How to Pick the Best SEO Marketing Agency

Sound SEO practices are essential if you want your website to appear near the top of relevant Google searches. You can’t just create a website and sit back, waiting for potential customers to flock to you. 

It takes hard work and solid SEO practices to ensure your web pages appear in competitive organic positions in website searches. If you don’t have internal talent conversant with the latest search engine optimization (SEO) trends, techniques, and practices you will most probably have to outsource this work to experts. 

But do you know how to pick the best SEO marketing agency? Read on and we will suggest what to look for, as well as offer a few red flags that are a good sign to move away from an agency as quickly as possible.

How to Pick the Best SEO Marketing Agency:

What Can an SEO Marketing Agency Do for You?

The main purpose of SEO marketing agencies is to ensure that your web pages are visible near the top of Google and other search engines for relevant searches. Potential customers need to find your site when they are searching for a business in your niche. If you don’t follow sound SEO practices you run a real risk that people can’t find your website, and that it will sit there, unviewed, unread, unknown, and uncared for.

First page search results importance stats

Being on the first page of search results is crucial. According to a survey by Teknicks, only 6.6% of users are willing to go to the second page or beyond on a Google search. Furthermore, only 57.7% of users are likely to scroll down page one to see additional results if they aren't satisfied with the top results. Research from Advanced Web Ranking shows that while 71.33% of searches result in an organic click on page one, pages two and three only get 5.59% of clicks. 

To rank in these top positions, you need a robust SEO strategy. This involves understanding how Google’s algorithm works, which includes over 200 ranking signals, and focusing on user intent through keyword research. Additionally, maintaining strong on-page SEO practices ensures that your content is easily readable and relevant to search engines, ultimately improving your chances of being seen by potential customers in those vital top search results.

SEO marketing agencies are staffed by SEO experts, who understand current trends and best practices to ensure that their clients achieve the best possible organic search rankings for keyword terms relevant to their objectives. 

Most SEO marketing agencies will have created systems they use to ensure your SEO practices give the best possible results. They will have templates they follow to report on their progress, highlighting successes and making recommendations for further improvement.

Master SEO Basics to Choose the Best SEO Agency

Not all SEO agencies are equal. They range in scale from one-person beginners to divisions of global full-service marketing agencies. But you can’t always assume that the largest agencies (or those quoting the highest fees) will generate the best results for your business. 

It can be particularly difficult hiring what you hope to be the best SEO marketing agency if you don’t have any understanding of what good SEO looks like. In the worst case, it could be a case of “the blind leading the blind” and you would be blissfully ignorant when comparing agency capabilities. 

To be able to hire the best SEO marketing agency for your company’s requirements you need to understand the basics of SEO yourself. You should be able to be able to distinguish a long-tail keyword from a backlink from a meta description. You should be capable of looking at a set of SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), determining how your business ranks, and then repeating the performance after six months to see the level of improvement, thanks to the agency you selected. 

Main facets of SEO

You need to learn the basics of the main facets of SEO, including:

• On-site SEO (how your web pages should be written to attract the search engines’ attention)
• Off-page SEO (strategies you can take outside your website to improve your rankings)
• Technical SEO (things you can do to your website behind the scenes to make it easier for the search engine spiders to find and prioritize your important content)
• Local SEO (actions that help your content appear in local search results for your preferred regions)
• eCommerce SEO (SEO factors specific to ensuring your eCommerce stores and products rank highly compared to your competitors in searches)
• Voice SEO (becoming increasingly important now that so many make their searches by speaking into their phones)

Remember, the goal here isn’t for you to learn everything about SEO, so that you can do your own SEO. You undoubtedly have better uses for your time than to become an SEO expert, and if you wanted your SEO performed internally you would probably hire somebody for that. You are only learning sufficient SEO so that you can understand the experts’ reports and check the veracity of potential SEO agency’s claims.

Determine Your Expectations When Working with an SEO Marketing Agency

Now you know what SEO is and can understand how effective your company’s existing SEO practices are, you will want to determine what you expect from any SEO marketing agency you choose to work with.

This will make things easier for you when you set SEO-related goals which you can then communicate to potential SEO partners. Many SEO agencies specialize in particular areas (e.g. local SEO, seo strategy agencies, finding backlinks, establishing the best keywords to target). 

An agency may give world-leading advice on their area of specialty, but not have any involvement in other types of SEO. By establishing SEO objectives and goals, you can focus on finding the best agency for your needs and bypass those agencies that are irrelevant to meeting your goals.

You need to think carefully about what your intended outcome from an SEO campaign is. You can’t just vaguely wish to “appear higher in Google”. Here are some specific goals to inspire you:

• Do you want your website (or specific web pages) to rank higher for certain keywords? 
• Do you want to use SEO to build name recognition for your business? 
• Are you trying to increase the number of qualified leads you have, or perhaps make more sales from organic search? 

Your SEO goals will dictate the SEO strategies you should use, and a good SEO marketing agency will be able to formulate and suggest the best tactics to use to meet your goals.

Common Pricing Structures for SEO Marketing Agencies

SEO Agency pricing models

Most SEO agencies don’t publicize precise prices on their websites. That’s because there are many variable factors, meaning agencies prefer to give custom quotes, factoring in a particular lead’s needs. 

However, you will often see mention on their website of how SEO agencies structure their pricing. Even if they don’t explicitly give this information away on their website, you can ask them, and their pricing structure will become obvious once they have given you a quote. Here are a few examples. 

Monthly Retainer

You contract an SEO agency to perform a specific set of services each month for an agreed price, most commonly referred to as an SEO package. For example, you may pay your agency a retainer to analyze your website’s SEO performance each month and come up with a list of recommendations of what you can do to improve performance over the next month.

Hourly Rate

Many SEO agencies bill hourly, at least for some of their work. This could be the best way if you change your SEO needs regularly and don’t have your agency perform a fixed set of SEO activities each month.

Project-Based Pricing

Here you split jobs by projects. You hire your SEO marketing agency for an agreed price to perform a specific project. For example, you may pay an agency to carry out an SEO audit for you. You could then decide to retain the services of your agency to create a plan to improve your SEO results.

Set a Realistic Budget for the SEO Services You Employ

While your financial position will affect the amount of money you can dedicate to SEO, you need to be realistic in the budget you set. SEO can be a slow progress and you can’t expect quick results. However, if you don’t engage in SEO, you risk all of your online listings being crowded out of the best search engine positions by your competitors’ listings. 

Most agencies set minimum campaign sizes that they are prepared to handle. We show some of these in Top 10 SEO Pricing Packages for Rapid Online Expansion. For example:

There is quite some variation in the prices that agencies charge, particularly the packages, and this will be mainly because of agencies packaging different services at each price level (and in some cases being based in different locations). Make certain that you understand what is included in any quotes agencies give you.

The SEO services you purchase from your agency may change over time as your business grows and you can increase the budget allocated to it.

Begin Researching for the Best SEO Marketing Agency

You could begin researching by asking for recommendations from your network. Ask for suggestions and thoughts from your friends and professional colleagues. Ask them about any experiences they may have had with SEO marketing agencies, both good and bad. You could ask for recommendations from members of any relevant online group or forums you may belong to.

You can find possibilities by doing an online search. You may want to narrow your search to focus on SEO agencies in your area, who specialize in your business size, or those that focus on your industry. Look at the services that an agency offers and look for those that overlap with your marketing goals. For example, if you aim to find an SEO marketing agency to carry out an SEO audit, look for some reference to that in the Service section of their website.

The Influencer Marketing Hub Agency Hub can provide you with many details about numerous marketing agencies of all types, including those offering SEO services, along with profiles of many agencies and numerous invaluable insights into what these agencies can do for you. Take particular notice of the services agencies offer and the minimum price they charge for their services.

Take a close look at reviews for agencies offering SEO services on customer review websites like Google Business Profile, Yelp, and even Facebook. 

Red Flags to Look Out for When Trying to Pick the Best SEO Marketing Agency for Your Needs

As you research, looking for the best SEO marketing agency within your budget, you may encounter some red flags that should warn you against working with a particular agency. This is why it is helpful to learn the basics of SEO first, so you can understand website claims that are likely to be too good to be true. Many of these red flags are false claims designed to sway your decision-making.

The first thing to understand is that nobody can guarantee you a particular search ranking. Any claim that promises to get you to Number One on Google or another search engine is worthless. The search engines are constantly changing their algorithms, and, most likely your rankings will regularly change, regardless of how good the tactics of your SEO agency may be.

Similarly, it takes time for your website and content to rise to the top levels of Google, Bing, YouTube, and other search engines. Don’t believe any claims you see from SEO agencies promising instant results. Such claims are at best insubstantial puff, and at worst a sign that they will use dangerous Black Hat tactics, likely to have negative long-term consequences for your website, possibly even delisting by Google.

Later, when you are evaluating proposals from short-listed agencies, you should also take a close look at outliers from the norm.  Why would one agency quote you a price considerably cheaper than everybody else? What do the other agencies propose to do that the cheap agency doesn’t? Is an agency suggesting that they can produce results in a much quicker time than everybody else? If so, how do they intend to produce their speedy results?

Be doubtful of agencies that suggest they have a secret method to manipulate the search engines that they alone know. In this case, take a close look at their case studies. Have they worked with any industry-leading big-name clients? If an SEO agency genuinely had a magical formula, they would be able to charge massive sums for their services that only industry-leading companies could afford.

Be particularly wary of agencies promising you a large number of “guaranteed” backlinks and other underhand SEO techniques (such as keyword stuffing) for a price. Google is well aware of these tactics nowadays and heavily penalizes websites that engage in them. If this is your focus, consider reading our article on the top backlinking agencies that follow best practices to ensure your website's success.

Create a Short List of Your Top Options

Hopefully, your research will have uncovered multiple potential SEO agencies from which you could select. Take a closer look at your list now and create a short list of the three to five agencies you believe have the most potential to be a suitable match. You want to look closer at these agencies and establish how effective they would be at meeting your desired SEO marketing objectives.

Examine any case studies on the shortlisted SEO agencies’ web pages, looking for examples of them performing services similar to what you want, particularly if you can find examples for businesses like yours. Sure, they will always be positive about the agency in question (you are never going to read about an agency’s failures), but they can give you a good idea of the agency’s capabilities.

Agency websites can sometimes be challenging, because they focus more on selling their capabilities and looking visually appealing, than on explaining what they can do in simple terms. Do your best to get past the pretty pictures, parallax scrolling, industry jargon, and sales talk. Look at any resources they share, perhaps on a blog, or in the form of White Papers, as well as what they share on their social sites. Do they display any evidence of being an SEO industry leader?

You will want to establish whether an agency has a clearly defined process to execute its SEO strategies. You are looking for evidence of expertise and that they know how to do what they promise.

While you’re looking at agency websites, pay attention to the team members they highlight. The more promises an agency makes, the larger the team of SEO experts they will need to employ. That doesn’t mean that you should avoid small SEO agencies, particularly if you’re small with a limited budget, but it does mean that you need to ensure the scale of any agency you may be working with matches its promises. 

Ask for Proposals from Those on Your Short List

By this point, you should have established whether you would feel equally happy to work with all members on your Short List, or whether you can remove some. Now you should reach out to those remaining on your list. 

Explain your needs to them, and ask them to make you a proposal, in which they come up with a plan to meet your SEO objectives and ask them to quote you the price they would charge. Some may propose optional extras for an additional sum.

Evaluate the Proposals and Decide on the Best SEO Marketing Agency for Your Needs

Once you have received proposals from the SEO marketing agencies on your short list you can begin the process of evaluating them. You will want to take a close interest in factors like:

• The price that the agency quotes you for their services
• The precise services that they propose to do in return for your payment
• A clear description of intended deliverables
• Suggested timelines
• The KPIs they will use to measure the success of your campaign
• How well these fit together with the goals and objectives you have set for their work

As you compare proposals you will want to take note of any marked differences between them, noting features that make one agency stand out from the others. Ask yourself, will these differences assist you meet your goals, and are they worth paying extra for? 

In many cases, you will work with your selected SEO marketing agency as an extension of your in-house marketing team. Indeed, it may be a member (or team) of your Marketing Department that decides on the best agency to work with. You need to ensure that your existing marketing team understands the comparative roles of the SEO agency and themselves. You will probably need to assign some member of your team to act as a liaison to avoid any misunderstanding or poor communication. 

Once you’ve decided on the best SEO digital marketing agency for your needs, you will receive a contract from your chosen agency. This should itemize the deliverables and outline any requirements. You may wish to have your legal team check through the contract to ensure that it doesn’t include any surprises that may haunt you in the future. 

Wrapping Things Up

It can be time and resource-consuming to pick the best SEO marketing agency, particularly if SEO is merely a three-letter acronym to you, and you don’t understand the ins and outs of search engine optimization. 

It is vital that you communicate regularly with your SEO agency, keeping on top of any SEO reports and updates they give you, and keep a close observation of how well your agency helps you meet your SEO goals. 

About the Author

Nadica Naceva

Writer

Nadica Naceva, Head of Content at Influencer Marketing Hub, is a seasoned writer and reviewer with in-depth expertise in digital and content marketing. Leveraging her extensive experience in guiding content creation and strategic direction, Nadica brings a critical eye and analytical approach to reviewing articles and educational pieces. Her commitment to accuracy, integrity, and innovation with each review helps IMH grow as a leading source in influencer marketing. Her insights are backed by first-party data, ensuring content meets the highest standards of relevance.