Short answer: local SEO ensures you are found by people in your service area, including the map and the local pack at the top of Google. It differs from regular SEO in three ways: Your Google Business Profile carries a lot of weight. Opening hours, category, photos, and especially reviews help determine if you appear in the map block. That profile is often a faster win than your website. Consistent data. Name, address, and phone number must be identical everywhere: on your site, in business directories, and on social media. Discrepancies create doubt. Pages per location or per service. A single page listing twelve town names doesn't work. A real page per service area, with its own content, does. The good news: locally, competition is usually limited. Where ranking nationally takes twelve to eighteen months, you can often compete locally within a few months. That makes it the wisest starting point for most businesses with a specific service area.

FAQ | EQwise

How do SEO specialists choose keywords?

Short answer: not based on search volume, but on the likelihood that a search query results in a customer.

Volume is the figure everyone looks at, yet it says the least. A keyword with ten thousand searches per month where no one buys is worth less than a keyword with eighty searches from people wanting a quote.

What we look for in practice:

Search intent. Does someone want to know something, compare something, or buy something? Only that last group requests a quote in the short term. The first two build trust for later.
Feasibility. Who is currently on page one, and with what kind of authority? You won’t beat competitors who have worked on it for fifteen years in just one quarter.
Your own starting position. Keywords for which you are already ranked between spot 8 and 20 are almost always a faster win than something entirely new.
What lies behind it. Can you create a page about it that is truly better than what is currently there? If not, it is not a realistic goal.

Google Search Console and the EQwise SEO & GEO platform provide the figures. The choice itself is an assessment of the market and feasibility, and no software can make that for you.

What does an internet marketing agency do?

Short answer: a good agency ensures that the right people find you and that they get in touch once they arrive. That involves more than just managing rankings.

In practice, the work comes down to this:

Identifying what you should be found for. Keyword research, but focused on what generates inquiries rather than the highest volumes.
Getting the site’s technical aspects in order. Speed, structure, indexability. Without these, the rest won’t work.
Creating and improving content that answers the question a user is searching for, and that can also be cited by AI assistants.
Building authority with links and mentions from places that matter in your market.
Improving conversion. More visitors without more inquiries is an expensive hobby.
Measuring and adjusting, every quarter, based on inquiries and revenue rather than just rankings.

What a good agency also does: saying no. If your current system is technically unsuitable for ranking, starting optimization is throwing money away. You will hear that first.

What is internet marketing?

Short answer: internet marketing is everything you do online to be found by people looking for what you provide. It is also everything you do to subsequently convert those visitors into customers.

It consists of a handful of components that reinforce each other:

Visibility (SEO and GEO). Ensuring you appear in Google and in AI answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews. That is where a growing portion of searches begins today.
Advertising (SEA). Paid placement at the top, especially useful while your organic positions are still growing.
Your website itself. Speed, structure, and copy that answers the question someone arrived with.
Conversion. From visitor to inquiry. This is the part that is most often skipped and generates money the fastest.
Measurement. Knowing which channel generates which inquiries, so your budget can go toward what works.

What it is not: isolated tricks. An advertising campaign without a good landing page, or high rankings on a site where no one gets in touch, costs money without delivering results.

What is local SEO?

Short answer: local SEO ensures you are found by people in your service area, including the map and the local pack at the top of Google.

It differs from regular SEO in three ways:

Your Google Business Profile carries a lot of weight. Opening hours, category, photos, and especially reviews help determine if you appear in the map block. That profile is often a faster win than your website.
Consistent data. Name, address, and phone number must be identical everywhere: on your site, in business directories, and on social media. Discrepancies create doubt.
Pages per location or per service. A single page listing twelve town names doesn’t work. A real page per service area, with its own content, does.

The good news: locally, competition is usually limited. Where ranking nationally takes twelve to eighteen months, you can often compete locally within a few months. That makes it the wisest starting point for most businesses with a specific service area.

What is SEO or search engine optimization?

Short answer: SEO is everything you do to improve your visibility in Google without paying per click.

Google uses an algorithm to determine which pages provide the best answer to a user’s search query. These appear at the top. SEO is the work required to make your page that answer: the technical foundation of the site, the structure of your pages, the content itself, and the extent to which other sites link to you.

What it is not: a trick or a button. There is no setting you just turn on. It is a series of small things that together make a difference, and which you must keep maintaining because your competitors are doing the same.

Since AI assistants have begun summarizing answers, a second dimension has emerged. Being mentioned in ChatGPT or in a Google AI overview requires the same foundation. There is, however, more emphasis on factual, well-structured content that is easy to cite. This is called GEO, and in practice, it evolves alongside SEO.

Do not expect results within a few weeks. The first improvements are usually visible after six to eight weeks; you build structural growth over three to six months.

What is the KEI value of a keyword and why is it important?

Short answer: the KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) weighs search volume against competition, allowing you to find keywords with high demand and low supply.

The reasoning behind it is useful: a keyword with high search volume but few high-quality pages is more attractive than a keyword everyone is already targeting. The KEI attempts to capture that ratio in a single number.

But be careful with the result. The formula looks at the number of competing pages, not how strong they are. Ten thousand weak pages are easier to beat than three pages from established parties with a strong link profile. A favorable KEI can therefore point to a keyword that is unfeasible in practice.

How we use it: as an initial filter to narrow down a long list, never as a final judgment. After that, we look at each keyword to see who is actually ranking, how strong their authority is, and whether the search intent matches what you sell. The latter carries more weight than any number.

Why is internet marketing important?

Short answer: because the search for a supplier almost always begins online, and because your competitor is already there.

When someone needs something, they type a question into Google or, these days, ask ChatGPT. What appears there determines which three or four parties someone requests a quote from. If you are not among them, you are not being rejected: you are not even being considered.

Three things that make it worthwhile:

It reaches people at the moment they are searching. Unlike an advertisement that interrupts someone, you appear exactly when the need arises.
It is measurable. You can see which page generated which inquiry. The same cannot be said for an advertisement in a trade journal.
It builds up. A page that ranks today usually continues to do so tomorrow. If you turn off ads, the traffic stops that same day.

The honest side note: it only works if the foundation is right. Investing in marketing on a site that cannot keep up technically is a waste of money. You will hear that from us beforehand, not afterwards.

Do you only work with WordPress?

Short answer: no. We also perform SEO and GEO on other systems, but not on every system.

We only start a project on a system that we expect can function reasonably well. Some packages technically do not allow what is necessary to rank: you cannot enter proper page titles. Load times cannot be influenced and the URL structure is fixed. Or the generated code is difficult for search engines and AI assistants to read.

If that is the case, we will say so in advance and we will not start. Pushing for years against a foundation that does not cooperate costs more than a new base and yields less.

What that means for your lead time:

Healthy existing system: we can start immediately; normal terms apply.
Maintenance backlog: repair first, expect one to three months of cleaning up. The clock for results only starts after that.
Technically unsuitable system: there is no lead time, because we do not start. First a new foundation, then we talk about marketing.

Why we most often recommend WordPress ourselves: you hold the key. No subscription where your content is trapped, full control over your content, your domain, and your hosting. And the freedom to switch to another party without starting over.

Unpleasant news to hear, but better than having to explain a year later why no progress is being made.

How long does it take to see results from SEO?

Short answer: the first visible improvements usually appear between six and twelve weeks. Structural growth is built over six to twelve months. That is an average—and an average says little about your specific situation.

How fast it goes for you depends mainly on three things:

Is there a maintenance backlog? A site that hasn’t been maintained for years often has outdated plugins, slow load times, broken links, and security risks. In that case, the work doesn’t start with growth, but with repair: expect one to three months of cleaning up. The good news is that this catch-up often yields quick wins because low-hanging fruit has been left behind.
What is the current status of your site? A healthy existing site wins faster because the foundation is right. A new domain must first build trust with Google and simply needs time for that.
How high is the competition? This makes the difference between weeks and years. Locally and specifically (“heat pump installer Zaandam”), you can compete within a few months. Nationally and commercially (“refinance mortgage”), twelve to eighteen months is normal.

Roughly, per situation:

Healthy existing site, local: first signals after 4–8 weeks, serious growth after 3–6 months.
Existing site with backlog: first signals after 2–4 months (after the repair work), serious growth after 6–9 months.
Completely new site or new domain: first signals after 3–6 months, serious growth after 9–18 months.

The type of improvement also determines the pace. Technical fixes such as speed and indexing often take effect within days to a few weeks. Content and structure take weeks to months. Building authority (mentions, links, brand awareness) takes months to years, and is simultaneously the most sustainable layer.

What you will not get from me is a guarantee in the form of “position 1 within three months.” That certainty does not exist: your competitors are not standing still, and Google adjusts its algorithm several times a year. What you will get: a monthly report in plain language. It details what has been done, what has changed in the figures, and what is scheduled for next month, including what was disappointing. And if the measurable signals are not moving in the right direction after about three months, I will sound the alarm myself.

How much influence does the competition have on how quickly I rank in Google?

Short answer: a great deal. Competition makes the difference between a few weeks and a year and a half.

SEO is not an exam with a fixed standard, but a comparison. Google puts your page next to all other pages that want the same keyword. The tougher that company, the longer it takes before you can compete.

Local and specific (“hairdresser Amsterdam East”, “heat pump installer Zaandam”): here you can truly compete within a few months. Often, the competitors are small businesses that do little with their websites.
Regional or niche-oriented: expect six to nine months before the trend becomes structural.
National and commercial (“refinance mortgage”, “business car lease”): these involve parties with large budgets, dedicated editorial teams, and years of authority. Twelve to eighteen months is normal in these cases.

In the latter category, a frontal attack is rarely the smartest move. A more specific entry point (a subtopic, a region, a target group) usually yields customers faster and more affordably than struggling for years on a single expensive keyword.

I therefore always first look at who is currently at the top and what weight that party brings to the table. If the conclusion is that a certain keyword is currently out of reach, I will tell you—along with a more realistic alternative.

Our clients know us through their network, not via Google. Does SEO still make sense?

Short answer: yes, but not to be found. To be verified.

Someone hears your name in a conversation or sees it in a report. What that person does next is look you up. What appears then determines whether the conversation continues. That is not discovery but confirmation, and it is at least as important.

A second movement has emerged. Increasingly, someone asks an AI assistant to name parties in a niche. If you aren’t among them, you don’t exist in that conversation. There is no second page where you might still turn up.

What this means for the approach: less chasing search volume. More ensuring that anyone looking you up immediately sees who you are and why you can be trusted.

Part of our content is for clients only. What does that mean for visibility?

Short answer: gated content does not count toward your visibility, so the question is which part you make public.

Search engines and AI assistants only see what is public. If all your value is behind a login, you remain invisible to the very people who do not know you yet.

The practical balance: your method, your perspective, and your assessment of developments are public. The details, data, and recommendations are behind the login. This allows you to demonstrate your expertise without giving away what your clients pay for.

Common mistakes: making everything public out of fear of invisibility, or gating everything out of fear of giving too much away. Both will cost you clients.

What is the average CTR of Google Ads and organic search?

Short answer: there is no average that is correct for your specific market. The CTR depends on your position, the search query, and the industry. Your own figures are more reliable than any average.

CTR (click-through rate) is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions. With 1,000 impressions and 50 clicks, the CTR is 5%.

As a rule: higher in the list means more clicks. The difference between the first and tenth position is significant, and it shifts again for search queries involving a local pack or an AI overview.

Where you see it:

Google Ads: the CTR per advertisement and per keyword.
Google Search Console: the CTR per page and per search query, for your organic positions.

Look at the trend, not at a single number. A low CTR at a high position usually means the title or description does not align with the search query. That is often a cheap improvement.

See also the question about the percentage of visitors who do not click on advertisements.

What is the difference between on-page and off-page SEO?

Short answer: on-page SEO is what you do on and within your own site. Off-page SEO is what other parties show about your site. You control the first; the second is largely out of your hands.

On-page is about three things:

Content: does the page answer the question someone is searching for, and better than what is currently there?
Structure: headings, internal links, titles, and descriptions that show Google and AI assistants what the page is about.
Technical: speed, mobile usage, and whether Google can read the page.

Off-page is about what happens outside your site: other sites linking to you, mentions of your company, reviews, and your Google Business Profile. Google reads these as signals that you are a trustworthy source.

That is why you start with on-page. If the page is weak, any link pointing to it helps very little. If the page is good, it pays to work on what happens outside of it. The latter takes months and cannot be forced.

What percentage of users do not click on Google Ads?

Short answer: there is no fixed percentage. It depends on the search query, the industry, and the ad position.

Most people do not consciously refuse ads. They click on what seems to provide the answer. Someone looking for an explanation, like “what is a heat pump”, is usually not looking for a provider, and an ad is a poor fit for that query. For a query like “heat pump installer Zaandam quote”, an ad is simply one of the options.

These differences are greater than any average. That is why isolated percentages from research are of little use: they were measured on different queries, in a different market, and in a different year.

What actually works: your own numbers.

In Google Ads, you see how often each ad was shown and how often it was clicked.
In Google Search Console, you see the same for your organic results.
Compare those two per keyword, not across your entire account.

This way, you know what paid and organic deliver for your market, and you can allocate your budget accordingly. See also the question about the average CTR.

What slows down SEO results the most?

Short answer: overdue maintenance. In practice, that is the biggest delayer, and at the same time the most underestimated.

A WordPress site that has not been maintained for two or three years often has outdated plugins, slow loading times, broken links, and security risks. Furthermore, the theme no longer keeps up with modern standards. Optimizing on such a foundation is like mopping with the tap running: Google has more difficulty reading the site, visitors drop off sooner, and every improvement you implement is partially undone by the underlying issues.

That is why, in this situation, the work doesn’t start with growth, but with repair. Expect one to three months of cleaning up before optimization can even have an effect. Unpleasant news, but better than hearing afterwards why things aren’t progressing.

The good news: that catch-up effort often yields quick wins. There is usually years of low-hanging fruit waiting: pages without titles, three-megabyte images, and pages that Google does not see at all. Repairing that sometimes makes a measurable difference within weeks.

Other common delayers: a brand new domain that still needs to build trust, heavy competition in your market, and copy or decisions that sit idle for weeks. That last one is the only one you have full influence over yourself.

Why is it not wise in internet marketing to only spend time and budget on AdWords and not on SEO?

There are several reasons why it is not wise to only spend time and budget on AdWords and not on SEO within internet marketing:

Costs: AdWords can be expensive, especially if you target competitive keywords. You may have to spend a lot of money to stand out from the competition, and the costs for clicks can add up. With SEO, you can attract organic traffic to your website without paying for every click.
Temporary: With AdWords, you only get traffic to your website as long as you pay for ads. As soon as you stop advertising, the traffic stops too. SEO can have a long-lasting impact, even after you have stopped investing in optimization.
Authority and trust: Search engine users often have more trust in organic search results than in paid ads. By investing time and resources in SEO, you can work on building authority and trust with your target audience.
Diversity: It is not wise to put all your eggs in one basket. By relying only on AdWords, you miss opportunities to attract traffic to your website in other ways. SEO can help you attract organic traffic via various search terms and channels.
User experience: A good user experience is an important part of SEO. By investing in SEO, you can work on improving the user experience of your website. In the long run, this can lead to more traffic and higher conversions.

In general, it is wise to invest in both AdWords and SEO to create a balanced and effective online marketing strategy.

How do you measure AI traffic to your website?

Short answer: partially, via referrers in Google Analytics, supplemented by asking AI assistants yourself. Full measurement is not yet possible (as of October 2026).

Some visits from AI assistants are visible as referrers. Some come in without a referrer and are counted as direct traffic. What you can do:

Referral traffic: look in Google Analytics for visits from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and Claude, and create a separate segment for them.
The form: ask “How did you find us?” during an inquiry. Answers like “ChatGPT” show what the referrer is missing.
Being mentioned: ask the assistants the same list of questions every month and note whether you are mentioned, and with which source. That measures visibility, not visits.
Landing pages: see which pages AI visitors open. Those are the pages being cited.

At EQwise, we measure visibility in AI answers based on a fixed set of questions and compare them over time.

Want to have that done for you? SEO & GEO starts with a three-month trial period for €495 (excluding VAT), for sites up to 50 pages.

How do you measure if GEO is working when an AI doesn’t provide the same answer every time?

Short answer: we repeatedly ask the assistants the same type of question and count how often your name appears in the response. Not just once, but month after month.

An AI response isn’t fixed like a Google ranking. Asking the same question twice can yield a different result. That is why we don’t measure at a single point in time, but repeatedly. We track who is being mentioned.

This doesn’t result in a standalone figure like “position 3,” but rather a trend: are you being mentioned more often than last month, or less? We place that trend alongside your Google rankings, providing a single report instead of two separate realities.

How fast should a website load?

Short answer: the largest element on the page must be visible within 2.5 seconds. In the Core Web Vitals, Google considers the loading speed to be good at that point. This applies to 75% of actual visits, measured separately for mobile and desktop.

In technical terms, that largest element is called the Largest Contentful Paint. You measure it on the pages where visitors enter, not just on the homepage.

That is why we also measure on a phone with a 4G connection, not just on Wi-Fi.

What you do with it:

Measure on an actual device or with real visitors, not just in a simulator on Wi-Fi. They provide different answers.
First, identify which element is the largest. Often, it is an image that is too heavy.
Pay attention to third-party scripts, such as tag managers and pixels. They slow down the page without you seeing them.
Measure again after every change, so you know which adjustment actually helped.

Speed is not a goal in itself. A fast page that does not convince yields nothing. However, a slow page loses visitors before they have read anything.

Is GEO a replacement for SEO, or something you do separately alongside it?

Short answer: neither. GEO does not replace SEO, nor is it a separate process alongside it. It is the same work on the same site, measured in two places.

We go through the same four phases for both: audit, structure, content, and measurement. A text that ranks well in Google can certainly be improved so that an AI can also process it. This is often the same intervention, just evaluated on two outcomes instead of one.

We agree in advance on what needs to be addressed in your case, so you don’t have to guess what we are working on this month.

Should you add new content, or optimize what’s already there?

Short answer: we usually optimize what is already there first. New content is only added when a customer’s question isn’t answered anywhere on your site.

We start by identifying which questions customers actually ask AI about your type of business. If the answer is already on your site, we rework that page: facts first, a clear structure, fewer adjectives. If the answer is missing entirely, we write a new page that addresses it directly.

This way, GEO remains a matter of sharpening what you already have, rather than building a second site on top of it.

What do AI search engines really want to see in your content?

Short answer: a clear answer that can be quoted independently of the rest of the page, and that is verifiably correct.

An AI assistant does not read your page like a visitor does. It looks for a passage that stands on its own and contains the answer. Four factors determine whether you provide that:

The answer is at the beginning. Not after a three-paragraph introduction. Start with the conclusion and then provide further explanation.
Facts instead of adjectives. “Response within two business days” is quotable. “Fast service” is not.
Readable structure. Proper headings, short paragraphs, lists where possible, and structured data that matches the content on the page.
External confirmation. AI systems weigh what others say about you. Mentions, reviews, and references outside your own site carry significant weight.

And one thing that is often forgotten: check whether your site allows AI crawlers in at all. We regularly encounter sites that block GPTBot or CCBot in robots.txt without anyone knowing. In that case, the rest of your efforts are futile.

What exactly is GEO, in plain English?

Short answer: GEO ensures that an AI assistant mentions your business directly in its response, instead of you appearing somewhere in a list of links.

With SEO, Google evaluates a page and places it in a list of results. You choose which one to click. An AI assistant works differently: it reads several pages, summarizes them, and returns a single answer. An AI assistant doesn’t read your page like a visitor. It looks for a fact to extract, not a story to scroll through.

For you, that means: it’s not about a ranking, but about whether you are mentioned. That’s why with GEO, we work on the same site but with a different standard. Is the answer stated clearly, factually, and concisely enough to be extracted?

What is GEO and why is it important now?

Short answer: GEO stands for generative engine optimization: ensuring that AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot mention and recommend your business.

More and more customers are first asking an AI for advice before they start googling. If you are not mentioned there, you do not exist for that customer. There is no second page where you might still appear, because an AI provides an answer instead of a list.

What is different compared to SEO:

You don’t win a position, you get cited. That requires answers that can be understood independently of the rest of the page.
Facts carry more weight than adjectives. “Response within two business days” is citable, “fast service” is not.
What others say about you counts. Mentions and reviews outside your own site help determine whether an assistant trusts you.

And the basis remains the same: a fast, clean site with content that truly answers the question. GEO does not replace SEO; it builds on top of it.

Which AI platforms do you monitor, and is my company already sufficiently represented?

Short answer: we test against ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, and Perplexity — the assistants that now handle a large portion of search queries.

In addition to testing responses, we also check if those assistants can technically read your site. Are you, for example, accidentally blocking robots.txt GPTBot or CCBot? It happens more often than you might think, and then even the best content is useless: the AI simply cannot access it.

Whether you are “already appearing enough” only becomes clear after the initial measurement: zero mentions is a clear starting point, while a single mention for the wrong query is a different conversation entirely.

Why doesn’t traditional SEO work like it used to?

Short answer: because a growing share of search queries ends with an answer rather than a list of links.

For twenty years, the game was simple: get high in the list, get the click. That is changing on two fronts simultaneously.

Google answers itself. AI Overviews and featured snippets provide the answer at the top. Whoever provides that answer is cited. Whoever is in third place with the same information receives nothing.
People search outside Google. Increasingly, a search begins with ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity. These do not show ten blue links but instead mention a handful of sources.

What carries more weight as a result: clear, citable answers instead of long texts that beat around the bush. Verifiable facts. Structure that a machine can read. And mentions in places outside your own site, because that is where AI systems get their image of you.

What has NOT changed: a fast, technically clean site with content that truly answers the question. That was always the basis and still is. GEO does not replace SEO; it builds on top of it.

Are you a processor of my data, and how is this regulated?

Short answer: yes, we are the processor and you are the data controller. We establish this in a data processing agreement.

What that means: you determine what happens to your customers’ data, and we execute within that mandate. We do not use your data for anything else and do not pass it on without reason.

What you can expect from us: an overview of who has access, where the data is stored, and what happens if something goes wrong.

What we need from you: that you inform us which sensitive data ends up on your site. A contact form is different from an intake form for a healthcare practice.

Can that AI access my customers’ data?

Short answer: we do not want that, and that is how we configure the system.

A website often contains more than just text and photos. Form submissions, orders, customer accounts. Those are personal data, and an AI that builds pages has no business there.

We therefore work with a clear separation: the AI is permitted to access the content and layout of your site, but it is not allowed to access your visitors’ data. Furthermore, all activity is logged.

The honest side note: this is not a checkbox you just turn on. It is technology that must be properly configured and that you must be able to monitor. We are currently actively working on this, and we’d rather tell you how it works than just shout that it’s safe.

Do you let AI work on my website?

Short answer: yes, but not without supervision. AI handles the routine work, while a human approves everything before it goes live.

What the AI does: setting up pages, building repetitive structures, preparing texts, running technical checks, and testing updates. This is the work that used to take days.

What the AI does not do: make decisions. Every page and every technical intervention is reviewed by Martin before it becomes visible. Speed is in the process, not in skipping quality control.

Why we keep it so strict: an AI that independently modifies a live client site will do so even when it is wrong. You do not take that risk with someone else’s business.

How do I know that my content hasn’t been fabricated by AI?

Short answer: because every figure and every claim in your content comes from you or is verifiable.

AI excels at form and speed but struggles to distinguish between knowing and guessing. A model that needs a percentage will simply invent one if you aren’t careful. That is why we work the other way around: facts first—your figures, your expertise, and your way of working. Only then do we create the text.

What you will notice is that we ask more questions than you might be used to. This isn’t inefficiency; it is the reason your content contains nothing that you cannot deliver on.

We sell knowledge and independence. Does AI-generated content align with that?

Short answer: not for your type of organization, and we state that upfront.

For a service where judgment is the product, AI-generated content poses a reputational risk. A reader who senses that an analysis was written by a model will doubt the analysis itself. That loss does not outweigh the time saved.

Where AI does help you: the technical aspects and structure of the site, setting up pages, and checks for speed and visibility. The work for which no one judges you.

What we do not do: have your substantive work written by a model. You write that yourself; we ensure it is found and cited.

We work with confidential information. Who has access to our environment?

Short answer: one point of contact, and you can see who did what at any time.

What that means concretely: Access is limited to those who need it and is revoked when a project ends. Accounts are in your name, not ours. Changes are logged, so it is always possible to trace what was modified and when.

If we use AI in the process, the same boundary applies. It applies to the content and layout of the site, but not to your visitors’ data.

What we need from you: that you tell us which information on the site is extra sensitive, so we can treat it separately.

What if the AI breaks something on my site?

Short answer: a snapshot is taken before every change, so everything can be rolled back.

In practice, it works like this: before anything is adjusted, we record the current state. If something goes wrong, we restore it. For larger interventions, we first work on a copy of the page so you can review it before it goes live.

An honest side note: just because the technology accepts a change does not necessarily mean the page looks good. That is why we also check what the visitor actually sees after every intervention. These are two different checks, and both are necessary.

What does keyword research provide that I cannot think of myself?

Short answer: the words your customers use, instead of the words you use.

That difference is greater than it seems. Professionals search for terms from their trade, while customers search for the problem they have. An installer thinks in terms of a “monoblock heat pump,” while the customer types “heating without gas costs.” Those who only optimize for the former completely miss the second group.

What research also provides:

Feasibility per word. Where you stand now, who is above you, and how much authority they have. Not every word can be won.
Search intent. Does someone want to know something, compare, or buy? Only the latter group will request a quote in the short term.
The low-hanging fruit. Words for which you are already ranked between 8th and 20th place are almost always a faster gain than something new.
One keyword per page. So that your pages do not compete with each other for the same word.

And the point that saves the most money: which words you deliberately do not pursue because they generate a lot of traffic but no customers.

Why don’t you only look at search volume?

Short answer: because search volume is the figure everyone looks at, yet it says the least about what it actually delivers.

A keyword with ten thousand monthly searches where no one buys anything is worth less than a keyword with eighty searches from people who want a quote. Yet, content plans are still consistently built around the largest numbers.

We weigh three things against each other:

Volume: how many people are searching for it.
Competition: how strong the currently ranking parties are, not just how many there are.
Intent: how close this search query is to an inquiry.

The ratio between the first two is often expressed as a KEI value. Useful as an initial filter, but with one flaw: the formula counts the number of competing pages, not their strength. Ten thousand weak pages are easier to beat than three strong ones. That is why a favorable KEI is a reason for us to look closer, never a final judgment.

Will I get a list of keywords, or can I actually do something with them?

Short answer: you will receive a keyword plan per page, not a spreadsheet with a thousand rows.

A raw keyword list is only half the battle and usually the least useful part. The plan links each chosen keyword to a specific page. It shows which page ranks for what and which pages should be merged because they are competing with each other. It also identifies where a page is missing that should be there.

Specifically, you receive:

One main keyword and a handful of supporting terms per existing page
A list of missing pages, ordered by expected return
The pages that compete with each other, with advice on which one will become the primary page
The words we deliberately leave out, including the reason why

This makes the research a construction plan immediately, instead of a document that disappears into a folder.

Is it better to advertise or invest in SEO?

Short answer: advertising for the short term, visibility for the long term, and in practice both in a shifting ratio.

They do different things. Ads deliver traffic tomorrow and stop the day you turn off the tap. Visibility takes months before anything happens and then largely remains. Weighing one against the other is therefore the wrong question.

The distribution that usually works:

First months: the focus is on ads to bridge the period in which organic positions still need to grow. At the same time, SEO work begins, as it needs those months.
After about six months: the first organic positions start coming in, and the ad budget can be lowered for the words where you start ranking yourself.
Afterwards: use ads strategically for what is difficult to win organically, or for campaigns and peak moments.

What you want to avoid is only advertising for years. Then you are renting traffic without ever building anything, and every euro you don’t spend immediately results in one less visitor.

You can entrust both to us: alongside SEA, we work on your visibility in Google and AI assistants.

What does outsourcing SEA cost?

Short answer: Outsourcing SEA involves two costs: the ad spend you pay directly to Google, and our time for setting up and optimizing your campaigns.

You maintain full control over the ad spend. In Google Ads, you set a maximum daily budget, so you know the upper limit of your expenditure in advance. How far that budget takes you depends on the cost-per-click in your market. It also depends on how well your ads and landing pages align with the search intent.

Our fees depend on the scope of work, as every SEA strategy is custom-made. An account featuring a single service in one region requires less work than campaigns for multiple products, target audiences, and countries. This is why the rates page does not list a fixed amount for SEA, but rather the hourly rate we use for calculations.

Factors that are always taken into account:

Setup: keywords, campaign structure, ad copy, and tracking settings
Optimization: adjusting bids, search terms, and copy based on data
Landing pages: a click only delivers results if the page behind it is persuasive

Would you like to know the costs for your specific situation? In the free scan, we first examine your current setup and identify opportunities. Afterward, you will receive a proposal with a fixed price.

What is a realistic advertising budget to start with?

Short answer: enough to learn what works within a month. Below that threshold, you are buying noise instead of insight.

How much that is depends on the cost-per-click in your market. The calculation that matters: you need several dozen clicks per month per keyword group before you can draw any meaningful conclusions. If you are in a market where a click costs three euros, you will end up with a different amount than at thirty cents.

What we advise in practice:

Start narrow. One service, one region, and keywords with the clearest purchase intent. It is better to do three keywords well than thirty halfway.
Expect it to take two to three months before the account is fully optimized. The first month is almost always the most expensive per lead.
View advertisements as rent. As soon as you stop, the traffic stops. Therefore, build your visibility at the same time; otherwise, you will continue to rent year after year.

And if the budget is too tight to do both: then visibility is the investment that lasts.

Why should I outsource SEA instead of doing it myself?

Short answer: because Google Ads is built in such a way that it is easy to lose money and difficult to achieve a return.

The interface directs you toward broad settings and automated campaigns. That works well for Google and rarely for a small budget. Most self-built accounts we take over have the same three problems: keywords that are too broad, no negative keywords, and inaccurate conversion measurement.

The latter is the worst. Without reliable conversion measurement, you are managing based on clicks instead of inquiries, and then you are optimizing in exactly the wrong direction.

What outsourcing delivers:

Cost per lead instead of cost per click as a key metric
Negative keyword lists that grow, so you don’t keep paying for search queries that never result in customers
Ad copy that aligns with the landing page, as that is where the most profit is made
Monthly adjustments instead of ‘set it and forget it’

What it does not solve: a landing page that is not convincing. Sending paid traffic to a page that does not convert is the most expensive way to discover that your page does not convert.

What is link building and how does it work?

Short answer: link building is ensuring other sites link to yours. Such a link acts as a recommendation. It is not about having as many links as possible, but about links from sites relevant to your field.

Why it still matters: a link from an industry blog, a partner, or a trade association shows Google that you are a player in your sector. It also sometimes brings direct visitors—people already looking for what you do.

What works:

Quality over quantity: better one strong link from a relevant site than ten from unknown sources.
Context: the link fits the text and aligns with what you offer.
Something worth linking to: a practical guide, your own research, or an explanation no one else has.

What no longer works: buying links, listings on pages full of spam, and large-scale link exchanges. Google ignores many spam links automatically. If you buy links or exchange them on a large scale, you risk a manual penalty.

How to start: first, create the page that is worth sharing. Then, personally approach a handful of relevant parties, for example with a guest post or a concrete proposal. Then, see what it delivers.

Need help mapping your link profile? SEO & GEO starts with a three-month trial period for €495 (excluding VAT), for sites up to 50 pages.

Why is it important to look at your website’s link profile?

Short answer: because links from other sites count toward how trustworthy Google finds you, and because you need to know which links you have before you can determine which ones matter.

Your link profile is the collection of links pointing to your site. An analysis reveals four things:

Which sites link to you, and whether they fit your industry.
What text is in the link. A natural profile has a lot of variation, and primarily features your company name.
Which pages the links land on. If everything points to the homepage, you are missing opportunities.
Which links are suspicious: purchased, exchanged between similar sites, or originating from pages full of spam.

Google ignores many spam links automatically. However, if you buy links yourself or exchange them on a large scale, you run the risk of a manual action. Therefore, inventory unwanted links first and then assess whether they matter.

Want an initial analysis? SEO & GEO starts with a three-month trial period for €495 (excluding VAT), for sites up to 50 pages.

Do you build with a page builder like Divi, or something else?

Short answer: with EQwise Blocks, our own block theme on the WordPress Gutenberg block editor. No separate page builder plugin on top.

The reason for this choice: Gutenberg blocks are what WordPress itself provides, rather than a separate layer added as a plugin. This eliminates a dependency on another party that controls its own updates and support. Color and size in a block theme come from one central source, not from each page individually. A deviation from the brand identity is therefore no longer a forbidden action, but a choice that the system simply does not offer.

If your current site works with Divi, Elementor, or another builder, we evaluate the best starting point for each situation. Sometimes continuing development is fine, sometimes it costs more than starting over. You will hear this from us before anything is built.

What applies in any case: you keep the key. WordPress is not a subscription platform where your content is stuck, and you can take your site to another party without starting over.

How does EQwise help with planning?

It begins with an introductory meeting about your challenges, your target audience, and the data you already have. We then develop the plan and review it with you in a session, ensuring it is clear within your organization who handles which tasks. You receive it as a working document, not as a one-off report. We periodically evaluate what the figures show and make adjustments where necessary.

How long does it take to build a new website?

Short answer: for an average business site, you should expect four to six weeks, from structure to launch.

This timeframe applies if the content is ready or if we write it together according to schedule. In practice, delays are rarely caused by technical issues but almost always by content. Think of texts that still need to be written, photos that are not yet available, or an approval round that is pending.

Roughly the phasing:

Week 1: structure, keywords, and URL inventory: what stays, what is merged, what can be removed
Week 2–3: design and the first pages, for approval
Week 4–5: the rest of the pages, technology, and redirects
Week 6: testing, launch, and measurement

You will receive a customized schedule in the free scan. If it concerns a large site with hundreds of pages, the initial inventory is more extensive and the timeline will be longer. But you will know that in advance.

How much money should I spend on building my new website?

Short answer: from a few hundred euros to tens of thousands. That spread says more about the project than the builder. The question that determines the price is not “how many pages” but “what should happen when someone visits the site.” A brochure is cheap. A site that needs to generate leads is not.

Three things determine the price in practice. What the site needs to do: a contact form is different from a quote module or a webshop. How much needs to be created from scratch: copy, photos, and a brand identity that don’t exist yet cost more than rebuilding an existing site. And who maintains it afterwards: a site you can update yourself is more expensive to build and cheaper thereafter.

Where you shouldn’t cut corners: speed, mobile readability, and findability. These three are part of the foundation. Building them in later costs more than including them from the start, and until then, you pay every month in missed leads.

The most expensive website is the cheap one that yields no results. Therefore, don’t calculate in construction costs, but in what a single new customer is worth to you. Once you know 그 number, you’ll know within minutes what budget is justifiable.

I have just finished my new website. What should I arrange first for my internet marketing?

Short answer: arrange the foundation first, then the traffic. Without a foundation, everything you spend afterwards evaporates.

The order we maintain:

Technical: the site loads quickly on a phone and Google can read all pages.
Measurement: Google Analytics and Google Search Console are active, and an inquiry counts as a conversion. Without that, you are steering by feel.
One clear step per page: every page shows what happens when you click. Try it yourself, with one hand, on your phone.
Google Business Profile: complete and up-to-date, if you have a service area.
Pages per service: a dedicated page for every item you sell, written around what customers actually type in.

Only then do you choose channels. Advertisements deliver visitors quickly. Visibility builds more slowly and remains stable. Before you start, determine what an inquiry is allowed to cost you. Without that figure, you cannot judge whether something is working.

Isn’t a WordPress site always slow?

Short answer: no. Slowness is a result of how a site is built, not WordPress itself.

You often read that a WordPress site takes three to six seconds to load, even after optimization. That is true for a site with a heavy theme, twenty plugins, and images that no one has compressed. That describes most WordPress sites, so it is a fair observation. However, it is not a characteristic of the platform.

In a recent client project, we went from 6.0 to 1 second, with all three Core Web Vitals in the green. Same CMS, but with a short plugin list, optimized images, and proper caching.

A site without a CMS will always be lighter, that is true. The question is whether that final half-second is worth more to you than being able to manage your own content.

Should I have my website built entirely by AI instead of WordPress?

Short answer: AI is how we build; WordPress is what we build on. They are not competitors.

A site that AI writes entirely in code, without a CMS, is indeed lighter and faster. That is not marketing hype; it is a fact. But you pay for that speed with something else: you can no longer access it yourself. Changing a price, adding a page, or fixing a typo must then be done via the developer or an AI tool. Without one of those two, you are at a standstill.

We also use AI for most of the work, but we deliver the final product in WordPress. This allows you to retain three things you would lose with a code-only site: you can edit your own text; any WordPress developer in the Netherlands can take over the site; and connecting your accounting, newsletter, or webshop is a matter of configuration rather than programming.

When a site built entirely in code is the better choice: a small site that rarely changes and where speed is the only criterion. In that case, you do not need to be able to update it yourself. We will tell you so then.

What are the main objectives of a business website?

Short answer: a business website has three objectives, in this order: being found, building trust, and delivering a lead or sale. Everything that follows serves those three.

Being found: the right people find you, in Google and in AI assistants.
Building trust: a visitor who doesn’t know you must find everything on the page they need to believe you.
Delivering a lead or sale: the page makes it clear what the next step is and how significant it is.

Information, customer service, and brand awareness are means to those three. They are rarely an objective in their own right.

Choose one primary objective per page. A page that tries to do everything at once is clear to no one. And give every objective a number: visitors, leads per hundred visits, cost per lead. An objective without a number cannot be adjusted.

What happens after the launch?

Short answer: updates, security checks, and periodic performance checks, so that the score you receive upon delivery remains the same.

A website is not a product but an installation: it ages if you do nothing. Plug-ins get updates, WordPress gets security patches, and pages that load quickly today become slower as content is added.

What maintenance includes:

Updates of WordPress, theme, and plug-ins. Tested before they go live, not implemented blindly.
Security: monitoring and backups, so there is always a way back
Speed: periodic measurement, because load time creeps up
Visibility: checking if pages remain indexed and if no links break

The latter is the part most often skipped and costs the most if it goes wrong.

What happens to my Google rankings when I have my website renewed?

Short answer: they are maintained if every URL with rankings is migrated one-to-one. If this goes wrong, your organic traffic can drop significantly. That is not always repairable.

A position is not tied to your page, but to the address of that page. Everything a page has built up over the years is linked to that single URL. If the address changes without the new destination being communicated, that page starts from scratch. It doesn’t matter how beautiful the new site is.

The same applies to external links. A trade journal that linked to your services page four years ago won’t adjust that link because you have a new site.

The rules we stick to

URLs with positions remain unchanged. Don’t make them prettier, don’t make them shorter, don’t just clean them up.
If a URL must change, we redirect it one-to-one to the new page that is content-wise closest.
If pages merge, we choose the primary one. The rest redirect there, so the built-up value comes together instead of fragmenting.
Pages that can go, really can go. Not everything deserves a redirect.

Where it goes wrong in practice

Redirecting everything to the homepage. Google reads that as “this page no longer exists.”
Chains: old redirects to new, new redirects to newer.
Temporary instead of permanent redirects.
Forgetting variants: with and without trailing slash, with capital letters, with search parameters, and other language versions.
Only thinking about pages, while images and PDF files also have addresses that come from somewhere.

And the honest part: this is not always reversible. If the old structure is still known and the error is found quickly, it usually recovers largely. But if the old site is already gone and no one recorded which URLs existed, then part of it is permanently lost. That’s why the initial inventory is not a formality: that document is exactly what allows an error to be fixed afterwards.

What happens to my website if you stop?

Short answer: you are not stuck. Your site runs on WordPress, so any other developer can take it over and manage it on your domain.

This is the question you should ask every website builder—especially if someone offers you a site consisting entirely of custom code. That code is your property, but owning something that no one else can maintain does not help you if the builder stops or is too busy.

WordPress runs on more than four out of ten websites worldwide. That means there are thousands of people in the Netherlands who can take over your site tomorrow. Your domain, your hosting, and your content are in your name, not mine.

One thing does not move to another domain name: the EQwise software (theme, blocks, plugins) is linked to your domain name. Everything continues to work on your own domain. Updates for that software are only provided with an EQwise maintenance contract.

The same applies to your content. It’s in a CMS you can access yourself, and not in code you have to have someone else change.

What should I look for when choosing a party for a new website?

Short answer: do not just look at the price and the design. Look primarily at whether there is an underlying plan that extends beyond the delivery date.

Almost every proposal for a new website states what the site will cost, what it will look like, and when it will be ready. What is rarely included: which pages should disappear, what your competitors are doing, and where you want to be in two years.

That’s not because it’s unimportant. It’s because it doesn’t fit in a quote that lands on your doorstep within a day.

Why it matters

An outdated-looking site is rarely where you are losing revenue. More often it lies in things you cannot see. For example, pages that are not in the index, a click-through rate that yields nothing, or a brand name that too few people know. A new coat of paint changes none of those things.

What it does change:

Knowing which pages should stay, which should merge, and which can go
Building authority in a market where the competition has been doing so for years
Being found where people will search soon, even if that’s no longer Google
Converting visitors into requests, instead of just bringing in more traffic

Traffic is only half the story

More visitors without better conversion yields little. A new site is exactly the time to improve both. You do this with one clear next step per page instead of five equivalent buttons. Also with forms that are short enough to complete, and by measuring what visitors actually do. Those who focus solely on visitor numbers pay for traffic that yields nothing.

Concrete questions you can ask any provider: which of my current URLs have positions, and what happens to them? What do you expect to be measurably different in twelve months? And how often do we check together if that’s correct?

Why does the RACE framework work?

Short answer: because it forces you to see where the customer journey breaks down, instead of tinkering everywhere at once.

The RACE framework consists of five steps: Plan, Reach, Act, Convert, and Engage. Plan comes first: what do you want to achieve and which metrics belong with that. The other four are the phases of the customer journey, each with its own question and its own metric.

An example. A site with many visitors and few inquiries does not have a reach problem. The issue lies with Act or Convert: the page is not convincing, or the step to an inquiry is too large. More ads make that more expensive, not better.

This is how we use it:

Plan: what do you want to achieve and which metrics belong with that?
Reach: are you being found, in Google and in AI assistants?
Act: what does the visitor do after the first page?
Convert: how many visits lead to an inquiry or sale?
Engage: does the customer return and do they recommend you?

The framework therefore determines the order of the work. You establish what you measure for each step. After that, you know where the next dollar should go.

Can I migrate from Wix, Squarespace, or Joomla to WordPress?

Short answer: yes. Wix, Squarespace, Joomla, Drupal, an old Divi 4 site, or something custom-built: it can all be migrated to WordPress.

What does differ per platform is how much manual work it takes. With systems that have an open export (Joomla, Drupal, older WordPress sites), the content comes out fairly structured. With closed platforms like Wix and Squarespace, that export is limited, and texts, images, and page layouts must largely be rebuilt.

That sounds annoying, but in practice, it often turns out well. Such a switch is the natural moment to cut: outdated pages, duplicate content, texts no one reads anymore. Transferring everything blindly just means you’re taking the clutter to a new house.

What we are particularly focused on are your existing URLs. Each one must point to the correct new page; otherwise, you will lose rankings and visitors will encounter error messages. This is the most labor-intensive part of a platform switch — and the element that makes the difference between a successful and a painful migration.

More on this on the website migration page.

Can you migrate my existing site?

Short answer: yes. We take your existing content with us. We only leave the technical clutter behind.

Precisely that transferring and cleaning up is where AI really saves time. Outdated texts, duplicate pages, messy formatting, and broken links used to be manual work that took days or weeks. The larger the site, the more that time saving adds up.

The content is only the fast part. Maintaining your Google rankings is the part that takes time, and that is intentional: URL structure, redirects, metadata, internal links, and structured data must be correct. We compare the situation before and after.

Honest about the risk: if a migration is handled sloppily, your rankings can drop significantly. Recovering from that takes much more time than doing it right the first time. That is why we measure your site’s status beforehand and monitor rankings after launch.

The gain is in less manual work, not in skipping steps.

How long do redirects stay in place after a migration?

Short answer: for years, because old links persist for years.

A redirect is not a temporary bandage that you remove after a month. As long as there is a link to your old address somewhere on the internet—in a trade journal, a bookmark, or an old email—traffic will come from there that needs to land somewhere.

What does need to happen, and immediately:

Adjust internal links to the new addresses. You don’t want to permanently lead visitors and search engines through a detour.
Update sitemap and canonicals, so no old addresses are submitted anymore.
Clean up chains: if old points to new and new later points to newer, the first redirect must go directly to the final destination.

You leave the redirects themselves in place. They cost nothing, and removing them only results in broken links.

How long does a migration take, and will my site go offline?

Short answer: expect the entire process to take a few weeks, but your visitors will generally not notice a thing. The new site is built elsewhere first.

It works like this: we build and test everything in a separate environment not visible to visitors or Google. Only when everything is correct do we switch over. That switch moment itself is short; the rest of the time your current site continues to run normally.

What determines the lead time is almost never the technology. It’s the content and the decisions: which pages go along, which do we drop, who provides the new texts and photos. Once that’s settled, it goes quickly.

One thing to keep in mind: after the switchover, there is a period during which Google must crawl everything again. Rankings may fluctuate for a few weeks. This is normal and will recover if the redirect and meta work are correct. That is why we record your site’s performance beforehand, so you don’t have to guess after going live.

You can read more about how we approach that on the website migration page.

What does a website migration cost?

Short answer: it mainly depends on the number of pages and how cluttered the current site is, not on the system you are coming from.

Four factors determine the price. First, the scale: transferring twenty pages is a different story than two hundred, especially if there are years of blog articles attached. Second, the state of the content: are texts and images neatly structured, or does it need cleaning up first? Third, the technical aspects: forms, integrations, a webshop, or a member area each require individual attention. And fourth, your current Google rankings: the more you have to lose, the more carefully the redirect and tracking work must be executed.

That last point is where the most money goes, and where you should skimp the least. Transferring content is fast nowadays. Maintaining your positions is precision work.

We only provide a price once we know what we are dealing with. A free website scan shows how your site is currently performing, so you know exactly where you stand.

What happens to my email, domain, and DNS during a migration?

Short answer: your domain remains yours and your email continues to work as usual. Only the reference to the web server changes.

A domain name, a website, and email are three separate things that happen to share the same name. During a migration, only the website moves. In the DNS settings, we adjust the records pointing to the web server and leave the email records alone. This way, your mail keeps coming in while the site moves.

Two things to arrange in advance. First: ensure you have access to your domain registration yourself. It is common for a domain to be registered in the name of a former developer—exactly the moment you do not want to find that out. Second: if your email is moving to another provider, we will plan that separately. Transferring mailboxes is a distinct task with its own risks.

To be safe, we lower the DNS TTL in advance, so the switch takes effect within minutes instead of hours. Unsure how this is set up for you? Contact us. This can often be sorted out in five minutes.

Am I committed to anything if I request the free scan?

Short answer: no. You will receive the report, and what you do with it is up to you.

There is no obligation to take a call and no automatic follow-up. If you want to implement the report yourself or give it to your current agency, that is perfectly fine: the findings are yours.

Why we offer it: it is the fairest way for both sides to start. We see if we can be of service to you, and you see how we work without it costing you anything. If a partnership results from it, it is based on data rather than a quote that was rushed out in a day.

How does the free scan differ from the paid audit?

Short answer: the scan shows where the issues lie; the audit explains why and what it will cost to resolve them.

	Free scan	SEO and GEO audit
Turnaround time	two business days	one to two weeks
Depth	the three biggest bottlenecks	every component with a score
Keywords	a sample	full research with KEI weighting
Competition	who is outranking you	why they are outranking you
Result	you’ll know if it’s worth the effort	an action list prioritized by ROI

The scan is intended to facilitate decision-making. The audit is the document you use to get to work, whether that is with us or someone else.

What do I get with the free website scan?

Short answer: a concrete report within two business days. It shows where you currently rank in Google, how AI assistants perceive your brand, and which three improvements will yield the best results.

No sales pitch, just data. What we look at:

Positions for keywords that generate inquiries in your market, and who is currently outranking you
Technical: load time, indexability, mobile display, and the factors holding search engines back
AI visibility: what ChatGPT and similar assistants are actually saying about you now, and whether your site lets them in at all
Conversion: whether incoming visitors find a clear next step

What you don’t get: an automatically generated fifty-page report where you have to distill the priorities yourself. You do get a short list prioritized by ROI.

And if the scan shows that your current system is technically unsuitable for ranking, we will tell you that too. It’s unpleasant to hear, but better than discovering a year later why you aren’t making progress.

I have a successful regional business with good turnover and want to operate nationally. What kind of investments should I consider?

Winning regionally and winning nationally are two different games. Regionally, you compete with a handful of companies you know by name. Nationally, you face players who have been working on their visibility for ten years and have the budget for it. Where this costs time and money:

Visibility: Regionally, you win partly based on your location. Nationally, that advantage disappears, and you compete on the keyword itself, where many more parties are bidding. Expect months instead of weeks, and start with terms that show purchase intent.
Your website: What sufficed regionally will fall short nationally. A visitor from the other side of the country does not know you and lacks a network to bridge that gap. Everything they need to know to trust you must be on the page.
Ad budget: National advertising costs a multiple of regional advertising because you are bidding against parties with larger budgets. Start narrow: one service, the clearest keywords. Only expand once the cost per lead is right.
People: More leads mean more work that someone needs to handle. Those who do not arrange this in advance will lose the very leads they just won.
Logistics, technology, and financing: If you sell a physical product, distribution, your CRM, and your financing come into play. This is not our field, but it is the reason national expansion more often fails due to execution than marketing.

Going national is rarely just a marketing issue. Ensure the plan is sound before you open the budget.

I run a sole proprietorship and have just finished my new website. What kind of internet marketing budget do I need?

Short answer: that depends on what a customer yields for you and how many inquiries you need for that, not on what other sole proprietorships spend. Start with the foundation and then calculate backward to the amount an inquiry is allowed to cost.

This is how you arrive at an amount:

Step one: determine what a new customer yields for you on average.
Step two: determine how many inquiries you need to acquire one customer. If you don’t know yet, take a conservative estimate and adjust it based on your own figures after two months.
Step three: establish what an inquiry is allowed to cost you. That is your ceiling.
Step four: calculate backward to the monthly amount that fits that goal.

For a sole proprietorship with a new site, the order is almost always the same:

First the foundation: a fast site and a complete Google Business Profile. That often yields results the fastest.
Then search ads, narrow: one service, one region. View them as rent, and build toward visibility in the meantime.
Social media, email, and content only when you have the time to maintain them. One channel that you keep up with works better than four that fall silent.

What does internet marketing cost at EQwise?

Short answer: that depends on your goals and your starting point, which is why we begin with a scan instead of a price list.

Quoting a fixed amount without knowing your site would be a shot in the dark. Two companies with the same turnover can differ tenfold in what is required: one has a healthy site that only lacks direction, the other has years of overdue maintenance that requires months of cleanup first.

What determines the price:

The state of your current site. Repair work precedes growth work.
The competition in your market. Local and specific takes less time than national and commercial.
How much you do yourself. Providing content saves money; having content written costs money.

After the free scan, you will receive a proposal with a fixed monthly price. No fine print, no long contracts. And if the scan shows that your system is technically unsuitable, we will tell you that before you spend anything.

What percentage of my revenue should I spend on internet marketing?

Short answer: for an established business, 5 to 10% of revenue is a common rule of thumb for marketing. A startup usually spends more: 10 to 20% of revenue.

Why two percentages: an established business builds on existing customers, brand awareness, and a site that already has a ranking. A starter has nothing to build on yet. Therefore, they must pay for the foundation and buy the first stream of traffic, which is why their percentage is higher.

That budget covers all components of internet marketing: SEO, search ads, visibility in AI answers, social media advertising, email, and content.

The percentage itself is not the standard. It only means something once you know what a lead is allowed to cost and what a customer is worth to you. Calculate backward from there: how many leads you need, what they may cost per channel, and what that adds up to.

What percentage of their total budget should a startup spend on internet marketing?

Short answer: for a startup, ten to twenty percent of revenue is common. In the first year, it is often more, as you do not yet have a foundation to build upon.

Those percentages only mean something if you know where the money is going. For a startup, the distribution usually looks like this:

Foundation first. A fast, findable site and a complete Google Business Profile. Without those, everything you spend afterward evaporates.
Then paid traffic, temporarily. Ads bridge the months while your organic positions are still growing. It is a rental, not an asset: if you stop, the traffic stops.
Work on visibility simultaneously. It takes months before it yields results, which is exactly why you start immediately rather than when the budget gets tight.

Two things go wrong more often than the percentage. The first is putting everything into ads and nothing into the foundation, causing you to keep renting year after year. The second is starting too broad: ranking locally and specifically can happen within a few months, while national and general ranking takes twelve to eighteen months. For a startup, the first route is almost always the wisest.

How do I know if SEO is actually working?

Short answer: you receive a monthly report in plain language. Not a dashboard full of charts without explanation, but three questions answered. What has been done? What has changed in the figures and what does that mean? What is planned for next month?

That report also includes what didn’t work or was disappointing. A month without progress happens. You will read why, and what we are adjusting. A report that only shows green arrows isn’t a report; it’s a sales pitch.

It is important to know what you can expect and when. In the first month, work mainly takes place under the hood: analysis, recovery, technical aspects, and getting measurability in order. Visible results are limited at that stage. In months two and three, you will see the first movements: more pages receiving impressions, keywords shifting from position 40 to 15. Not always more inquiries yet, but measurable recovery. From month three to six, positions move toward the first page and the first inquiries demonstrably coming from search engines follow.

If the measurable signals (impressions, average position, indexed pages) are not moving in the right direction after about three months, I will raise the issue myself. I would rather have an honest conversation in month three than a disappointment in month nine.

How much can I save or earn through a faster website or better visibility?

Short answer: you calculate that in two ways, and the results are not the same. Extra leads times value per lead gives extra revenue. Fewer paid leads times cost per lead gives lower advertising costs.

Those two are often confused. The value of a lead is what it earns you. The cost of a paid lead is what you pay Google for it. Those are different amounts, and the savings only apply to leads you currently pay for via Google Ads.

This is a fictional calculation example, not a measurement.

A site generates 200 leads per year. A lead is worth €500 on average.
After an improvement, 10% is added: 20 extra leads. Extra revenue: 20 × €500 = €10,000.
If you would rather keep the same number of leads and advertise less, you need to buy 20 fewer leads. If a lead via Google Ads costs €50, that saves 20 × €50 = €1,000.

The same 20 leads, two different metrics: extra revenue versus lower advertising costs. You are not choosing between two outcomes of the same sum. You decide what you want: growth, or the same revenue for less advertising money.

What you need yourself: your current number of leads, the value and cost per lead, and an estimate of the improvement. The latter is the uncertain factor. Therefore, calculate with a cautious and a generous assumption, not with a single figure.

What does a slow website cost me?

Short answer: revenue. Calculate exactly how much using your own figures: your website revenue × how much faster the site becomes × a factor between 0.26 and 0.76.

That factor comes from two published case studies. At Vodafone, a 31% faster LCP resulted in 8% more sales. At Swappie, a 55% faster LCP resulted in 42% more mobile revenue. That is 0.26 to 0.76 percent revenue per percent faster LCP.

An example for illustration:

Website revenue: €80,000 per year
Load time from 6 to 2 seconds, so 67% faster
Additional revenue per year: from €13,867 to €40,533

Your site is not Vodafone or Swappie. Therefore, treat the result as a lower and upper limit to weigh an investment against, not as a prediction. Calculate it using your own figures.

What else needs to be done besides arranging high search engine rankings for my website?

Short answer: ranking at the top is the easy part. We regularly see sites that rank well yet yield nothing. This happens because the landing page doesn’t convince the visitor, is too slow, or doesn’t make it clear what they should do next. A ranking is traffic. Traffic is not revenue.

Content: one test almost always works. Could any random competitor have written this sentence? If so, it says nothing. Include a number, a method, or a choice that only you would make.
User Experience: grab your phone, go outside in the sun, and try to book an appointment on your own site with one hand. If the button doesn’t cut it there, it won’t cut it anywhere.
Mobile: most visitors arrive via a phone, and that is exactly where a site is at its slowest and narrowest. Test on an actual device using 4G, not in a simulator on Wi-Fi. Those two provide different answers.
Social Media: social channels build awareness but rarely generate direct inquiries. Treat them as something that drives traffic to your site, not as a replacement for it. One channel that you maintain works better than four that go dormant.
Measurement: without measurement, you are steering by gut feeling. The minimum is knowing how many visitors arrive, via which pages, and how many of them submit an inquiry. That third number is the only one that counts, and it is the one most often missing.

A high ranking is the beginning, not the result. Everything above determines whether the traffic you gain actually yields results.

Am I tied to a long-term contract?

Short answer: never longer than a year at a time. Ongoing services such as SEO & GEO, SEA, maintenance, and hosting start with a three-month trial period. For SEO & GEO, this costs €495 for sites up to 50 pages in one language and without a webshop; larger sites start with the audit. After that, it runs annually, and you can cancel in writing (email is fine) up to three months before the end of each year.

What you keep in any case, even if you stop:

Your domain, your hosting, and your content: these are registered in your name
Your website, on WordPress, which another party can simply take over and manage on your domain
The reports, the keyword plan, and the audit
Access to your own Google accounts, which we never put in our name

The EQwise software (theme, blocks, plugins) never transfers. You may continue to use it on your own domain name, but not on a different domain name. You only receive updates with a maintenance contract.

What does take time is the build-up itself. SEO that stops after three months yields almost no results. Not because you are stuck, but because the clock is only just starting to tick. We state this upfront to ensure expectations are managed correctly.

How do you report on the results?

Short answer: the same overview every month in plain language, so you can track progress instead of having to assume it.

We consistently compare the same three things:

Rankings for keywords that generate revenue, not for words where we happen to score well
AI mentions: whether assistants mention you by name in their answers, and in what context
Traffic and inquiries, and which pages generated them

The same measurement every month is more important than a pretty dashboard. Changing figures and definitions make reports incomparable, and then any story can be told.

What you don’t get: an export from a tool with fifty charts. You do get a short document detailing what was done, what it yielded, and what happens next month. Every quarter, we check if the direction is still correct.

How long until I see results?

Technical gains are measurable within weeks. Rankings and AI mentions typically start moving from month three, with six months as an honest horizon for a complete picture.

Is GEO not just SEO with a new name?

The basics overlap: a fast, well-structured site helps both. The difference lies in the query format and the measurement. Google provides rankings; an AI assistant provides an answer in which you are either included or you are not.

We operate in a regulated sector. Can you work with that?

Short answer: yes, provided you maintain control over the content and we know where the boundaries lie.

In regulated sectors, the text itself is a risk. A sentence that overpromises, a missing disclaimer, or an unsubstantiated claim. These are not SEO questions but compliance matters, and they are your responsibility.

How we organize this: we provide the content, you or your compliance department approves it, and only then does it go live. We set up fixed texts, such as disclaimers, in a way that ensures they do not accidentally disappear during an update.

An honest caveat: this makes the process slower than for the average client. Expect an extra round of reviews per publication. That is the price of avoiding trouble.

What do you expect from me during a project?

Short answer: decisions and professional expertise. The execution is up to us.

Projects that stall almost never stall on technology. They stall because a text waits three weeks for approval, or because no one can say which service is most important.

Specifically, we ask for:

One point of contact who can make decisions without having to consult internally first
Professional expertise: we can write, but you know what customers actually ask and what makes them drop off
Access to the site, Search Console, and Analytics, or the willingness to set them up
A response within a week to what we present. Faster is fine; later adds to the turnaround time

What we don’t ask of you: that you understand SEO. That is exactly why you hire us.

Who does the work?

One senior specialist, from planning to execution. No account manager between you and the work, and no juniors doing the actual heavy lifting.

Who will I be working with during a project?

Short answer: with Martin himself. No handovers to a junior, no account manager in between.

This is a conscious choice and represents the limit of what EQwise can handle. A single point of contact means short lines of communication and someone who knows your site inside out: but it also means we do not take on an unlimited number of projects simultaneously.

In practice:

You email or call directly, no ticket system.
A report in plain English every month, no dashboard you have to figure out yourself.
The person who performs the analysis also executes it: nothing is lost in the handover.

What that requires from you: one point of contact on your side who can make decisions. Projects that stall almost always stall on decision-making, not on technology.

Frequently Asked Questions About Internet Marketing