Key facts
- SearchPod's own SEO service is priced per page, $50 a page from 10 pages a month, which is a useful baseline when a content vendor quotes a per-word or per-article rate instead: work out what a page actually costs you either way before comparing bids.
- A page written to rank in classic search and a page written to be cited by an AI answer engine overlap but are not identical: the AI-citation version needs a clear, quotable direct answer near the top, while a page chasing only rankings can bury the answer under an introduction.
- Google's helpful content guidance rewards pages written by someone with real, checkable experience in the topic, so a content RFP should ask who is actually writing, not just which agency's name is on the contract.
- A content backlog written once and never updated loses ground over time as competitors' pages get refreshed, so an acceptance test built only around initial publication misses whether the vendor will still be improving page 40 a year later.
- Search phrases for buying-intent content, such as "[service] near me" or "[service] cost", differ from the phrases that drive informational traffic, and a program that only produces the easier informational pages will grow traffic without growing leads.
What the program covers, and what it does not
Name the exact page types and the monthly volume: for example, four service pages and four blog posts a month, or twelve location pages over a quarter. State whether the vendor is responsible for keyword research and page targeting or whether you are handing them a list. Include on-page basics in scope: meta title, meta description, internal links to the right money pages, and image alt text.
Out of scope unless separately agreed: link building outreach, paid promotion of the content, and video or podcast production. State whether refreshing older pages counts toward the monthly volume or is billed separately, since this is where scope disputes usually start.
What the vendor must be given
Access to your CMS or a clear publishing workflow, so drafts do not sit in a shared document waiting for someone to copy them in. A style guide or at least a handful of example pages so the voice is recognizably yours. Access to your analytics, so the vendor can see which existing pages are underperforming rather than guessing.
A named subject-matter contact on your team who can answer factual questions within a day or two, since a writer without a niche background will get details wrong without one, and a list of claims, prices, or statistics you are willing to have published under your name.
Ownership and exit clauses
Every page written under this contract, published or not, belongs to you outright once paid for, including unpublished drafts, and the contract should say so in plain terms rather than leaving copyright ambiguous. The vendor keeps no license to reuse your specific pages for another client.
On exit, you keep every published page exactly where it is; nothing gets taken down or de-indexed because the contract ended. Require delivery of any research notes, keyword lists, or content calendar built during the engagement in an editable format, not a locked dashboard you lose access to the day you stop paying.
Milestones and acceptance tests
A content calendar covering the next quarter delivered before the first invoice. First batch of pages drafted within two weeks of kickoff, with a defined review and revision window before publication. A running log of published pages with dates, so volume is verifiable against the contract, not just claimed in a monthly email.
Acceptance test: pull three published pages at random after 90 days and check that each answers the query in its title within the first few sentences, links to a real service or location page, and reads like it was written for a person rather than assembled to hit a word count.
How to score competing proposals
Weight bidders on writing quality and process, not just price per word.
Writing sample quality, judged against your own niche, 30 percent.
Process for subject-matter accuracy and fact-checking, 20 percent.
Cadence reliability and how volume is reported, 20 percent.
Price per page across the full monthly volume, 20 percent.
Willingness to refresh older pages as part of the ongoing scope, 10 percent.
Ask every bidder to write one short sample page on the same topic so the comparison is apples to apples.
Questions to make every bidder answer
Put these in writing before you sign.
Who is the actual writer, and what is their background in our industry?
How do you fact-check a claim or a price before it is published under our name?
What happens to pages already drafted if we cancel mid-month?
Do you write for AI answer engines differently than for classic search, and can you show an example?
How do you decide which older pages get refreshed versus which new pages get written?
What exactly is included in your per-page price, and what costs extra?
Related questions
It depends heavily on page type and volume, and vendors price it differently, some per word, some per page, some as a flat monthly retainer. SearchPod's SEO service is priced at $50 a page from 10 pages a month, which is a useful anchor for working out what a competing per-word or retainer quote actually costs per page.
Usually yes, since a writer who does not understand what people are actually searching tends to produce pages that read well but target the wrong query. Confirm in the RFP whether research is included in the price or billed separately, and ask to see how a bidder chose topics for a past client.
That should be settled in the contract before work starts, not argued about at cancellation. This pack's ownership clause states that every page paid for, published or not, belongs to you outright, with no license retained by the vendor and nothing taken down when the contract ends.
The two overlap but are not the same. A page aimed at being cited by an AI answer engine needs a clear, self-contained direct answer near the top, while a page aimed purely at ranking can lean more on structure and depth. A strong content program should be able to do both in one page.
Track published volume against the contract, then watch whether traffic and enquiries grow on the specific pages the vendor wrote, not just site-wide traffic. A program that only grows informational blog traffic while your service and location pages stay flat is producing volume, not necessarily leads.
SearchPod is a vendor for this kind of work and would answer this RFP; the acceptance tests here are the ones we agree to.
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