Optional Retainers

You don't retain a builder. You retain an operator.

Two tiers, each with a written scope. Maintenance keeps the foundations healthy. Growth does the work that gets a site found and cited. Neither is required, and every build ships complete and yours.

The shift

More searches end in an answer. Fewer end in a click.

Google has answered on its own page for years. AI assistants now finish the job for a growing share of buyers: they read the web, weigh the options, and hand over a name like a referral. The links are still there. They just get read less.

Ranked links

best physio near me

A generic query gets a page of links. The visitor does the evaluating, on your site, if they click at all.

Synthesized answers

my knee's been sore for weeks. who in squamish can see me this week without a doctor's referral?

Based on your timeline, Ridgeline Physio is the strongest fit: same-week intake, no referral needed, first visit $115 with direct billing.

ridgelinephysio.com/bookreviews

A constrained question gets one answer and a citation. The AI matched on context first, so its pick lands like word of mouth.

Where the work sits

The work

Who does it

Technical plumbing

A site search engines and AI assistants can read without guessing: structured content, schema generated from it, a Markdown copy of every page, a crawler policy you sign off. Done on day one. Maintenance keeps it healthy.

Ships in every build

Content, on a loop

Track the questions buyers ask and which businesses the AI assistants name back. Write pages that answer them plainly. Refresh what goes stale, then check again next month. The same work Google always rewarded, now paying on two surfaces.

Growth · monthly

Authority signals

AI assistants trust names they keep meeting across the web: mentions, an accurate business profile, reviews. Growth keeps the profile accurate. Mentions come from publishing work worth citing. Reviews stay yours to earn.

Growth + you

The build makes a site eligible. Getting picked is a practice. Both tiers below put it in writing.

Scope, in writing

Two tiers. Both have a written scope.

Maintenance keeps it healthy. Growth makes it compound.

  • Included
  • Optional
  • Not included
What each tier includes, row by row
CapabilityMaintenanceGrowth
Foundations
Upgrades, tested before productionIncludedIncluded
Uptime and error monitoringIncludedIncluded
Incidents, same business dayIncludedIncluded
Search and AI-readiness foundations watchedIncludedIncluded
Editor support and small changesIncludedIncluded
Content model changesIncludedIncluded
Monthly report, quarterly reviewIncludedIncluded
SEO and AEOGrowth core
SEO monitoring: keyword trackingNot includedIncluded
AEO monitoring: prompt tracking, who gets citedNot includedIncluded
Quarterly refresh of core pagesNot includedIncluded
SEO and AEO numbers in the reportNot includedIncluded
ContentGrowth core
Monthly content against the gaps foundNot includedIncluded
Programmatic location, service, and comparison pagesNot includedIncluded
Google Business Profile upkeepNot includedIncluded
Conversion
Conversion iteration on real trafficNot includedIncluded
Small feature buildsNot includedIncluded
On request
Paid ads, set-up and monthly runsNot includedOptional
Social content from site contentNot includedOptional
Email sends and sequencesNot includedOptional

How it compounds: the monitoring finds the gaps, content and pages fill them, and conversion iteration turns the visits into bookings. Full scope in writing, in every proposal.

The rhythm

What a month looks like

Incidents and editor questions come first, any day.

  1. Week 1

    Monitor and patch

    Both tiers

  2. Week 2

    Track and tune

    Growth only

  3. Week 3

    Ship content and pages

    Growth only

  4. Week 4

    Report and plan

    Both tiers

Pricing

Retainers are a fixed monthly fee, scoped to your site and how much change you push through it. You get the number once we've seen the site. A blind quote is how retainers end up mispriced and resented on both sides.

Posture
Fixed monthly fee. No hourly meter.
Term
Month to month. No long-term contract.
Scoped
After a look at the site, in writing.

Before you call

The questions every owner asks.

Do we have to take a retainer?

No. Every build ships complete and yours: trained editors, documentation, full ownership. Retainers exist because sites compound when someone operates them, not because the build is incomplete.

What's the difference between Maintenance and Growth?

Maintenance keeps the foundations healthy and produces no content. Growth is Maintenance plus the monthly work of being found and cited: SEO and AEO monitoring, monthly content, quarterly refreshes, programmatic pages, and Google Business Profile upkeep. If the site is done and you want it to stay done, Maintenance. If you want it to earn more each month than it did the last, Growth.

Does Growth guarantee rankings or AI citations?

No, and be wary of anyone who does. Nobody controls what Google or ChatGPT shows. What Growth guarantees is the work, in writing: which prompts we track, what we ship against the gaps, what we refresh, and a monthly readout of what moved. Rankings and citations come from content, mentions, and freshness over time. That is the work the retainer does.

We already pay for SEO. Why switch?

Maybe don't. Put the two scopes side by side. Ours names the work each month: the SEO and AEO monitoring, the content and pages shipped, the refreshes, the profile upkeep, the conversion changes, and a report that says what moved. If your current retainer's scope reads the same and the work is landing, keep it. If you can't find the scope, that is the answer.

Can you work with our existing site?

Sometimes the audit's honest answer is "your site is fine; your phones are the leak, and you'd get more from an AI automation than a rebuild." That's a different service and we'll say so. If the site is the leak, we'll show you exactly where. Retainers on sites we didn't build start with the same look, and sometimes the honest answer is a migration first.

What isn't covered?

Redesigns and large builds are project work, scoped separately. Review management isn't in either tier yet. When retainer work uncovers something bigger, we flag it with options rather than quietly burning the month on it.

Get a proposal

Find out which tier, if either, earns its fee.

Send us the site and what you push through it each month. You get a written scope and a fixed number, or a plain "you don't need one yet."

Look

Your site, what it runs on, what's breaking.

Scope

Which tier, what's in it, in writing.

Number

A fixed monthly fee, month to month.

I'm interested in

You'll hear back within one business day, from the person who'd run the retainer.