SEO for Des Moines businesses
Technical and on-page SEO, built into the site rather than sold as a retainer on top of it. We will tell you what we can change and what we cannot promise.
Since 2011 · Free technical audit · No ranking guarantees · Veteran-owned
Why a Des Moines business does not show up in search
Almost always one of these four, and only one of them is about content.
The searches that turn into work are specific — a service plus a place. A site with one page covering every service has nothing pointed at any of them, so it competes for a head term it cannot win and appears on nothing else.
Missing or duplicated titles, headings used for size rather than hierarchy, no internal links, no sitemap, no structured data. Search engines can crawl it, but they cannot work out what any page is for.
Uncompressed images, render-blocking scripts, a stack of plugins nobody audited. Speed is measured, it is worse on phones than the laptop it was tested on, and it costs you visitors before it costs you rankings.
Monthly PDFs full of impressions, no change in inquiries. The work being billed for is often real, but it was never tied to anything the business would notice.
What an SEO engagement actually covers
Specific work with a specific output, rather than hours against a retainer.
- A technical audit of the whole site — crawlability, indexing, structure, speed
- Keyword research against what is realistically winnable, not what has the biggest number
- A page-by-page plan: which page targets which search, and which pages compete with each other
- Titles, meta descriptions and heading structure rewritten page by page
- Structured data implemented so machines can read what each page is
- Internal linking that makes the hierarchy of the site explicit
- Core Web Vitals work: images, scripts, caching, layout stability
- Content written against what already ranks for the target search
- Analytics and Search Console set up in your account, so you can check our work
Technical SEO: structure, schema and page speed
The half that has nothing to do with writing, and usually the half that is broken.
Technical SEO is making a site legible to a machine. Every page needs a unique title and description that match what the page is for. Headings need to describe a hierarchy rather than be chosen for their size. Pages need internal links pointing at them, or they sit unreachable behind a menu.
Structured data is the part most sites skip. It is a description of the page written for machines rather than people — what kind of thing this is, who publishes it, what it costs, what questions it answers. It does not change what a visitor sees, and it changes a great deal about how confidently a search engine can summarize you.
Core Web Vitals is the speed half: how fast the main content appears, how quickly the page responds to a tap, and whether things move around while it loads. All three are measured on a phone on a mediocre connection, not on the laptop the site was built on.
On-page SEO: writing pages against what already ranks
Not writing more. Writing what the results page shows it rewards.
Before a page is written we look at what currently ranks for the search it is meant to win: what format those pages take, how long they are, which subjects they all cover, and which questions they all answer. That is not copying — it is reading the brief the search engine has already published.
Then the page gets written to answer the search better than the pages above it, in plain language, with the answer near the top rather than buried under an introduction. One page per search. If two pages target the same thing they compete with each other, and the usual result is that neither wins.
AI visibility: getting cited in AI Overviews and chat answers
New, unevenly understood, and worth doing now for exactly that reason.
A growing share of searches are answered above the results — an AI summary that cites a handful of sources. If you are not one of the cited sources, you are invisible on that search even when you rank on the page below it.
What gets a page cited is not mysterious: a direct answer to the question, stated early, in a self-contained block that can be lifted without the surrounding page; specifics rather than adjectives; structured data that confirms what the page is; and a site that is consistent about who it is and what it sells.
An honest caveat. This is a new field and nobody has a decade of evidence in it, including us. What we have is a site built to be citable and a method we can show you. Anyone claiming a proven system for it is selling you a guess with a price on it.
Why we will not promise you rankings
Four of the six firms on this search will. Here is why we do not.
Nobody selling SEO controls the ranking. The algorithm is not published, it changes continuously, and the competition is doing its own work at the same time. A promise to put you first for a given term is either about a term nobody searches, or it is a sentence that cannot be honored and is being said anyway.
What can be promised is the work: the audit happens, the structure gets fixed, the pages get written, the speed gets measured before and after, and you get access to the analytics so you can check all of it without asking us. If the results do not come, you will be able to see exactly what was done and decide whether to continue.
What we do not do: Google Business Profile and map pack work
A real limitation, stated rather than hidden.
The three map results at the top of a local search come from Google Business Profile, and a profile requires a verified physical address in the area it serves. We do not have one in Iowa — we are a remote team — so we cannot hold one honestly, and we will not create one at an address we do not work from.
That means map pack work is outside what we can do for you, and on some searches those three slots sit above everything we can influence. If your business depends on walk-in trade from a map, you should hire someone local who can manage a profile properly. If it depends on people searching, reading and getting in touch, the organic results are the route and that is the route we work.
What our SEO does not include
The list is longer than most, because most of it is work we think is either unbuyable or unwise.
- Google Business Profile setup or map pack optimization — we have no Iowa address, so we cannot
- Guaranteed rankings or guaranteed positions, for any term, at any price
- Bought links, link exchanges, private blog networks or anything else that risks a penalty
- Paid advertising, ad accounts or media buying — that is a different discipline
- Social media management or posting
- Review generation or reputation campaigns
- Monthly reports whose only purpose is to justify the invoice
Every site is built by Elisabeth Samuels and the Salterra team — a company building websites since 2011. Not a reseller, not an offshore queue. The same person who scopes your project writes the pages and hands over the logins.
We will run a technical SEO audit of your site and send you the findings in writing — free, and with no obligation to buy anything afterwards.
What SEO costs in Des Moines
Published, which none of the six firms ranking for this search do.
Technical SEO is built into every website we build and is not billed separately — structure, titles, structured data, internal links, sitemap and speed all come with the build, from $499.
Ongoing SEO on a site we did not build is scoped and quoted after the audit, because the honest answer depends entirely on what we find. A site with good bones and thin content is a different job from one that needs rebuilding before any of it can work. The audit is free and you get the findings in writing whether or not you hire us.
What moves the number
- The state of the site now — good structure with thin content is a much smaller job than a site that has to be rebuilt before optimization can hold
- How many searches you want to compete for — one page per search, and each page is researched and written individually
- How competitive those searches are — a specific service in a suburb is winnable; a head term against national spenders may not be, and we will say so
- Whether we are writing the content or you are — supplied copy moves faster and costs less
Frequently asked questions about SEO in Des Moines
What does SEO cost in Des Moines?
Technical SEO is built into every site we build and is not billed separately — it comes with the build, from $499. Ongoing SEO on a site we did not build is quoted after a free audit, because what it takes depends entirely on what the audit finds.
Can you guarantee I will rank?
No, and nobody honestly can. The algorithm is not published, it changes constantly, and your competitors are working too. What we guarantee is the work itself and full access to the analytics, so you can check what was done rather than take our word for it.
How long does SEO take to work?
Technical fixes can register within weeks. Content aimed at a competitive search usually takes three to six months to settle, and longer on a new domain with no history. Anyone promising results in thirty days is describing a term nobody searches for.
What is the difference between technical SEO and content SEO?
Technical SEO makes the site legible to a machine — structure, titles, structured data, internal links, speed. Content SEO is writing pages that answer the search better than the pages currently above you. Technical work without content rarely moves anything; content without technical work often cannot be read properly. Both, in that order.
Do you do Google Business Profile or map pack optimization?
No. A Business Profile requires a verified physical address in the area it serves, we do not have one in Iowa, and we will not create one at an address we do not work from. If your business depends on the map results, hire someone local who can manage that properly.
What is AI visibility and does my business need it?
AI visibility is being cited as a source in the AI summary that now sits above many search results. If you are not cited there you are invisible on that search even when you rank below it. It matters most for the questions your customers ask before they buy, and it is earned the same way as everything else — a direct answer, stated early, in a block that can be lifted on its own.
Can I do SEO myself?
The content half, often yes — nobody knows your business better, and writing a genuinely useful page about what you do is the highest-value thing available to you. The technical half is harder to self-teach and easier to get wrong in ways that are invisible until traffic drops. If you want to try, take the free audit and use it as a to-do list. We would rather you did that than paid us for something you could do.
Tell us what you sell. Get your number.
Send us what your business does and roughly how many pages you think you need. You will get the number and a timeline in writing.
Takes about a minute. No call, no obligation.
We reply to everything within one business day.