SEO in San Francisco, USA

SEO in San Francisco, USA — SEO that converts Bay Area users into customers

Today, having search engine optimisation isn't enough for a San Francisco business. Your potential client opens a smartphone on BART, sees three or four similar offers, and decides in 5 seconds which one to engage. If yours is slow, unclear on mobile, or doesn't render correctly under iOS Safari with intermittent BART connectivity — you've lost that customer before they finished reading your headline. That's why investing in quality SEO isn't a "luxury expense", it's a direct investment in revenue.

I'm Alex Filiuk, a Senior practitioner with 15 years of experience and a portfolio of 130+ projects. I deliver search engine optimisation for businesses in San Francisco, across the US (San Francisco, LA, Boston, Austin), in Europe (London, Manchester, Edinburgh), and in Ukraine. On this page I've collected what's worth knowing for an Bay Area business owner before commissioning seo: how the engagement works, USD pricing brackets, which mistakes destroy ROI, and which 2025-2026 trends actually matter for the Bay Area market.

Why seo matters for San Francisco businesses

Bay Area is among the most competitive organic-search markets globally. Whether you're a SoMa service business chasing 'best dentist Pacific Heights' or a B2B SaaS chasing 'team chat tool', the SERP is occupied by national brands with content libraries of 5,000+ pages and domain authority above 80. Breaking in requires technical excellence, search-intent-driven content architecture, and patient link-and-authority work. Brands that treat SEO as 'add some keywords' typically plateau at page 3; brands that treat it as a long-horizon owned-channel investment compound traffic 20–40% YoY.

What quality SEO delivers for an Bay Area business:

• Compounding traffic asset. Each ranking page is a forever-asset — unlike paid media, organic traffic continues delivering value years after the work.
• Lower CAC at scale. Organic traffic CAC is 60–85% lower than paid traffic CAC for high-intent commercial queries.
• Trust signal vs paid. Bay Area consumers and B2B buyers trust top-organic results 3–5× more than ads — direct conversion-rate impact.
• Defensive moat. Top organic positions are hard for competitors to dislodge — once held, they sustain value for years.
• Multi-funnel-stage coverage. SEO covers research-stage, comparison-stage, and decision-stage queries — full funnel from one channel.

SEO vs the templated approach

Naive SEO is 'add the keyword to the meta-title and write a blog post'. That stopped working in 2017. Modern SEO is a multi-discipline operation combining technical health, content architecture, search-intent matching, schema, internal linking, and authority signals. Skipping any of these creates a ceiling that no amount of 'more content' breaks through.

A real SF-grade SEO program runs four parallel disciplines:

• Technical SEO. Core Web Vitals, crawlability, indexation, schema markup, hreflang, canonical strategy, JS rendering verification.
• Content architecture. Topic clusters, pillar pages, query-intent matching, internal linking — designed against your service / product taxonomy.
• On-page optimization. Title-and-H1 alignment, semantic HTML, image alt-text, FAQ and HowTo schema, content depth and freshness.
• Authority and link signals. Digital PR, guest posts, citation building, brand-mention monitoring — earned, not paid-link-scheme grey.

SEO compounds with Google Ads (paid + organic SERP coverage) and CRO (turning organic visitors into customers). The whole stack is more than the sum.

Project types most-requested by Bay Area clients

Across 15 years and 130+ projects, I've noticed Bay Area business categories have their own digital signature. Most-common requests for SEO:

• B2B SaaS content programs. SoMa / Mission Bay / Hayes Valley SaaS founders building topic-cluster libraries against ICP-relevant search intent.
• Local SEO for Bay Area service businesses. SoMa / the Mission legal, dental, real-estate, accounting firms ranking for high-intent neighborhood queries.
• DTC e-commerce SEO. Oakland / Marina brands optimizing collection / PDP / blog architecture for category and product-level intent.
• Fintech educational content. the Mission / FiDi fintechs building compliant educational content for top-of-funnel awareness, FINRA / SEC review baked in.
• Editorial / publishing. SF-based publishers maximizing organic for evergreen content alongside news / topical content.
• Real-estate and proptech. SoMa / the Mission brokerages and proptech companies optimizing listing pages and educational content.

Different category, different approach — so I don't ship templates. Every engagement starts with discovery against your actual Bay Area market context.

The SEO engagement, step by step

I work via a transparent process that 130+ clients have completed end-to-end. Each phase has a fixed deliverable that you receive in your hands. No "wait a month while I design" — you know what's happening every week, with weekly Slack updates and one Zoom sync at 8am Bay Area / 3pm Kyiv.

1. Audit (week 1–2). Technical (Screaming Frog, GSC, Ahrefs / Semrush), content (page-level performance), backlink profile, competitive landscape.
2. Strategy and roadmap (week 2–3). Topic clusters, pillar-page architecture, technical-fix backlog, link-building plan, content calendar.
3. Technical fixes (week 3–6). Core Web Vitals, indexation, schema markup, canonical / hreflang, JS rendering — implemented against engineering team.
4. Content production rhythm (week 4+). Pillar pages and supporting content shipped on weekly / bi-weekly cadence, query-intent matched.
5. On-page optimization (ongoing). Existing-page upgrades, schema layering, internal-linking tightening, content refresh.
6. Link and authority work (ongoing). Digital PR, guest posts, citation building, partnership announcements.
7. Monthly performance review. Rankings, organic-traffic, conversion-rate, top-pages-by-revenue analysis.

What you receive when the SEO project completes

• Audit report: technical / content / backlink / competitive review.
• Strategy and roadmap: topic clusters, pillar architecture, content calendar, link-building plan.
• Technical-fix backlog: prioritized, with implementation specs for engineering.
• Content briefs: per-page briefs with query, intent, structure, schema, internal links.
• Schema markup: Organization, Product, Article, FAQ, HowTo, LocalBusiness as applicable.
• Internal-linking plan: hub-and-spoke logic, anchor-text strategy.
• Reporting dashboard: Looker Studio with rankings, organic traffic, conversions by landing page.
• Monthly performance report: wins, gaps, recommendations for next month.

Why hire a Ukraine-based Senior instead of an Bay Area agency

Bay Area has a deep pool of talent — and rates that match. A typical Senior at a SoMa agency: $180–280/hour. A 12-week engagement at a respectable SoMa studio: $80,000–180,000. The work is excellent, but the cost makes it inaccessible for most early-stage startups, mid-sized DTC brands, and bootstrapped B2B SaaS companies.

The remote Ukraine-Senior model gives you:

• 30–60% cost reduction. Same Senior expertise, same deliverables, transparent fixed-fee USD pricing.
• Single point of contact. No account manager, no project coordinator, no creative director "stepping in" mid-call. You talk directly with the person doing the work.
• Async-friendly cadence. The 7-hour gap (Bay Area EST → Kyiv) is a feature: I work while you sleep, you wake up to demos and questions in Slack, we sync 1× per week on Zoom.
• Production-grade quality. Same modern stack (Next.js, React, TypeScript, Tailwind), same accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA, ADA-compliant), same handoff specs as a top-tier Bay Area agency.
• Transparent fixed pricing. No hourly invoices, no scope-creep surprises. You know the total before we start.

USD pricing model

All projects are quoted as fixed fee in USD, paid 50% upfront / 50% on delivery (or split into milestones for projects > $20K). No hourly invoices. If scope changes mid-project — we re-quote, you approve in writing, and the change is added with a clear delta.

Indicative ranges to set expectations (every quote is bespoke, but these brackets are realistic):

• UI/UX design — landing or simple website (4-6 weeks). $8,000–18,000. Bay Area agency equivalent: $30,000–80,000.
• Corporate website — full design + dev (8-12 weeks). $20,000–45,000. Bay Area agency equivalent: $80,000–250,000.
• B2B SaaS / web app — design + frontend + backend (16-28 weeks). $50,000–180,000.
• UX audit (2-3 weeks). $4,000–9,000.
• Branding — full identity system (8-12 weeks). $12,000–30,000.
• SEO retainer (3-6 months minimum). $2,500–6,000/month.
• Fractional CPO / consulting (15-20 hrs/month, 6+ months). $4,000–8,000/month.

Discounts apply when you bundle services (e.g. design + development + SEO together) — typically 15-25% vs. ordering each separately.

How the async workflow handles the timezone gap

The 7-hour difference between San Francisco (EST/EDT) and Kyiv (EET/EEST) is the biggest concern most Bay Area clients raise — and it's the easiest to solve. The honest answer: most Bay Area startup founders and product teams already work async with Slack-first cadence. The remote-Ukraine engagement just formalises what's already happening internally.

• Daily Slack handoff. When you wake up at 8am Bay Area time, I've already worked 8 hours. There's a thread in #project with the day's progress, demo link (Figma / Vercel preview), and 2-3 specific questions that need your call. You answer over coffee — by 4pm Bay Area time I'm already incorporating your feedback.
• Weekly Zoom sync. One 60-90 minute call per week, scheduled at 8am Bay Area / 3pm Kyiv. We walk through what shipped, what's next, what's blocked.
• Loom for async demos. Instead of scheduling a meeting to "show you what I built", I record a 5-10 minute walkthrough.
• Notion / Linear for tracking. Whatever you use, I'll join. No new tool to learn.
• Emergency Zoom on demand. Critical decisions get a 15-minute Zoom call within 4 hours of request, regardless of timezone.

Cases — Bay Area and US clients in my portfolio

My portfolio contains 130+ projects, including B2B SaaS for US founders, DTC brand sites for Bay Area and LA-based companies, and fintech dashboards for clients on the East Coast. For NDA reasons I can't list every client publicly — but on the discovery call I'll walk you through 5-10 most-relevant cases for your specific niche.

Other services for San Francisco businesses

• UI/UX design
• Web development
• Mobile app design
• Mobile app development
• Branding and logo design
• E-commerce
• CRM / ERP / SaaS
• SEO, Google Ads, SMM, email marketing
• UX audit, CRO
• Business consulting, product strategy

Other US and EU cities I serve

• Los Angeles — entertainment, creative agencies, e-commerce
• San Francisco / Bay Area — B2B SaaS, deep-tech, AI
• Boston — biotech, ed-tech, university spinoffs
• Austin — startups, gaming, tech
• London — fintech, B2B SaaS, creative
• Manchester — northern tech hub, sport-tech, MediaCity
• Edinburgh — fintech, ed-tech, data science

Full list of locations on the "Service Areas" page.

Ready to discuss your Bay Area project?

Fill out the contact form or message me through the channels in the footer. The first 60-90 minute call is free — we'll discuss your business, product goals, indicative scope, USD budget range, and timeline. If you have an existing site / app, I'll do a quick express-review and show you 3-5 issues that can be fixed in the first week, even before signing a full engagement.

Common mistakes Bay Area businesses make commissioning seo

• Hiring on hourly rate. A $25/hour practitioner in Eastern Europe is statistically a junior at best. The 30-60% cost gap with Bay Area agencies isn't from hourly rate — it's from removing layered agency overhead.
• Skipping the discovery phase to "save money". A 1-2 week paid discovery is the cheapest insurance against a $50K mistake.
• Not asking about IP and ownership. Get this in writing before kickoff.
• Underestimating the value of single-contact engagement. Talking directly to the person building your product cuts requirement-translation losses by ~40%.
• Treating seo as a one-off project. The strongest results come from continuous iteration, not handoff-and-forget.

2025-2026 trends I apply on Bay Area client seo projects

• Topical authority over keyword-stuffing — clusters and pillar pages
• Helpful Content Update + EEAT — author bios, citations, original research
• Programmatic SEO done right — quality at scale, not thin pages
• AI-search optimization — generative engine results require structured data
• Local SEO with proper GBP, citations, NAP consistency
• Internal linking as a primary lever (not just "add some links")
• Core Web Vitals as a real ranking factor for competitive niches