document the server sends first, and they favour writing where one passage answers one question completely. The foundations are shared with traditional SEO, but a few things need handling separately.
Check yourself
- Confirm the source document already contains the full text, rather than an empty shell that fills in once scripts run.
- Add structured data, so an engine does not have to guess who you are or what a page is about.
- Rewrite content so a passage answers a question on its own, which makes it far easier to quote whole.
- Provide a machine-readable summary of the site, listing the services and the content.
One thing to be straight about: there is currently no official way to check whether a given AI engine has indexed your site. If a service promises you will be cited, ask them how they intend to verify it.
What is delivered
The optimisation work is a one-off project, and the deliverables are the changes themselves plus a written account of them.
Check yourself
- Before and after measurements, taken on the same page under the same conditions. What matters is the trend, not a single score.
- A record of what was changed and why, readable by you or by whoever takes over next.
- Long-tail keyword research and a content gap analysis, delivered as a list of topics worth writing.
- Notes on what to watch afterwards, including which changes would undo the work.
Content writing is a monthly service, NT$4,000 for one article a month, NT$8,000 for two, and so on. Topics are chosen each month from your services and the questions your clients actually ask. You receive a finished draft including long-tail questions and answers, ready to publish or adjust yourself.
How long it takes, and what cannot be promised
Technical changes usually show up in indexing status and coverage reports within one to two weeks. Ranking and traffic movement takes three to six months, and depends on whether content keeps being produced and whether external links accumulate.
Nobody can guarantee rankings, and I will not. Technical work clears the obstacles so search engines can read your site. Where you land after that is decided by content quality, how well it matches what the searcher wanted, how many other sites mention you, and time. For fiercely contested head terms, the first page usually belongs to large vendors and comparison listicles, and in that situation my advice is to go after more specific terms with clearer buying intent rather than spend money on a term that will not move.
An agency, or an engineer directly
Most people searching for an SEO agency already know they need SEO. What they are stuck on is which kind of supplier to call. This section is that distinction, and it may well end with you deciding I am not the one.
| A marketing agency | An engineer directly | |
|---|---|---|
| Strongest at | Keyword strategy, content production, paid media, reporting | The technical layer: indexing, structured data, load performance, site architecture |
| Technical fixes | Usually subcontracted, or handed to your developer | Done and verified by the same person |
| Suits you when | You need sustained content and advertising, and have the budget to keep it running | Something technical is wrong, or you want the foundations checked first |
| Billing | Usually a monthly retainer | Repair is a one-off project; only the writing is monthly |
The dividing line runs roughly here. If your problem is that nobody is writing content and nobody is running ads, you want an agency, and I am no help: paid media and social are outside what I do. If your problem is that the content exists but nothing finds it, or traffic fell after a redesign, or a client says an AI assistant cannot find you, that is technical, and going straight to an engineer is faster with one less layer of relay.
Agencies that land work with a technical SEO component sometimes subcontract that part. That is open to discussion, delivered under your name and in your existing template.
How it is priced, and what to ask before outsourcing
Asking what SEO costs per month means separating two different purchases. The technical repair is a one-off project, priced by the size of the site, and once it is done it is done. Only the content writing is monthly: a price per article multiplied by how many you want, with no lock-in. You can buy either alone, or do the repair first and add writing afterwards.
The common shape of SEO outsourcing is a fixed monthly retainer, and what it covers varies enormously. For a small business on a limited budget, the practical order is a one-off technical audit and repair first, clearing the mechanical problems, then a decision about whether to fund monthly content. Paying a year of retainer without knowing what happens each month is the most common way this money gets wasted.
Check yourself
- Ask what the quote covers: technical repair, keyword research, content production and link building have completely different cost structures.
- Ask what you can inspect on delivery. What changed, before and after measurements, and the keyword list should all be things you receive.
- Ask how results will be judged and how often. Anyone reporting rankings without impressions or enquiries is usually ranking for terms nobody searches.
- Any quote guaranteeing rankings needs an explanation of how that will be verified. A promise nobody can keep, written into a contract, costs you and not them.
- Ask how the contract ends. The content and the changes are yours, and should not be withdrawn because the arrangement stopped.
GEO is still a new line item and firms price it in different ways. Here it is included in the same optimisation work at no extra charge, because it shares its foundations with technical SEO and selling them apart makes no sense.
Pricing
| Item | From |
|---|---|
SEO & AI Visibility Technical SEO: heading structure, meta, canonical, sitemap, prerendering and load performance | NT$15,000from / site |
Monthly Content NT$4,000 per article per month; two a month is NT$8,000, and so on | NT$4,000/ mo |
Real quotes move with scope and complexity, and the basis is written out on the quote itself.
What this service does not cover
Settling the scope now beats discovering it does not fit after the work is commissioned.
- No guaranteed rankings and no guaranteed AI citations. If a service claims otherwise, ask them to explain how they would verify it.
- No purchased links or bulk low-quality link building. It can work briefly, and it is very hard to recover from once it is caught.
- No paid advertising and no social media management.
- No bulk content farming. Writing means choosing topics from your services and your clients' questions, one article at a time.
- No responsibility for black-hat work done by someone else. If traces of it turn up before we start, the cost of cleaning it up gets assessed before I take the job.
Common questions
- How long does SEO take to show results?
- Technical changes usually appear in indexing status and coverage reports within one to two weeks. Ranking and traffic movement takes three to six months, and depends on whether content keeps being produced. Any promise of a first page in a month is worth doubting.
- Why not guarantee rankings?
- Because ranking is not a variable I control. Technical work makes your site readable and clears the obstacles. Where you land depends on content, how well it matches search intent, how many other sites cite you, and time. A guarantee usually means either a short-term method carrying real risk, or a term nobody searches, chosen to make the number look good.
- Do GEO and SEO need buying separately?
- No. The foundations are shared, and most technical SEO work helps AI engines equally, so it is one service. The parts needing separate attention are text present in the source document, structured data, and how the content is written. All three are included.
- Can we buy only the writing, without the optimisation?
- Yes. If your site is technically sound and simply lacks content, starting with writing is perfectly reasonable. The reverse also works: optimisation without new content makes the existing content properly understood, but it will not conjure new entry points out of nothing.
- Who owns the copyright in the articles?
- You do, once delivered and paid for. You can edit, republish or use them on other channels freely. The same piece is never sold to a second client.
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