Answers to SEO Questions Calgary Businesses Will Benefit From Knowing
When Calgary businesses look for SEO services, the first step is almost always asking the right questions.
This blog brings together the ten most commonly asked SEO questions Calgary businesses like yours should have answers to. If you’re considering Calgary SEO Services, this guide will help you understand what to expect for full transparency and better outcomes.
1. How Long Before I See Results From SEO?
This SEO timeline table outlines the three main phases of search engine optimization results. The first indicator of SEO success is when Google begins indexing your organic pages, typically occurring within the first few weeks of implementation. Next, you’ll start seeing organic keyword impressions in search results between 1 week to 1 month, which confirms SEO strategies are taking effect. Finally, meaningful organic search traffic growth usually develops over 3-6 months as your website gains authority and rankings improve for target keywords.
SEO results happen gradually—like a snowball that gets bigger as it continues to move forward and gather momentum.
You will see results in certain areas in as little as a few weeks. Here’s what to expect:
Increase Organic Pages— 1-3 weeks
Organic pages are pages on a website that Google finds and indexes (ranks on search results). Organic pages increase as more content is created.
In fact, if more content is published on your website and organic pages don’t increase after being crawled, it means that Google has chosen not to index those pages. That’s the first sign that SEO has not been done correctly because Google will only index pages it deems as helpful.
If SEO is done correctly, you should see an increase in organic pages within the first few weeks, this is the first sign that you are getting noticed by Google. It shows that content is being created on your website that is going to ultimately get you more visibility, clients, and customers.
Increase Organic Keywords — 1 month
When Google indexes pages, it automatically connects certain keywords to those pages. Organic keywords are the terms your website is starting to get recognition for. This recognition is called Impressions, and impressions are the number of times a website has been seen by people who have used certain keywords.
- Pages increase
- Pages rank for keywords
- Ranking keywords create impressions
Ranking for keywords is the prerequisite to getting organic search traffic from clicks. Search engine visibility begins with organic keyword, and an increase in organic keywords is the second sign—after organic pages—that SEO is working.
Increase Organic Search Traffic — 3-6 months
As pages and keywords increase, organic search traffic should follow, usually between 3-6 months. These are the clicks you’re getting from the impressions, and they ultimately determine your search engine ranking.
2. How much does SEO cost in Calgary?
SEO costs vary depending on the agency, but ideally, the cost of SEO should reflect the depth and quality of the services provided. Depth and quality determine the effectiveness of Search Engine Optimization.
For full transparency and clear deliverables, our SEO services are offered in packages, and use the best SEO features on the planet to help our clients grow their profit through SEO.
View our prices below, and for a more thorough breakdown of our SEO packages and their features, read our Calgary SEO pricing Guide.
SEM and SEO Packages
Found - Foundational Growth Plan
Accel - Accelerated Growth Plan
Power - Powerhouse Growth Plan
| Found USD $3,000 / month | Accel USD $5,000 / month | Power USD $10,000 / month | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Content Output | 2 Articles | 3 Articles | 5 Articles |
| Monthly Page Revamps ⓘRefresh of eligible pages already on your website. Strengthens SEO while new content is being created. | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| High‑quality Blogs | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Expert Copywriting | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Human‑written Content | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Done‑for‑you Publishing | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Client Portal Access | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Comprehensive Keyword Research | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Strategic Business Reviews | Quarterly | Bi‑monthly | Bi‑monthly |
| Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) ⓘOptimize page elements to help turn more visitors into paying customers—driving higher ROI and measurable revenue growth. | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Schema Markup | ✖ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Competitor Gap Analysis | ✖ | ✔ | ✔ |
| 24hr Communication Dashboard | ✖ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Writers with High Google Authorship ⓘContent written by Google-recognized writers to boost your site's authority and rankings. | ✖ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Custom Web Assets ⓘCustom branded graphics and charts built specifically for your brand to enhance authority and rankings. | ✖ | ✖ | ✔ |
| Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) ⓘTargeting featured snippets, Google AI Overviews, and visibility in ChatGPT and other AI search tools. | ✖ | ✖ | ✔ |
| Heat Mapping Analysis ⓘDetailed user behavior analysis to increase your conversion rates. | ✖ | ✖ | ✔ |
| Priority Phone Support | ✖ | ✖ | ✔ |
| Rank Immediately with PPC ⓘAdd PPC to start ranking immediately while we grow your SEO organically. Additional cost: 15% of monthly ad spend plus one time setup fee of $2,500. | |||
| Start Growing Now | Start Growing Now | Start Growing Now |
3. How do I know I’ve Got The Right SEO Agency?
To know whether you’ve got the right SEO agency, ask yourself two things:
- Do they actually rank on SERPs?
- Do they view SEO as the means, or the end?
If you found an SEO agency on search, then that’s a good start, because it shows that they’ve already done what they’re promising.
If they view visibility as an end-in-itself, then something is missing, because visibility doesn’t turn clicks into clients and customers, it only leads to the environment (your website) that makes it possible.
If the environment (your website) is not business-savvy, you’ll get clicks but lose out on customers. That’s a problem because if you are going to get returns on SEO, then it needs to generate more revenue for you.
There are several million businesses who experience “clicks without profits” problems. More than 96.55% of content on the web gets zero organic search traffic from Google, and yet over 75% of businesses have used some form of SEO. There’s two serious problems here:
- People pay for SEO and still don’t get visibility
- Many that do get visibility don’t get profit
This is because many agencies get so caught up in the concept of visibility but have no business understanding. They are technical experts but not marketers. Creativity, business savvy, and even common-sense fly out the window as a result.
InspiringClicks doesn’t just focus on getting clicks—we create the environment of a website so that clicks turn into more profit for your business. Afterall, what else is SEO about?
We are creative, business savvy, and SEO experts all at once. To us, SEO is not the end, it’s the means to more profit.
4. Will SEO Actually Bring Me More Customers (or Clients)?
Absolutely. Among successful campaigns, SEO has generated an average return of 826% across multiple industries. That’s $8.26 in profit for every dollar spent on high-quality SEO. Nearly every online experience begins or ends with a search engine. The reason why SEO is so effective is because people using search engines are already looking for solutions. This means that many are ready to transact, and the only thing missing for businesses to profit from SEO is the online visibility and the right website environment.
SEO Return on Investment by Industry – 3-Year Performance Data
5. How Can an SEO Strategy Get Me More Business?
An SEO strategy can get you more business by knowing your clients or customers, and by looking at how they communicate, and what exactly they want—or expect—from your business.
Every single word that is typed into a search engine is saved as data. It’s the job of an SEO agency to learn how your target communicates on search engines, and what they hope to gain from that communication.
It’s also the job of an SEO agency to tap into the potential of your business. Maybe you’re a salon that has inventory that isn’t selling. Or maybe you’re a mechanic shop that’s known for its oil changes, but aren’t satisfied with how many brake changes you do in a month… Getting more business from SEO requires the experts to know what you’re succeeding at, and where you can improve. From there, an SEO strategy can be developed.
Whatever your Calgary business is falling behind on, you have competitors who are excelling at it, despite the fact that you know you can do it just as good, if not better. The only thing that’s missing is an SEO strategy built on the areas you want to improve on.
Notice that earlier, I emphasized how your target communicates. Communication is key for an SEO strategy. Communication is even inherent in the keywords an SEO strategy is built on. However, This communication goes beyond keywords, because there are many forms of communication—typing is only one.
There is also speaking, and Voice Search Optimization (VSO) is a newer branch of SEO that ranks websites for voice search. For example, when someone asks Google for something on their Samsung phone, it pulls up that information from the web and reads it back to them.
6. Is Voice Search Optimization Really Gonna Help My Business?
Yes. Voice Search Optimization (VSO) helps build your authority and credibility, and this in turn leads to more visibility, which helps drive profit for businesses. Let’s put it this way, if devices read words directly from your website to answer questions in order to help people, then that’s a clear sign of authoritativeness. Authoritativeness is one of Google’s top ranking factors, and VSO can help SEO — if not directly, then at least indirectly by building your businesses credibility and authority.
InspiringClicks does include VSO in our SEO services. It’s not particularly hard to do, and it doesn’t take away from other SEO resources; In fact, it complements it. The digital world is changing, and we don’t like to leave any stone unturned. The way we see it, If you want to build your search engine visibility, we might as well set the foundation for your business to grow in the areas that will be more relevant in the future. That’s going to help your business in the long run.
7. Is SEO for Every Business? How Does it Handle Seasonal Industries (construction, real estate, etc.)?
You might be surprised to learn that SEO is even more compatible for seasonal industries than it is for year-round industries. The time during which a seasonal industry operates is preceded by anticipation, planning, and collecting resources to make operations as smooth and profitable when the time comes.
An SEO campaign is no different; in fact, SEO can be considered a seasonal industry service because it takes time for SEO to bear fruit—similar to how it takes time to build a plan before construction actually takes place. Time spent in production is time that eventually equals more growth when the season hits. The time when an industry remains off-season is time that SEO can be used to position a business exactly where customers and clients will be when the time comes.
When it does come, SEO can bring more clients or customers for that business than any year before it.
8. Should I use Google Ads, or just SEO?
You should absolutely use Google Ads with SEO; in fact, doing so can increase your ROI drastically because Google Ads provides immediate search engine visibility while SEO provides visibility for the long-term.
At InspiringClicks, All of our SEM and SEO packages offer a “Rank immediately” option for you to add PPC management alongside SEO services.
Combining both PPC and SEO creates a powerful Search Engine Marketing Strategy.
- With PPC, we rank you immediately on the first page of Google sponsored ads, getting you quick traffic to your website.
- At the same time, we begin building your SEO so that you can start getting more sustainable organic ranking in the long-term.
9. What Makes Local SEO Different in Calgary Compared to Other Cities?
The thing that makes local SEO different in Calgary is that the Calgary SEO strategy accounts for Calgary’s service-driven market and distinct search behaviors. It’s about connecting Calgary geography to an SEO campaign to help search engines understand the correlation, and capture audiences that are specific to Calgary.
10. Can SEO Help Me Compete Against Bigger National Companies That Show up in Calgary Searches?
Not only can SEO help you compete against bigger national companies, but it’s the only way that you can compete in the first place. SEO is not a zero-sum game — the digital landscape is so massive that there are growth opportunities your competitors have surely missed. It’s never too late for you; in fact, there is more opportunity for your business to grow than ever before.
The dominance of your competitors shouldn’t worry you if you have a strategic partner by your side. Their dominance will prove to be your digital growth because everything your national competitors have done — or failed to do— is live for everyone to see. A good SEO company will watch the successes of your competitors closely, break down why they’re successful, find what they’ve missed, and create an SEO campaign that helps you outperform them.
They may have started before you, but remember, there’s no finish line. When your business is equipped with Good SEO, the overall ranking factor is really just a matter of time.
