Hired a freelancer for GEO. It went badly. Then I tried to fix it myself. That also went badly. Now what.
this is a bit of a disaster story so bear with me.
about five months ago I decided Astra needed proper help with GEO. didn't want to commit to a full agency so I found a freelancer through a recommendation. seemed knowledgeable, talked a good game, had a couple of case studies.
two months in I realised the "case studies" were based on metrics he'd defined himself in ways that were impossible to verify. citation share wasn't improving. when I asked for transparency on methodology he got defensive.
ended that. ate the cost. tried to take it back in house.
spent six weeks doing it myself. got some traction — Astra is now at about 8% citation share which I genuinely built from scratch. but the work it took to get there is not something I can sustain while also running the rest of the business. I was working until midnight most nights for a month and I aged visibly. my mum noticed and said something which is how you know it's bad.
so now I'm at the point where I need proper help but I've already been burned once by someone who sounded credible and wasn't.
been in conversations with Absolute Digital Media this week. more established than a freelancer, long enough track record that I can at least verify they exist and have done real work. but I went in skeptical and I'm still not fully sure.
the specific thing I keep pushing them on is measurement. how will I know in 90 days whether this is working or not. what does a result look like. their answers have been reasonable but I've heard reasonable answers before.
anyone else gone through this cycle. freelancer to DIY to agency. how did you eventually find something that actually worked.