If you've been burned by an SEO agency before — or warned by a colleague who was — you know the pattern: sign a 12-month contract, watch the reports pile up, and six months later your rankings are exactly where they started. The agency blames your industry, your competitors, your content, anything except their own work. You're out thousands of euros with nothing to show for it.
That's why we offer a Page 1 or FREE guarantee. Not as a marketing gimmick. As a real, contractual commitment. This article explains exactly what it means, what qualifies, what doesn't, and why we can offer it when virtually no other agency will.
The Guarantee in Plain Language
Here is the full commitment, stated plainly:
We will get at least one of your agreed target keywords to position 1–10 on Google (page 1, as seen in actual search results) within six months of starting work — or we refund every euro you paid.
That's it. No fine print that makes it meaningless. No escape clauses that let us walk away after doing nothing. If you pay us and we don't deliver a measurable result, you get your money back.
The Four Terms You Need to Understand
1. "Any one keyword related to your business"
The guarantee is fulfilled when any one keyword from your agreed target list ranks on page 1. It does not require every keyword to rank, nor does it require position 1.
At onboarding, we agree on a minimum of five target keywords together. These are documented in the service agreement. They must be real keywords that potential customers in your market would actually search — not invented terms or brand name searches where you already rank.
Why "any one keyword"? Because SEO works by building domain authority and relevance across an entire site. When we fix your technical issues, improve your on-page signals, and build local citations, rankings typically improve on multiple keywords simultaneously. Setting the bar at "any one keyword" means we take on genuine risk, but it's risk we're confident about because our methodology consistently delivers.
2. "Page 1 of Google" means positions 1–10
Google's first page shows 10 organic results (plus ads and features). We count positions 1 through 10 as page 1. Position 11 is page 2 — it does not fulfil the guarantee.
We verify rankings by searching your keyword directly in Google in the target market (for example, searching from a Netherlands IP for a Dutch client, or from a German IP for a German client). We use Google Search Console data as supporting evidence, but the live search result is the definitive source — because that's what your customers see.
3. A six-month minimum commitment
SEO is not instant. Anyone telling you it is either doesn't understand it or is selling you something. Google's own documentation states that significant ranking changes typically take four to twelve months to manifest after technical improvements are made. Our six-month term is the minimum horizon that allows meaningful SEO work to show results.
The six months aren't a delay tactic. They're when the real work happens:
- Month 1: Technical audit, baseline keyword tracking, fixing crawl issues and Core Web Vitals
- Month 2: On-page optimisation — title tags, meta descriptions, schema markup, internal linking
- Month 3: Content depth expansion, local citation building, Google Business Profile optimisation
- Months 4–6: Authority building, monitoring position movement, refining based on GSC data
Most of our clients see their first keyword movements in months 2–3. The first page 1 ranking typically comes in months 3–5. The six-month window gives us the runway to complete the work properly.
4. The keyword must appear in actual Google search results — not just GSC impressions
Google Search Console shows impressions and average position — but a keyword can generate impressions at position 12 or 14 without appearing on page 1 in practice. We don't count that as fulfilment.
The test is simple: open an incognito browser, search the keyword from the relevant country, and see if the client's website appears in positions 1–10. That's the standard we hold ourselves to.
What the Guarantee Does Not Cover
Transparency requires being honest about the edge cases where the guarantee doesn't apply.
| Scenario | Covered? | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Brand-name searches (your company name) | No | These typically rank regardless of SEO work — not a fair test |
| Keywords you already rank for at onboarding | No | Guarantee covers improvement from current state — not maintaining existing ranks |
| Client fails to respond to our requests for access, approvals, or content | No | We cannot fix a site we cannot access. Engagement requires client cooperation |
| Client changes the website significantly without informing us | No | Breaking changes (URL restructures, platform migrations) can reset progress. Major changes must be coordinated |
| Keywords that are globally competitive with massive budgets (e.g. "insurance," "lawyer") | No | We won't agree these at onboarding — agreed keywords must be achievable for an SMB in the local market |
| Google algorithm updates that affect rankings industrywide | Negotiated | If a core algorithm update significantly impacts an entire vertical, we review and extend the timeline rather than void |
The spirit of the guarantee: we promise results for a fair set of keywords on a realistic timeline, given a client who participates in the process. We don't promise miracles for impossible keywords or results despite a client who blocks all access.
Why Most Agencies Don't Offer This
The reason is simple: most agencies can't back it up.
Traditional SEO consulting is a services business. The agency bills by the hour or by the retainer. Whether rankings improve or not, they get paid. They have no financial skin in the game. A guarantee would expose them to refund liability they're not confident they can avoid — so they don't offer one.
We can offer this guarantee because of two structural advantages:
1. AI-powered audit and implementation speed
Our audit tool analyses over 180 SEO signals in minutes. We identify the highest-impact issues faster than a manual audit can, and we implement fixes systematically. For a typical SMB website, we're completing work in weeks that would take traditional agencies months to even scope.
Speed matters for the guarantee because most SMB websites have clear, fixable technical issues that are directly suppressing their rankings. Slow loading times, missing schema markup, duplicate title tags, unoptimised Google Business Profile listings, zero local citations — these are mechanical problems with mechanical solutions. Fix them, and rankings move. Our confidence in the guarantee comes from knowing how predictably these fixes produce results.
2. We target the right markets
We focus on European SMBs in specific verticals — dental practices, law firms, accountants, tradespeople, local hospitality. These are markets where:
- Local competitors have poorly optimised websites
- Technical SEO debt is high (old sites, no HTTPS, no schema, no Core Web Vitals)
- Long-tail local keywords are achievable with moderate domain authority
- A page 1 ranking translates directly into phone calls and appointments
We don't take on clients in hyper-competitive global verticals where no one can guarantee a result. We work where the guarantee is achievable — and where the value of a page 1 ranking is high.
What the Guarantee Looks Like in Practice
Here's a concrete example from our own work. A client in the event AV rental space had 23 technical SEO issues, a Largest Contentful Paint of 4.2 seconds, and zero local citations. Their key commercial pages were not indexed correctly. They had keywords generating impressions but no clicks — because they ranked in positions 8–14 with poor titles.
After our intervention:
- LCP improved from 4.2s to 1.8s
- Page 1 rankings achieved on four target keywords within three months
- Monthly impressions grew to 3,400+
- CTR on the top keyword improved to 7.8%
This is the pattern we see repeatedly with SMB websites that have not had professional SEO attention. The issues are significant, the fixes are real, and the ranking improvements follow.
The Refund Process (If We Don't Deliver)
If six months pass and none of the agreed keywords have reached positions 1–10 in live Google search results, the refund process is straightforward:
- You notify us in writing at the end of the engagement period
- We perform a joint ranking check — searching agreed keywords live, sharing screenshots
- If confirmed below position 10, we initiate a full refund of all fees paid within 14 business days
- No dispute, no negotiation, no percentage — the full amount
We've structured this to be unambiguous. The ranking check is objective. Either the keyword appears on page 1 or it doesn't.
How to Get Started
The first step is a free audit. We analyse your website across 180+ SEO signals and send you a prioritised report within 24 hours. The audit is free, no commitment, and gives you a clear picture of what's holding your rankings back.
If you decide to work with us, we document the agreed keywords at onboarding, set the six-month clock, and begin. The guarantee terms are written into the service agreement — not promised verbally and forgotten.
The audit takes 24 hours. Rankings take 3–6 months. But you don't have to trust us — you can verify every result yourself, in your own browser, by searching Google.
That's the point of the guarantee: you don't have to trust us. The results prove it.