What Is an SEO Agency or Company?

An SEO (search engine optimization) agency, or SEO company, is a professional services firm that specializes in increasing the amount of traffic that your website gets from search engines — specifically, from the organic search results section of search engine results pages (SERPs).

Building an SEO channel can take a lot of time and effort. And if you’re just starting out with SEO, it can feel a little overwhelming. There’s a lot of jargon, and getting the hang of everything takes some practice. So a lot of businesses hire an SEO agency to help.

I’ll admit that I’ve never actually hired an SEO agency. I’ve always built and scaled organic search strategies for my companies myself. And I’m not an SEO consultant, and Positional is not an agency.

That being said, I’ve talked to more than 40 SEO consultants and agency leaders on my weekly SEO podcast, Optimize, and I’ve reviewed the work of many SEO agencies over the past few years.

What Does an SEO Agency Do?

Whether you’re selling a software product or creating recipe content, you want to get found online.

Search engines like Google are how most people find information and get answers to questions online — yes, even today, with the fast rise of AI tools like ChatGPT. 

SEO is the process of creating webpages to serve specific keywords that people search for, so those pages appear in top positions on SERPs for those keywords. 

An SEO agency could help you show up here (near the top of search results):

I’ll note that we’re talking about the organic section of the SERP, and not the paid or sponsored section that you can bid for placement in.

An SEO agency will help you with on-page SEO. This includes:

• Determining the keywords you should try to rank for.
• Creating new webpages to serve the keywords you want to appear highly for.
• Optimizing those webpages to give them the best chance of ranking highly.
• Working to improve the rankings of your existing webpages.
• Ensuring that your website doesn’t have any technical SEO issues.

And an SEO agency will also help you with off-page SEO. This includes:

• Building backlinks to your website. (Backlinks have always been an important part of SEO, but building them the right way can be incredibly difficult and time-consuming.)

And a good agency should help you monitor the results of your efforts — for example, by tracking and reporting on changes in your keyword rankings in organic search results.

An SEO agency should also help guide you when you’re making general website changes.

Types of SEO Agencies

There are many different types of SEO agencies out there, each with different approaches that have strengths and weaknesses.

Full-Stack Generalized Agency

A full-stack agency will handle just about all aspects of your SEO strategy. That is, they’ll handle all on-page activities, including keyword research and content creation, and all off-page activities, such as building backlinks.

This is where most folks tend to start.

One benefit of working with a full-stack generalized agency is that most of them have experience in many different topic areas, so they can start working with you very quickly. They’re also easier to find, as there are a lot more generalized agencies than specialized ones.

Verticalized or Specialized Agencies

There are SEO agencies that specialize in specific industries.

For example, on our weekly SEO podcast, I chatted with JH Scherck from Growth Plays, an SEO consultancy that works only with B2B technology companies, and Meg Scarborough from Megawatt, which works only with companies in highly technical spaces (think cybersecurity).

I’ve talked with leaders at SEO agencies that specialize in basically every vertical you could think of, from cannabis to developer tools to e-commerce — and everything in between.

If you’re in an industry that requires a lot of specialized knowledge (some areas of medicine or healthcare, for instance), or if your buyers are highly specialized, hiring a verticalized agency could allow you to move faster, since they’ve already got a fundamental understanding of your topic space (think keyword research and content creation).

Local SEO Agencies

If you’re a small business, or if your business is focused on a particular geographic area, you’ll want to hire a local SEO agency.

Local SEO agencies will often operate similarly to a generalized full-stack agency, but they might have more direct experience ranking only for localized keywords (for example, “best barbers in Charleston, SC”). 

As Nathan Gotch told us on the Optimize podcast, there’s often a lot of nuance when it comes to local SEO, and these agencies will have a slightly different approach and playbook to operate from.

Content Agencies

There are agencies out there that specialize in content, including creating content outlines, writing the content, editing the content, and refreshing content that’s already been published.

They likely won’t do keyword research for you, and you’ll need to come to them prepared with a list of keywords that you want to target.

This is a good option if you don’t have the bandwidth to create content internally or if you don’t want to have to go through the process of hiring and managing freelance writers directly, but you are able to do the keyword research on your own.

Link-Building Agencies

This type of agency won’t handle anything related to on-page SEO. They specialize in off-page SEO, or building backlinks to your website.

There are good link-building agencies out there, but you’ll need to do quite a bit of due diligence to understand how they’re building those backlinks, the quality of the backlinks they build, and whether they’re buying backlinks as part of their strategy (which I do not recommend).

For example, there are link-building agencies that specialize in guest blogging or digital PR.

You could hire a link-building agency to supplement the work your in-house team is doing on the on-page side of things.

Offshore Low-Quality Agencies

These are low-cost consultants you might find on Fiverr or Upwork, or any SEO agency promising SEO services for $300 per month.

Agencies like this may have a presence in the U.S. (or the country you’re doing business in), but the vast majority of their work is getting done overseas.

They will likely provide you with a basic technical SEO audit, fill it with a lot of jargon, and create large amounts of AI-generated content on your website. 

I’d argue that you’d be better off not hiring an SEO agency at all than hiring an offshore one like this.

How Much Does It Cost to Hire an Agency?

Like many things in SEO, it depends.

For a good generalized full-stack agency, you’re likely looking at $5,000 to $10,000 per month. You can find agencies for less than $5,000 per month, but you’ll likely get less hands-on attention, the content quality will be lower, and the quality of those backlinks will be lower, too.

For a verticalized agency with deep domain expertise, you might be looking at $10,000 to $20,000 per month. But you could spend more, even $50,000 per month, if there’s a lot of work to do and you’re looking to move quickly.

If you’re an SMB and you just care about local SEO, a few thousand dollars per month might be more realistic, but it really depends on your industry and the competitiveness of your geographical area. For example, it would take a lot more work (and money) to rank for keywords in New York City than in Charleston, South Carolina.

And if you hire just a content agency or a link-building agency, the costs will likely be variable based on the amount of content or backlinks you’re trying to get.

If I were going to outsource our own SEO strategy, I’d expect to pay about $10,000 to $20,000 per month, assuming that the agency was responsible for content creation, which is typically one of the largest costs in all of this.

Questions to Ask an SEO Agency

Finding a great SEO agency can be pretty challenging. I’d go out on a limb and say that I wouldn’t work with 98% of SEO agencies (more on my recommendations a bit later).

Can I speak with one or two of your previous clients?

I would ask for references, and I’d talk to those references directly.

How do you create content? What does content typically cost you?

What I don’t want is for an agency to create content for my website with an AI writing tool like ChatGPT.

I want content that was written by actual experts, is in-depth, and is helpful, as Google would say.

Depending on your topic space, it’s likely going to cost the agency $300 to $1,200 to create a single piece of content. Of course, they’re going to charge you more than that. But if you hear that an agency is either using an AI-writing tool to create content or paying something like $40 per article, you should run!

How do you build backlinks? Can I see some examples?

The last thing you want to do is hire an agency to build backlinks for you, and then find out they are simply reselling you low-quality or spammy backlinks that they purchased from someone else.

I would ask for their playbook for building backlinks. I would ask them to tell me what kind of backlinks they build and how they ensure relevance, and not just domain authority.

I would ask them for samples. If they’re building backlinks the right way, they should have no problems providing some samples. Heck, I show you all sorts of backlinks that I’ve built in my many blog posts about building backlinks.

What do the first three months look like?

If an SEO agency says that they are going to spend three months doing technical SEO work, you should run!

There might be some technical SEO work to be done in the first month, but they should be able to resolve most, if not all, of those issues quickly. A little part of me dies every time I talk with a company that tells me that their SEO agency spent the first three months doing technical work (unless, of course, the company’s site has many thousands, or tens of thousands, of webpages).

In the first three months, I’d want the agency to do a basic technical audit, do an inventory of my existing webpages, map keyword research, and start creating new webpages. And by the end of that three month period, I’d expect to see leading indicators that the agency is doing something right — for example, a spike in search impressions in Google Search Console.

How long does it take?

It usually takes two to three months to start to see that SEO is working, or at least the leading indicators that you’re doing something right.

From there, you’ll usually hit different inflection points — three, six, and 12 months in — where things will start to scale faster.

Consider it a red flag if an SEO agency promises results in just a few weeks, or if they suggest that it’s going to take more than three or four months to start seeing signs that their efforts are working.

Am I guaranteed to see a certain amount of traffic?

The right answer to this question is actually no. Any SEO agency promising a certain amount of traffic, or a certain keyword ranking, is misleading you. 

In SEO, it’s impossible to guarantee that you’ll hit certain traffic thresholds or hit a certain ranking position for a given keyword.

How do you measure success?

KPIs change over time. In the very beginning, you’ll want to see an uptick in search impressions, keyword rankings, and search traffic.

Over time, you’ll want to see that the traffic is converting and that the strategy is driving conversions — and then, ultimately, revenue.

Just remember, traffic doesn’t always equal dollars. And over the long term, you’ll want to judge an agency’s performance by its impact on your business’s performance.

Should I Hire an SEO Agency?

Again, it depends on a lot of factors. And you’ll need a budget, of course.

If you have the bandwidth to build the strategy internally, that’s always my recommendation.

Depending on the amount of work to be done, it could make sense to hire a full-time person into this role, as the cost of hiring a full-time employee would probably be about the same as the cost of hiring a great agency to do this work for you.

Alternatively, you could hire an agency to work alongside your internal team, or for more specific tasks — for example, technical SEO auditing or building backlinks — where your team lacks experience.

It also depends on the stage of your business. If, for example, you are a startup, and you need to grow very quickly — let’s say in the next three months — SEO probably isn’t the right strategy for you right now. With SEO, you need to have the ability to be patient and wait for the results to compound over time.

An Agency or a Consultant?

If you don’t want to hire a full-blown SEO agency, you could hire a solo consultant or contractor to help build and grow this channel.

I’d much rather see you hire a talented consultant than a lower-cost SEO agency.

A consultant typically has only a handful of clients at a time, so you’ll get much more hands-on attention. They also have less overhead, so pricing is usually a bit more affordable, and the output (content and backlinks, for instance) is often of higher quality.

For a fantastic SEO consultant, you might be looking at about $3,000 to $6,000 per month, depending on the size of the project.

Agencies and Consultants That I Like to Recommend

I have a short list of agencies and solo consultants that I recommend.

Agency Recommendations

• Optimist: A full-stack generalized SEO agency.
• RankScience: A full-stack generalized SEO agency.
• Hit Subscribe: A full-stack generalized SEO agency.
• Vital Brands: A full-stack generalized SEO agency with experience in consumer, health, and fitness.
• Growth Plays: A full-stack agency for B2B technology companies.
• Omniscient Digital: A full-stack agency for B2B software companies.
• Megawatt: A B2B content marketing agency for tech companies.
• Draft.dev: A content agency for developer tool companies.
• JBH: A digital PR (link-building) agency.

Consultant Recommendations

• Dave Rathmanner: We worked together for five or six years; he is great!
• Nate Saienni: Tons of experience in B2B.
• Dwayne Hogan: One of the best when it comes to content creation processes.
• Ash Read: Great for B2C.

If You Want to DIY It

If you want to DIY, know that you totally can. When I first started doing SEO, I didn’t know anything about SEO. 

Your first blog post is the hardest to write, your first backlink is the hardest to build, and it will all start to feel more natural over time.

You will need tools. If you haven’t already, you’ll want to set up Google Search Console, Google’s free tool for monitoring the performance of your website. And then there are toolsets like Positional, Semrush, and Ahrefs, which provide tools for keyword research, performance tracking, technical SEO, and so much more.

There are tons of great resources out there — for example, on our blog and on Ahrefs’ blog, and we’ve got full lists of the best SEO blogs to read, newsletters to read, and podcasts to listen to.

Final Thoughts

Simply put, an SEO agency is a type of marketing agency that focuses primarily on search engine optimization.

You can work with an agency to develop your SEO strategy, to supplement your internal team, or to work on very specific SEO projects.

Agencies come in varying shapes and sizes. And before you hire an agency, I would always recommend that you get somewhat familiar with SEO, and that you maybe try it yourself, so you’ll be in the best position to hire an agency and to judge their performance.

Costs will vary depending on the scope and the type of an agency you hire. Most folks should expect to spend about $5,000 to $10,000 per month for a full-stack agency.

If you decide to go it alone, know that you can do it. It will just take some practice and patience, and you’ll learn a lot in the process. While I’m not a consultant, and Positional is not an agency, you can always reach out to me if you’ve got a tricky SEO question that you’d just like a second opinion on. My email is [email protected]. We’ve got some pretty awesome tools for SEO, too!