What Should an SEO Package Include?
What should an SEO package include? The 8 components every proposal must name, the contract terms that matter, questions to ask before signing and red flags.
What should an SEO package include? At minimum, eight named components - an audit, technical fixes, on-page work, content, local and Google Business Profile work, links, a reporting cadence and exit terms - each with a scope sentence, not a tick on a features grid. This is the buyer's version of that list: what each component should say in the proposal, the contract terms that matter more than the headline price, the questions to ask before signing, and the red flags that mean walk away. It is the structure we publish on our own SEO packages Singapore page, so you can hold our proposal to it as easily as anyone else's.
Quick take: A package is only as good as the sentence under each line item. If the proposal cannot name the URLs it will work on, how many pages or posts it covers per month, who owns the accounts and the content, and what happens on the day you leave, it is a price list, not a package. For what the numbers should look like, see our guide to SEO pricing in Singapore; this post is about what the money buys.
What should an SEO package include? The eight components
Every credible package covers the same eight areas. What separates a good one from a bad one is not the list but the specificity: what will be done to which pages, how often, and how you will know. The table gives the test for each component; the sections after it explain why each test exists.
The eight components and the sentence each one needs
| Component | What the proposal should say | Red flag if it says instead |
|---|---|---|
| Audit | A written audit within the first 30 days - crawl errors, indexing, speed, content gaps, backlink profile - delivered as a document you keep | "Free audit" that is a tool export, or an audit never delivered because "we already know what to do" |
| Technical fixes | Named issues with an owner: who implements, whether developer access is needed, and the acceptance test (for example Core Web Vitals passing at the 75th percentile) | "Technical optimisation" with no list, or fixes that all require a separately paid developer |
| On-page | Which URLs, how many per month, what changes (titles, headings, internal links, content additions) - with the keyword-to-URL map attached | "Optimisation of up to N keywords" with no URLs named |
| Content | Pieces per month, word range, who writes, who approves, who owns the copyright | Content counted in "articles" of unknown length, written by AI with no editor, owned by the agency |
| Local and Google Business Profile | Profile audit, category and attribute fixes, citation clean-up, a review-request process you run - and you stay primary owner of the profile | Agency asks to own the profile, or promises reviews |
| Links | How links will be earned - digital PR, partnerships, resource pages - with a written commitment to Google's spam policies and no purchased placements | "X backlinks per month", "DA 50+ guaranteed", or link packages |
| Reporting | Monthly: positions by URL, Search Console clicks and impressions, work completed, next month's plan, plus a call | A dashboard login and nothing else, or a report built only on a rank tracker |
| Exit terms | Contract length, notice period, what you take with you (content, accounts, redirects, documentation), and whether anything is switched off when you leave | Auto-renewal with 90-day notice, or content and links that "belong to the agency" |
The audit: a document you keep
The audit is the diagnosis the whole package rests on, and it should be in your inbox before the second invoice. A real one names specific pages with specific problems - this product page is 404 from three internal links, these 40 URLs are indexed with no title, the homepage fails the mobile speed thresholds - ordered by impact. If a provider wants to skip it because they have seen it all before, that describes their process, not your site.
Technical fixes: named, owned, tested
The technical component fails most often on ownership. "Speed optimisation" without saying who changes the hosting, who edits the theme and what counts as done leaves you paying twice. Put an acceptance test in the contract: Google's Core Web Vitals thresholds are 2.5 seconds for Largest Contentful Paint, 200 milliseconds for Interaction to Next Paint and 0.1 for Cumulative Layout Shift at the 75th percentile of page loads - checkable in Search Console. Where issues run deep, a separate scope for technical SEO fixes is more honest than burying them in a retainer that cannot cover them.
On-page: the keyword-to-URL map is the deliverable
Packages love to count keywords, and the count is nearly meaningless, because a keyword only becomes work when it is assigned to a page. Ask for the map: every target term, the one URL that will carry it, and its current position. That document shows whether the provider has thought about your site or is reading from a template, and it is what you check the monthly report against.
Content: count, length, author, owner
Four numbers define the content line: pieces per month, words per piece, who writes, who owns. Word count is not quality, but a package that will not state a range is usually planning very short pages. Copyright in content you paid for should transfer to you on payment, in writing. For online stores the line should also say whether category and product pages are in scope, because they need different treatment from posts; our ecommerce SEO for online stores page sets out that split.
Local and Google Business Profile: you own the profile
If you serve Singapore customers in person, the local component is usually where results arrive first, and it has one non-negotiable term: your business stays primary owner of the Google Business Profile, with the provider added as a manager. Google's guidelines for representing your business rule out the shortcuts a bad package offers - keyword-stuffed names, fake addresses, incentivised reviews. Scope should cover categories, attributes, photos, posts, citation consistency and a review-request process you run. We scope this as its own workstream in our local search and Google Business Profile work because it uses different tools and a different monthly rhythm.
Links: how they are earned, not how many
Google's spam policies classify buying or selling links for ranking purposes - including exchanging money, goods or services for links, and posts that contain links - as link spam. A package promising a fixed number of backlinks per month can only keep that promise by buying them, putting your domain at risk to hit a number that means nothing. Ask how links will be earned: which resource pages, which partnerships, which content will be pitched to which publications.
Reporting: positions by URL, Search Console data, a work log
A useful monthly report contains three things: positions for each target keyword against the URL that carries it; clicks and impressions from Google Search Console, which is Google's own count rather than a third-party estimate; and a log of what was done and what is planned. Reports built purely on a rank tracker, or on traffic figures with no source named, hide more than they show. Ask to see a redacted report from a current client before signing.
Exit terms: what happens on the last day
Nobody reads this until they need it. Four questions: how long is the initial term, how much notice ends it, what do I take with me, what gets switched off. The right answers are a term you can live with, 30 days, everything - content, accounts, redirect lists, documentation - and nothing. Packages that host your content on their infrastructure, hold analytics under their login, or reserve the right to remove links when you leave are renting you results, not building an asset.
Contract terms that matter more than the price
Two packages at the same monthly fee can differ by a great deal in what you own at the end. These are the terms we would read first in any proposal, ours included; for the fee itself, our guide to SEO pricing in Singapore is the companion to this page.
Contract terms to check before signing
| Term | Ask for | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Initial term | Six months, or twelve with a break clause at six | Results take months, so a very short term is unrealistic - but a 24-month lock-in removes your only leverage |
| Notice period | 30 days, in writing, no penalty after the initial term | 90-day notice on an auto-renewing contract can cost a quarter of fees after you have decided to leave |
| Account ownership | Search Console, GA4, Google Business Profile and Tag Manager under your Google account; provider added as a user | If you are not the owner, you cannot remove the provider later |
| Content and asset ownership | Copyright in all content transfers to you on payment; source files included | Content the provider owns can lawfully be removed or reused when you leave |
| Link and redirect records | A list of every link earned and every redirect implemented, delivered at exit | Redirects that live only in the provider's head are lost in the next site change |
| Price changes | Fee fixed for the initial term; changes need 60 days' written notice | Retainers that rise "in line with results" are unbudgetable |
| Scope changes | A written change-order process | Verbal scope creep is how a package quietly becomes a smaller package |
Account ownership is the term most often got wrong and the easiest to verify: Google's help pages on Search Console owners, users and permissions and GA4 access management show who is listed on each property. If the verified owner of your Search Console property is an agency email address, fix that before signing anything new.
Questions to ask before signing
Google publishes its own list in Do you need an SEO?: ask for examples of previous work, whether they follow the Google Search Essentials, what results they expect and in what timeframe, how they measure success, and what experience they have in your industry and country. The same guide states that no one can guarantee a number-one ranking on Google, and advises giving a provider read-only access to Search Console during an audit rather than write access. Our additions, from proposals we have read on the other side of the table:
- Which URLs on my site will you work on in the first 90 days, and why those?
- Show me a draft keyword-to-URL map for my site before I sign.
- Who writes the content, who edits it, and does copyright transfer to me on payment?
- How will links be earned, and will you put in writing that none are purchased?
- Which accounts will you need, and will they stay under my Google login?
- What does the monthly report contain, and can I see a redacted one from a current client?
- What is the initial term, the notice period, and what do I receive on exit?
- What is out of scope, and what triggers a change order?
- What would make you tell me SEO is the wrong channel for my business?
- When results are slower than expected, what changes - the plan, the fee, or nothing?
Question nine separates advisers from sellers: an honest provider can name a business that should not buy their package. And the timeframe answer should be a range in months, not weeks - our guide to how long SEO takes to show results sets out a realistic month-by-month expectation to judge the answer against.
Red flags that end the conversation
- A guaranteed ranking, a guaranteed timeframe, or a "special relationship" with Google - Google's own guidance names all three as warning signs.
- A fixed number of backlinks per month at a fixed price, or any mention of a link "package".
- No URLs named anywhere in the proposal.
- The provider must be the owner of your Search Console, Analytics or Business Profile.
- Content written by AI with no named editor and owned by the provider.
- A report that is a rank-tracker screenshot with no Search Console data.
- A term longer than twelve months with no break clause, or auto-renewal with 90-day notice.
- Reviews promised as a deliverable.
- An audit that is "free" but never arrives as a document.
- The proposal for your 12-page services site is identical to the one for a 3,000-product store.
Who should not buy an SEO package
An SEO package is the wrong purchase for a business that needs enquiries within 30 days - paid search or direct outreach gets there first, and the package will be blamed for a timing problem. It is wrong for a site that cannot be edited: a locked template with no access to titles, headings or new pages cannot receive the on-page and content components, so the website comes first. And it is wrong for an offer the market has not accepted; ranking for a service nobody searches for produces a well-optimised empty room. A reasonable provider says this in the first call. If they take the retainer anyway, the question of what should an SEO package include has never been put to their own product.
SEO package FAQ
01What is the 80/20 rule in SEO?
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In SEO the 80/20 rule means roughly 80 percent of results come from about 20 percent of the work - usually a handful of pages, a short list of technical fixes and, for a local business, the Google Business Profile. A good package reflects it by naming which pages and fixes come first rather than spreading effort evenly across a keyword list.
02Is SEO dead now with AI?
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No. AI answers are assembled from pages that already rank and are already trusted, so the work in a package - indexable pages, clear answers, consistent business information, earned mentions - is the entry ticket to being cited. What has changed is that a package should now also say how it measures visibility in AI answers, not only positions on Google.
03What are the 3 C's of SEO?
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The three C's usually cited are content, code and credibility: what your pages say, whether the site is technically sound, and whether other sites and profiles corroborate you. They map to the content, technical and links components of a package, and a proposal covering only one of the three is incomplete.
04What is a SEO checklist?
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An SEO checklist is a fixed list of checks - crawlability, indexing, titles, speed, content, links, local profile - scored pass or fail. A package should start with one as the audit and end each month with the items it closed. When you are weighing what should an SEO package include, ask to see the checklist the provider audits against; if there is none, the audit is improvised.
05How much should an SEO package cost in Singapore?
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It depends on scope, and a fee without a scope sentence under each component cannot be judged. Our guide to SEO pricing in Singapore sets out how retainers are structured and what moves the number; use the eight components on this page to confirm two quotes are for the same work before comparing them.
06How long should an SEO contract be?
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Six months initial term, or twelve with a break clause at six, then rolling with 30 days' notice. Shorter than six months does not give the work time to show; longer than twelve with no exit removes your leverage if the reports stop matching the promises.
07What should not be in an SEO package?
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Purchased links at a fixed monthly count, guaranteed rankings, reviews as a deliverable, content the provider keeps ownership of, and any requirement that the provider owns your Google accounts. Each either breaks Google's published policies or leaves you with nothing when the contract ends.
Compare our package against this list
We publish our components, our reporting format and our exit terms because a buyer who can check them is the buyer we want. If you would like a draft keyword-to-URL map for your site before deciding anything, get in touch - or read the scope of our monthly SEO plans and hold them to the eight components above.