Frequently Asked Questions
We want you to be as informed about our services as possible before deciding to invest in the future of your business with us.
Billing Questions
_01 – How does the billing cycle work?
Our client billing and service cycles run from the 1st of the month through the last day of the month. Invoices are sent within the first 5 days of the month and payment is due immediately upon receipt.
That’s it. You pay us for the month. We do the work.
We do it again every month.
Simple.
_02 – How long are your contracts for?
Our contracts operate on a month-to-month basis.
You can cancel your services any time with notice prior to 14 days before the end of the cycle. We’ll miss you though.
Once the notice is received, the final billing cycle will play out just as normal. During that time, we can either halt services or do a hand-off to your in-house team or, sadly, another provider if you decide to move on (though we highly doubt that will happen).
One thing we highly recommend if you’re just shopping around for SEO services is commit to a 90-day probationary period. This is enough time to see if we’ll be a good fit working together in the future and begin to show demonstrable results on our way to bigger and better ones. This, of course, is not required, but we really do urge you to just give it a little time.
_03 – How much does this cost?
We believe in being completely transparent about our pricing right from the start. For our pricing structure, correlation data, ROI approximations, and real-world ROI data from our clients, please see our Services page.
_04 – What payment methods do you accept?
We accept payment via physical check, Wave, Stripe, Zelle, direct deposit, golden trinkets delivered by carrier pigeons, or Apple Pay.
We try to make it convenient as possible.
_05 – You guys suck. How do I cancel my services?
You can cancel your services any time with notice prior to 14 days before the end of the cycle.
Once the notice is received, the final billing cycle will play out just as normal. You pay the last month. We do the last month of work. After that, we can either halt services or do a hand-off to your in-house team or, sadly, another provider if you decide to move on (though we highly doubt that will happen).
_06 – What happens to work you’ve done if we cancel services?
It stays in place and remains effective. The work we conduct is “evergreen” in that, even if you cancel services, the results of our work will remain intact and provide ranking benefit until: a) your competition overtakes you, or b) you conduct further SEO on your site from another provider and they screw it up.
_07 – Will you sign on any of my competitors if I cancel services?
We have a section in our services contract where we pinky swear we won’t provide any assistance in any way to the digital visibility of any of your primary competitors for a period of two years after the last day of service for a closed campaign.
Services Questions
_01 – What, exactly, do you do to help our traffic and rankings?
We like to look at SEO as more of a toolbelt than a skill. It’s made up of multiple skills including web development, programming, server configuration, content development, anthropological understanding of human beings and their behavior, the psychology of internet search, among others.
So we do our best to analyze your site from a technical and human perspective, find areas for improvement, develop a solution to those challenges, consult on how to do it (or do it ourselves if we have access to your website) and explore the results.
_02 – What if this has a negative effect on my site?
It won’t. We have been doing this long enough that we have gotten really good at doing work that is in compliance with modern search engines (read: Google) and their sophisticated algorithms.
We aren’t out here doing SEO hoping “it works” or trying to outsmart Google. We don’t need to. We do quality work and, as the algorithms get better and better at determining which SEO is out there trying to game it and what is out there playing nicely with it, we wait for them to catch up.
You’re in good hands.
_03 – How long does it takes to get results?
This is the golden question in the industry.
No, really. It is.
The answer is simple. We don’t know.
Sorry to disappoint you, but this really is the only honest answer.
So we don’t know.
And neither does any other SEO provider unless they have done more than cursory “pre-sales” research.
How long SEO takes is a complex issue that must take into account operational sector, competitive landscape, market saturation, resource ubiquity, and unique business objectives in order to accurately assess how long a campaign must run before it begins to show demonstrable ROI.
We don’t consult from the perspective of taking a quick glance at your site before a sales call.
Taking the aforementioned considerations seriously requires time to do proper research.
We consult from a dynamic and informed perspective as an ongoing engagement and that research is all part of the initial steps of the campaign.
Our campaigns are structured to be long-term consultory engagements in which we partner with our clients for years-long campaigns.
It is a complete waste of time and money to invest in SEO without giving it proper time to mature ans make a return on your investment.
Modern SEO is complex and must be done correctly.
This takes time.
Most campaigns begin to show demonstrable correlation between our work and its results within 3-6 months. Campaigns typically take 2-5 years to fully mature in competitive markets.
How long it takes to see results also depends on which of our Plans you select.
So please be patient. We cannot stress this enough. We do want your business, but more than that, we want to make sure that you actually see the benefit that we know we can offer because it’s significant.
Patience and trust are huge here.
_04 – What is the difference between your service plans?
Time spent on your project.
Other than that, there is no difference in the quality of work, we don’t restrict services in any way or limit number of deliverables per month or anything like that.
Everything we do is exactly the same for both plans. It’s just putting time into your project.
Here is how much our services cost:
Upward Plan – 20hrs/mo – $2,800/mo – $140/hr ($33,600/yr)
Impact Plan – 40hrs/mo – $4,800/mo – $120/hr ($57,600/yr)
All of this just for the cost of an in-house part-time or full-time employee.
Your choice.
You’ll be happy either way.
Team Questions
_01 – Who are the people behind Upward Impact?
Well, my name is Nyk Zukowski and I am the guy who runs things around here.
Nice to meet you.
I’ve been a web developer since I was 13 in the late 90s and have been doing SEO since 2010; professionally since 2012, working in a couple agencies before going it alone. I launched Upward Impact after being an independent consultant for nearly a decade, taking time to make sure I had a firm grasp on SEO before making the very serious decision on my career trajectory.
I really dig my work and I’m good at it. It took me a long time to get here and I am proud of how this one-time hobby has bloomed into a full-time passion.
So, here’s the thing.
There have always been a lot of people in the SEO industry seeking that fame and fortune, plastering their name, face, and company all over the internet in an effort to make themselves a brand, rock crowds at big seminars, and sell books & t-shirts. Blah blah.
I am not like that. This question and the initial blog post are the only parts of the website where I even care to talk about myself.
I don’t even put my name on here except for this particular question and in some of the screenshots used on this website as promotional material.
I’d rather keep to myself, have happy clients, a solid and reliable team, and do work with integrity and pride.
I’d like to think I’ve already done a good job weaving glimpses of my personality into this website as I built it, and that is good enough for me.
As for my team, they’re a small group of incredibly intelligent and capable individuals who love what they do as much as I do.
I trust them with this work.
That being said, this is who I am and what I stand for. This is my company and I want to blow you away with what my team and I are capable of.
Now let’s do this.
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We hope you've seen enough to consider working with us!
We'd love to have you as our client.