Lornah Ngugi is a seasoned digital marketing writer with 6+ years of experience translating complex marketing strategies into engaging, results-driven content. She holds a B.S. in Business Information Technology and is certified in HubSpot Academy, Google Analytics, LinkedIn Marketing, and Google Digital Academy. Lornah regularly contributes to the WebFX blog and SEO.com, where she’s authored hundreds of marketing guides that help readers turn their goals into measurable results through practical, data-informed insights. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her enjoying a quiet walk in the park, sipping black coffee, or finding creative inspiration in a good chocolate bar.
Palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy.
You’re about to choose an SEO company, and your entire team is counting on you to find an agency that will achieve everything you — and leadership — want from search engine optimization (SEO).
Shake off the nerves and take the shot with this data-backed guide, which covers:
Choosing an SEO company starts with your stakeholders and their requirements for outsourcing. Understanding what your company needs and expects from an SEO firm helps you filter agencies faster, communicate effectively with potential candidates, and ensure efficient allocation of budget and resources.
Budget: How much is your business willing to spend on SEO? We recommend setting aside between $500 to $7,000 monthly for SEO, depending on your company size, project scope, and service provider. Use our free SEO cost calculator to estimate your company’s SEO budget.
Pricing models: Are you seeking ongoing monthly SEO services or prefer a fixed contract? Depending on your needs, you can choose from various pricing models, including monthly retainers, fixed contracts, hourly contracts, or one-time project fees.
Goals: What does your company want to accomplish by outsourcing SEO, and when? This helps you determine what areas and services an SEO agency must provide to fit your criteria.
Location: Does your team prefer to work with an agency in the area? Or is your team willing and able to work with a provider in the same or similar time zone?
Specialization: Are you looking for help with SEO or something more specific, like local SEO? Their industry experience, SEO approach, service lists, and team expertise let you know how well a company can handle your SEO needs.
Customization: Are you okay with a one-size-fits-all approach, or would you prefer a custom SEO strategy? A custom SEO strategy improves user experiences, increases brand authority, enhances visibility, and ensures long-term growth and sustainability.
2. Research potential SEO companies
With your key requirements nailed, it’s time to review different agencies to find the best fit for your business. Referrals and word-of-mouth marketing are an excellent starting point for finding good SEO agency options.
The Internet is another great resource for finding SEO company options. Some online resources that may lead you to the SEO agency of your dreams include social media, third-party review sites, and agency websites.
When searching online for an SEO company, keep in mind how you search. For example, suppose you’re focused on getting the lowest price possible from a reputable SEO company. In that case, you’ll often search in a way that lists cheap SEO agencies — agencies advertising SEO services for a few hundred dollars each month — which won’t meet your needs for a reputable provider.
You’re better off refining your searches with keywords such as:
Trevin S.Vice President of Business Operations at WebFX
“Past and proven performance is the most important factor, in my mind, when somebody is looking to find an SEO partner.”
Trevin adds that the Internet has made it easy to say loads of nice things about yourself to make yourself look like a reputable agency, despite only having surface-level knowledge and experience. However, truly successful SEO agencies must have specific, proven, and verifiable results available for potential clients.
SEO companies use case studies and testimonials to showcase their ability to meet and exceed client expectations. However, you shouldn’t take everything at face value — do a deep dive to verify these by researching and ensuring the client exists.
You should also check the featured client’s website using tools like Screaming Frog to audit common SEO issues, like broken links, duplicate content, image optimization, on-page metadata, and URL structure. This proves whether the SEO company is as good as it claims.
When evaluating a search engine optimization firm’s case studies, look for the following:
Objectives: What was the client (and agency) trying to achieve?
Metrics: What metrics did they measure results, and did they align with the client’s objectives?
Timeframe: How long did the campaign last, and what timeframe was used to measure change
Approach: What’s the agency’s SEO process, and how do they execute SEO strategies?
Testimonials: What does the client say about their experience?
4. Review past results
Reviewing past results helps verify that selected SEO companies actually do what they say they can do. Other than examining case studies and testimonials, there are other ways to confirm a company’s ability to meet or exceed your expectations. Some of these include:
Reviews: Reading reviews on their website or third-party websites like Trustpilot and Google Reviews helps you understand where the agency excels, misses the mark, and how they handle feedback. Look for a balance of positive, neutral, and negative reviews.
Certifications: Checking for SEO certifications, such as the Google Premier Partner, which Google awards to the top 3% of agencies.
Company website: Evaluating an agency’s online presence to ensure their website is SEO-optimized, showcasing the capabilities and expertise.
Awards: Review any awards they may have received as a stamp of approval for their good work, such as the Clutch Top SEO Company in the USA.
Experience: Evaluating their overall experience, targeting companies with several years or decades of experience to ensure their knowledge of current and future SEO trends. Hiring a company with niche or industry experience ensures they understand the trends and challenges that affect your business.
You can go the extra step and request the agency to contact a few past and present clients. Trevin recommends calling three to five current clients of a particular SEO vendor to vet them. “Ask them how they like working with that particular company,” he advises.
Additional questions you can ask include:
How long have you worked with this SEO company?
What were your goals when you hired the SEO agency, and have you achieved them?
How fast do they return your calls or emails?
How much of your time is spent working with the agency?
What is one thing the SEO firm could do better?
Would you recommend them? Why or why not?
If the agency refuses to provide a client list or can’t compile at least three to five current clients, reconsider choosing that SEO company. Likely, they don’t have any raving fans — or don’t have a large enough client base.
5. Request a list of deliverables
Deliverables are your best friend when shopping for SEO agencies because they share the what, when, and how of SEO services. From the deliverables, you’ll learn what the agency will do for you, when they’ll do it, and how much it’ll cost you.
Most SEO companies do not publish their service deliverables online (WebFX is an exception), so you’ll need to contact the agencies for this step. Again, the agency will likely want to speak with you to determine if you’re a good fit for their marketing services before sharing their deliverables.
Once you have the deliverables, check if they include the following key deliverables:
If you spoke with the agency, see if the deliverables include anything specific to your discussions. While not required, this additional touch can show the agency listened to your SEO needs and is invested in working with your business.
6. Look out for common SEO company red flags
Rogue SEO companies have a tendency to clickbait, unknowing businesses with click-bait offerings and overpromises. The good thing is, all the bad SEO agencies make all the same mistakes, which makes it easier for customers like you to avoid being baited and disappointed with their underperformance in the end.
Some of the most common red flags to look out for to ensure you’re getting your money’s worth include:
Unrealistic timeframes: Contrary to popular belief, SEO is not a one-off process, and neither does it drive fast results. It should ideally take three to six months for SEO to start driving results, like increased organic traffic, leads, and conversions.
Guaranteed results: Reputable SEO companies don’t promise you guaranteed page-one rankings and instant results. This is beyond them, and up to the search engine alogrithms and ongoing optimization.
Lack of transparency: A good SEO company should be comfortable sharing details about the strategies and technologies they need to complete your project. They must be able to provide regular SEO reports and updates while also maintaining open and honest communication.
One-size-fits-all packages: SEO should not be conducted as a standardized method. Rather, you should work with companies that offer custom strategies built around your unique needs and goals.
Overuse of automation: While AI tools help agencies automate processes and improve efficiency and productivity, overuse may lead to subpar results and a lack of personalization. It also leads to inauthentic campaigns and content that violates Google spam policies.
7. Ask questions
The final step in how to choose an SEO company revolves around meeting your potential agencies.
Before you contract an SEO agency, you want to meet them. Whether you meet in person or virtually, like through a video conference, that face-to-face meeting can help your team determine if they are the right SEO agency for you. Come to the meeting with questions, too.
Expert insights from
Trevin S. Vice President of Business Operations at WebFX
People sometimes apologize for asking us questions in the sales process. I think that the more questions that you can ask about past performance, the clearer picture you’re going to get about how skilled an SEO agency is and how well they’re able to perform.
A well-rounded company has nothing to hide. They’ll have a whole bunch of clients eager and willing to share their experience working with them.
For the best meet-and-greet, brainstorm various questions with your team and company leaders. While your team may have questions about strategy and reporting, your decision-makers may have questions about pricing and return on investment (ROI).
Make sure you also feel comfortable with the agency. You want to feel like you can ask questions, voice concerns, and more. If you don’t, it can lead to problems with developing a long-term partnership, which is critical as SEO is a long-term, ongoing strategy.
🎥Video: How to Pick an SEO Agency
Top 3 mistakes smart businesses make when picking an SEO company
Everyone makes mistakes, and that includes the best businesses. However, you can avoid making the same mistakes when you understand some pitfalls your peers may have made. Here’s a breakdown of the top three mistakes many small and medium-sized businesses make when choosing an SEO agency.
1. Choosing a “cheap” SEO agency
Price does matter when it comes to SEO services and agencies. You want to set an SEO budget and find an SEO company within that budget. The mistake, however, is that many businesses set unrealistic budgets.
For instance, they see agencies offering SEO for $100 monthly and think that’s reasonable. The truth, however, is that the SEO companies promoting those ultra-low rates often underdeliver. For example, they underdeliver on strategy by using copy-and-paste approaches to deliver nonexistent returns. Or they fail to communicate with your team.
Again, this lack of service results in terrible customer experience and returns. Sometimes, they’ll use black-hat SEO practices, resulting in a Google penalty, damaging your site’s reputation, and threatening legal implications.
With SEO, you get what you pay for, so you need a realistic budget. A feasible monthly budget for SEO services is between $500 and $7,500 on average per month, though this number can fluctuate based on your strategy, company size, and more factors.
2. Browsing only local SEO companies
Working with top local SEO agencies is a bonus, but it can limit you in many ways. You want to prioritize experience, performance, and client experience over location because that will impact the quality of your SEO services the most.
Limiting yourself to a small area can stop your business from achieving the desired results. Working with a local and inexperienced agency while your competitor partners with an experienced agency several states away can prevent your company and website from ranking at the top of valuable search results and capturing that organic traffic.
That means less revenue, leads, and conversions for you and more for your competitor. Even if you choose an SEO company that isn’t local, they will often try to bridge the gap.
For example, they may occasionally travel to meet your team in person. Or, they may use video conferencing, phone calls, and community chat platforms to chat with your team in a more personable way.
3. Selecting a black-hat SEO agency
Black-hat SEO is an unethical and ineffective long-term SEO tactic. While you can use black-hat approaches to rank in organic search results quickly, you will fall from page one fast.
According to recent statistics, 70% of websites hit with Google penalties are unable to recover within a year. Worse, Google may even ban your website from ever appearing in its own search engine results, which means people wouldn’t be able to find your business’s site via the world’s biggest search engine.
You don’t want that, so you must focus on established and ethical SEO agencies that implement white-hat SEO strategies. These companies use best practices and ethical strategies that help your company rank in organic search results.
In most cases, low-cost SEO services and black-hat SEO agencies go hand-in-hand. You can also tell an agency is using black-hat SEO strategies if they don’t provide you with accurate analytics and reports and lack transparency on the SEO approach.
How businesses are choosing an SEO company in 2025
Before compiling our advice on choosing an SEO agency, we wanted to understand how organizations pick an SEO company today. So, we polled 500 U.S.-based marketing and sales professionals to understand their motivations, processes, and satisfaction with their pick.
Key Takeaways
61% of businesses hire an SEO firm for the expertise
46% of businesses would recommend their SEO agency to a friend
Most businesses find an SEO company through referrals
Reputation is the #1 factor in businesses choosing an SEO company
Why are companies hiring an SEO agency?
Companies are hiring an SEO agency for one big reason: Their expertise.
From our conversations, we learned that 61% of businesses hire an SEO firm because the business doesn’t have the expertise to do search engine optimization in-house. For smaller companies, a lack of results was the biggest motivator for outsourcing their SEO campaign.
When it came to choosing an SEO company, we knew that research was critical. Businesses need the tools to research an SEO service provider in-depth so they can verify the agency’s expertise.
Case studies, reviews, awards, and client references could help businesses find the right SEO company for their needs.
Source data
OUTSOURCE REASON
% OF MARKETERS
Lack of expertise
26.87%
Lack of resources
22.70%
More cost-effective
21.48%
Lack of results
15.48%
Lack of time
10.70%
Other
2.78%
How are companies finding an SEO agency?
Companies lean heavily on one channel for finding an SEO agency: Referrals from friends to colleagues, sales and marketing professionals in their circles.
If they don’t find what they’re looking for from their network, though, they’ll turn to search engines, which put the expertise of SEO service providers to the test. However, more than 20% of respondents shared that SEO agencies have contacted them directly.
While an effective sales tactic, direct outreach gets a mixed reception because of its use of:
Aggressive sales tactics, like pushing a limited-time offer
Overpromising results, like promising page-one rankings in 30 days
Limited transparency, like shrinking from sharing pricing or deliverables
After learning how companies find an SEO marketing company, we knew education was important. Businesses needed to educate themselves before picking an SEO company on what reputable, trustworthy agencies look like so they could evaluate firms and direct outreach offers effectively.
Source data
SOURCE
% OF MARKETERS
Referral
31%
Direct outreach by service provider
21.60%
Online search
17%
Industry conference or event
14%
Social media
13.80%
Other
2.06%
How are companies choosing an SEO agency?
Companies weigh several factors when choosing an SEO agency. The most to least important are:
Reputation overall
Price
Reputation in a specific industry
Experience and expertise
Customer service
SEO rankings
Only enterprise-level businesses placed SEO costs as the most important factor, followed by reputation. Based on this information, we knew companies need to do a few things before picking an SEO agency:
Understand the benefits of a long-term SEO partnership vs. short-term
Are companies satisfied with their SEO companies?
Companies appeared satisfied with their SEO company, with 46% willing to recommend their SEO partner. Meanwhile, 53.8% of businesses would not recommend their SEO provider to a friend.
As a part of our survey, businesses rated their satisfaction using Net Promoter Score (NPS). Most polled as Promoters, meaning they would recommend their SEO provider to a friend. The remaining, a total of 53.8%, were Detractors (dissatisfied) or Passives (neutral).
From this data, we knew that while most companies weren’t dissatisfied with their SEO provider, the majority weren’t willing to recommend their SEO firm to a friend or colleague, which is the number one way businesses go about choosing a good SEO company!
Again, we knew education was essential in helping businesses evaluate SEO agencies and find the best SEO company.
We also knew that companies had an opportunity to change what they look for in an SEO services provider, as de-prioritizing customer service in the shopping process likely affected their experience (and satisfaction) later.
Top SEO companies in the world
Now that we’ve talked all about the dos and don’ts of how to choose an SEO company, it’s time to put it all into practice. Start by exploring some of the top SEO companies in the world.
From the U.S. to Australia, we’ve rounded up five of the top SEO service providers:
Okay, you got us, but hear us out. As an award-winningfull-service SEO agency with 830+ reviews across sites like Google and Clutch, and 25+ years of experience, we can’t help but throw our metaphorical hat in the ring.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for SEO, which is why our SEO services are fully custom. We dig deep into your business’s website, audience, and competitors to get a 360° understanding of your online presence. Then, we take those insights and turn them into results-driving optimizations.
So, how do we get that crucial data? With the help of our very own marketing automation software, RevenueCloudFX. Fueled by 1+ billion data points, RevenueCloudFX has helped our partners see a 20% average ROI increase from their digital marketing efforts.
Education, healthcare, automotive, ecommerce, professional, and manufacturing SEO
SEO auditing
Content marketing
Technical and organic SEO
Digital PR
Why We Picked Them
For expert SEO services in the U.K., look no further than The SEO Works. As a team of SEOs with over a decade of experience helping diverse businesses, The SEO Works offers industry-specific SEO services to help you land a top spot on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Looking for the best SEO company in Israel? Check out what you can get with Angora Media:
Outsource routine SEO tasks, like competitor research
Customize which metrics to improve, like leads or rankings
Access supporting services like social media and paid advertising
Measuring SEO agency performance: A post-hire checklist
Choosing the right agency is the first step towards improving your online visibility and boosting your website traffic. However, it’s important to review how well they’re delivering their promises after hiring to ensure you maximize your results and return on investment (ROI):
Track SEO key performance indicators (KPIs) like search rankings, organic website traffic, organic click-through rate (CTR), search visibility, conversion rate, and bounce rates
Schedule regular meetings with the company to review and discuss progress, identify shortcomings, and recommend improvements
Assess whether they’re communicative, collaborative, and open to feedback. If they’re not, this may be a sign that you’ll be disappointed in the long run
Analyze how well brands and values align to ensure you work together to achieve the same goals
Ensure you have a dedicated point of contact to minimize the risk of miscommunication and increase project efficiency
Make sure you’re comfortable with how often and the methods they use to follow through and follow-up
Analyze your ROI — a positive ROI means your SEO agency of choice is utilizing your budget efficiently and earning direct financial gains
Independent research from Clutch has named WebFX the top SEO company in the United States.
Clutch has personally interviewed more than 250 WebFX clients to discuss their experience partnering with us.
Learn more about how to find the right SEO company
The tips in this guide will help you choose an experienced, competent, and reliable SEO company that drives desired results. Do you want to get more tips about how to choose the right SEO company?
Craft a tailored online marketing strategy! Utilize our free Internet marketing calculator for a custom plan based on your location, reach, timeframe, and budget.
Craft a tailored online marketing strategy! Utilize our free Internet marketing calculator for a custom plan based on your location, reach, timeframe, and budget.
Lornah Ngugi is a seasoned digital marketing writer with 6+ years of experience translating complex marketing strategies into engaging, results-driven content. She holds a B.S. in Business Information Technology and is certified in HubSpot Academy, Google Analytics, LinkedIn Marketing, and Google Digital Academy. Lornah regularly contributes to the WebFX blog and SEO.com, where she’s authored hundreds of marketing guides that help readers turn their goals into measurable results through practical, data-informed insights. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her enjoying a quiet walk in the park, sipping black coffee, or finding creative inspiration in a good chocolate bar.
