Twenty-two guides, written to be used against us too

Hiring an SEO Agency: What You Need to Know

What an agency actually does, what it should cost, the questions that separate a good one from a confident one plus how to tell within three months whether yours is delivering. We are an SEO agency. Apply all of it to us.

22 guidesModelsPricingVettingContractsSwitching
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22 guides
Six stages
Everything from £350 a month

There is an obvious problem with an SEO agency publishing a guide to vetting SEO agencies, so let us deal with it first. Everything here is written to be used on anybody, including us. The questions are real questions. The red flags are things we have watched other firms do to businesses that then arrived at our door. If a guide on this page makes you more sceptical of our own proposal, it is working as intended, plus you will be a better client for it.

Start Here

Questions to Ask an SEO Agency Before Hiring Them

The most used page on this site, plus the one to take into a meeting. What to ask about method, about links, about reporting, about who does the work plus about what happens if you leave. The value is less in the questions than in what a vague answer to any of them tells you. Read this before you speak to anybody, ourselves included.

Read the questions
Before you decide you need one

Understanding

Three guides on what you would actually be buying. Worth reading even if you have decided already, since the most common reason an engagement goes wrong is a client and an agency holding different pictures of what was agreed.

The Starting Point

What Is an SEO Agency?

What an SEO agency is plus what one actually does day to day, which is considerably less glamorous and considerably more repetitive than most proposals imply.

What you are buying Read the guide → The Fair Question

Is It Worth Paying an SEO Company?

Sometimes not, plus this guide says when. The cases where a business is better off doing it themselves, waiting, else spending the money somewhere else entirely.

Including when it is not Read the guide → What Actually Happens

What Does a Typical SEO Agency Process Look Like?

The sequence a competent engagement follows, from audit through to ongoing work. Useful for spotting a proposal that describes outcomes without ever describing a method.

Audit to ongoing work Read the guide →
Agency is only one of the options

The Models

Two structural decisions come before choosing a supplier: who does the work, plus how the engagement is shaped. Getting either wrong is expensive in a way that is hard to see until months later.

Four Options, Not Two

What Is the Difference Between an SEO Agency and an SEO Consultant?

Agency, consultant, freelancer plus building an in-house team. What each genuinely costs, what each is good at and the size of business each suits.

Includes in-house and freelance Read the guide → Ongoing Or One-Off

What Is a Retained SEO Agency and How Does It Work?

Monthly retainer against project based work, plus which suits which situation. A one-off project can be the right answer, though rarely for a business that wants to keep the position it buys.

Retainer against project Read the guide →
The part nobody publishes properly

What It Costs

Five guides on money, which is where most of the industry goes quiet. Prices are held back until somebody is on a call, contracts are sent without explanation plus the length of commitment is buried on page four.

Read all five before you take a single quote, so you can tell whether a figure is high, low or simply meaningless without knowing what sits behind it.

The Real Ranges

How Much Does an SEO Agency Charge in the UK?

What the market actually charges, from the cheapest end to the enterprise end, plus what genuinely changes the number. The page most people arrive at this cluster looking for.

Real UK ranges Read the guide → If The Budget Is Modest

What Is a Reasonable SEO Budget for a Small Business?

What a small business can sensibly spend, what that money should be buying at the bottom of the market plus the point below which you are paying for a report rather than for work.

And the floor below it Read the guide → What The Fee Buys

What Should an SEO Retainer Include?

The work a monthly fee ought to cover, plus whether paying for results rather than a retainer is ever the better arrangement. Two questions that decide whether a fee is fair.

Includes results against retainer Read the guide → Read Before Signing

What Is a Typical SEO Agency Contract?

What is normal, what is not plus the clauses worth arguing about. Ownership of the website and the content is the one that traps people, so check it before anything else.

Check ownership first Read the guide → The Commitment Question

How Long Should You Commit to an SEO Agency?

Why the work needs time, why that is also the most convenient excuse in the industry plus how to tell the difference. Where a long tie-in is reasonable and where it is protecting the agency rather than the results.

Reasonable against restrictive Read the guide →
Use these on us as well

Vetting Them

Alongside the questions at the top of this page, these four cover the whole assessment: how to shortlist, what a proposal should contain, how to check a track record that is being presented favourably plus the warning signs worth walking away from.

None of this requires technical knowledge. It requires knowing what to ask for plus noticing when you do not get it.

The Shortlist

How to Choose an SEO Agency

How to build a shortlist worth having plus what to look for in a firm before you speak to anybody. The umbrella guide the rest of this group sits underneath.

Before the first call Read the guide → Walk Away Signals

Red Flags When Hiring an SEO Agency

Guaranteed positions, unexplained links, contracts that hold your website, reporting that measures activity rather than outcome. Things we have watched happen to businesses that then arrived at our door.

The ones worth leaving over Read the guide → Reading A Proposal

How to Evaluate an SEO Agency Proposal

What a proposal should contain, what padding looks like plus how to compare two documents written to be difficult to compare. Deliverables against a list of activities is usually the tell.

Comparing like for like Read the guide → Verify, Do Not Assume

How to Check an SEO Agency Track Record

How to check what an agency claims, plus what a genuine case study contains that a flattering one does not. Every firm shows you its best work, so the question is what the best work actually proves.

Includes reading case studies Read the guide →
Signing is the start, not the finish

Working With Them

The largest group here, because this is where most value is won or lost. A capable agency badly briefed and left unmanaged will underperform a mediocre one that is given what it needs.

These six cover the whole relationship: briefing properly, what the first three months should look like, how reporting should work, how to judge whether it is working, how to manage the relationship plus when to accept it is not working and move.

Get This Right First

How to Brief an SEO Agency Properly

What a good brief contains plus what information an agency genuinely needs from you. Most disappointing engagements can be traced back to a brief that described a wish rather than a business.

Includes what they need from you Read the guide → The Settling Period

What to Expect in the First Three Months With an SEO Agency

What should be happening, what should not be happening yet plus what a reasonable amount of visible progress looks like. The period where most people either panic early or wait too long.

What is normal, month by month Read the guide → Reading The Report

How Does an SEO Agency Report on Results?

What a report should tell you, plus how to spot one designed to look busy rather than to inform. Anything that leads on impressions or activity counts is usually avoiding a harder number.

Activity against outcome Read the guide → The Real Test

How to Measure Whether Your SEO Agency Is Delivering Results

The measures that matter, the ones that flatter plus what a reasonable expectation looks like at six months and at twelve. How to answer the question yourself rather than being told the answer.

Judge it yourself Read the guide → Your Half Of It

How to Manage Your SEO Agency Effectively

How to run the relationship so it produces something, including how often you should expect to hear from them. The client half of the arrangement, which is discussed far less than it should be.

Includes communication frequency Read the guide → When To Stop

When Should You Consider Changing Your SEO Agency?

How to tell the difference between work that needs more time and work that is not going to arrive, plus how to move without losing what has already been built. Switching badly costs more than staying too long.

And how to move properly Read the guide →
A different reader entirely

If You Are An Agency

One guide for the other audience that reaches this cluster: agencies and web studios who want to offer SEO without building the capability in house. Everything above is written for a business buying SEO. This one is not.

Buying It To Resell It

What Is White Label SEO?

What white label SEO is, how the arrangement works in practice, who uses it plus the risks worth understanding before you put your name on somebody else's work. All four covered in one guide.

How it works plus the risks Read the guide →
Everything on this page, applied to us

Now Ask Us The Same Questions.

One monthly fee, no setup charge, no tie-in that protects us rather than you plus a website that belongs to you whatever happens next. A written update every three weeks so the reporting question answers itself. If any of that does not survive the tests on this page, do not hire us.

What the fee covers:

Local and national SEO Google Maps and reviews Quarterly technical audits Content and website management Social and AI optimisation Updates every three weeks
£350per month

One clear retainer. No setup fee. You own the site.

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Using these guides

Frequently Asked

Why would an SEO agency publish this?
Because the businesses that arrive already knowing what to ask are the ones we work best with. A client who understands what a retainer should cover, what a report should say plus why nobody can guarantee a position is a client we never have an awkward conversation with. There is a commercial motive here. It just happens to line up with telling you the truth.
Where should I start?
With the questions to ask, then the red flags. Those two are enough to run a first meeting properly. Then the pricing group before you accept any quote, so you know whether a figure is high, low or simply meaningless. Working With Them can wait until you have signed with somebody.
What is the single biggest thing to check?
Who owns the website plus the content when the contract ends. It is buried in the terms, it is rarely raised in a meeting and it is the clause that genuinely traps businesses, because leaving means rebuilding from nothing. The contract guide covers it. Ask before you ask about price.
Is my current agency underperforming or does it just need time?
The commonest question we are asked, plus there is a real answer rather than a diplomatic one. How to measure whether your agency is delivering sets out what should be visible at six months and at twelve. When to change covers moving without losing what has been built. Read both before deciding, since switching badly costs more than staying too long.
Do I even need an agency?
Not always. Is it worth paying an SEO company sets out the cases where the answer is no: a business too small to recover the fee, a market where the work will not move the needle, perhaps somebody with the time and inclination to do it themselves. The models guide covers the alternatives if an agency is the wrong shape.
Should I be suspicious of a cheap monthly fee?
You should ask what it buys rather than assume either way. Below a certain figure nobody is doing real work, they are sending you a report. Above it, price mostly reflects the size of the area covered plus the volume of work rather than the quality of it. The pricing guide gives real ranges plus the retainer guide tells you what a fee should be covering.