Best SEO Agencies and Companies

Best SEO companies

We’ve researched the best SEO companies, ranking them according to their customer satisfaction and range of services. Shoreline Digital Marketing is the best SEO agency – stick around to hear about the four other best SEO services companies, including the best local SEO agency.

You want customers to find you online and convert at an acceptable rate – you’re going to need the help of an SEO agency. But you don’t want just any old internet hack, oh no. You want the best

We care about equipping business leaders for these dicey post-pandemic times, that’s why we put the top SEO agencies through their paces. We scored each company based on aggregate customer reviews, the services they offer and the number of trusted partnerships they have.

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Shoreline Digital Marketing

WTM Digital

Hibu

Wiideman

Volume Nine Digital

4.6
4.4
3.8
3.2
3.1
Best For

Franchise SEO

Best For

Ecommerce SEO

Best For

Reputation Management

Best For

Local SEO

Best For

Multichannel SEO

Price Range

On request

Price Range

$2,000–$30,000 per month

Price Range

On request

Price Range

$99+

Price Range

$2,000–$10,000 per month

You can read more about our methodology below, get straight to the supplier reviews or make your life easier and have SEO agencies get in touch with you directly to offer their best deals. If you let us know what you’re looking for SEO-wise, we’ll match you with our trusted experts. Easy peasy SEO-squeezy.

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1. Best SEO Agency for Franchise SEO: Shoreline Digital Marketing

Core services offered: SEO content creation, link building, on-site (technical) SEO, local SEO, analytics and reporting, SEO site audits, reputation management, keyword management.

Shoreline Digital Marketing logo
Shoreline Digital Marketing
4.6
Pricing On request
Quick overview

Shoreline scored a perfect five in the breadth of SEO services category, meaning you can rely on them to supply the full complement of digital weaponry to win the SERP ranking battle. From keyword-optimized content creation to carefully managed local SEO, this agency is the best on the market for boosting businesses visibility online.

 

Although Shoreline did not appear on every customer review platform (strangely it was absent from Trustpilot), the places where it was rated gave the agency a solid five out of five every time. We couldn’t find a single poor review about Shoreline’s SEO services, and that’s a major reason why we’ve ranked it top of the leaderboard for American businesses.

While we couldn’t find much evidence of reporting services from firms like Hibu, Shoreline boasts of its “enhanced reporting” on SEO projects as standard.

The reason we recommend Shoreline for franchise SEO in particular is their clients have seen success in this regard. The firm offers specialized franchise consulting to help support and simplify the steps of expanding your business into new regions, whether it’s brick-and-mortar or mobile. If you’re looking to extend your business across multiple locations, then franchise SEO consulting will help to ensure your digital footprint remains consistently visible. 


Shoreline’s proprietary data visualization dashboard will give you comprehensive oversight of SEO performance in each franchise location, alongside competitor insights that equip you to stand proud of them. 

Strengths

Super strong customer satisfaction

Enhanced SEO reporting as standard

24/7 customer service support

Experienced in local SEO for franchise expansion

Weaknesses

No Trustpilot reviews

No pricing info available

Shoreline Digital Marketing is transparent about its range of SEO services but reluctant to offer set price packages. You’ll have to contact them directly for SEO pricing.

2. Best SEO Agency for Ecommerce SEO: WTM Digital

Core services offered: Keyword analysis, competitor analysis, onsite SEO optimization, offsite SEO (backlinking), targeted SEO campaigns, SEO copywriting in-house, local SEO and Google Tag Manager.

WTM Digital logo
WTM Digital
4.4
Pricing $2,000–$30,000
Quick overview

Beating out tough competition, WTM Digital’s strong results and meticulous attention to detail earns them the title of best agency for ecommerce SEO. Focusing mainly on mid-market companies (valued at over $10M but under $1B) WTM Digital reports an average 31% revenue growth for their clientele. 

Unlike many other SEO agencies, WTM Digital combines a solid SEO strategy with conversion rate optimization (CRO). This means they’ll work on attracting the right kinds of visitors to your ecommerce site, and convince them to buy your products using technical wizardry. WTM Digital actually has web development and UX expertise in-house, so their team can capably transform your ecommerce site above and beyond SEO services.

With that said, their SEO services are certainly comprehensive, and WTM Digital scored 5/5 for its range of services. They’ve received mostly strong customer reviews, except on Yelp, so their average customer satisfaction comes in at 4.3/5.

Another reason WTM Digital does great work for ecommerce sites is their wide range of branded partnerships related to online shopping. They’re a Google Partner, Amazon Ads partner and a Microsoft Advertising partner, which means clients can benefit from even more expertise about reaching ready-to-buy customers online.

Strengths

Best range of SEO services

Experienced in Amazon conversion

SEO copywriting for your website

Weaknesses

Not a Facebook/Meta partner, unlike Hibu

Pricing
SEO Services
Google Tag Manager $2,000–$5,000+
Amazon SEO $2,000–$10,000+
SEO Copywriting $2,000–$30,000
WTM Digital ecommerce case study

WTM Digital SEO Services Pricing:

Unlike many SEO companies, WTM Digital offers transparent pricing guidance. According to the agency, you can expect to invest between $2,000 to more than $10,000 per month.

Their Google Tag Manager services start at $2,000, though some clients spend $5,000 plus.

Amazon SEO services begin at $2,000 monthly and can exceed $10,000 per month, while copywriting services start at $2,000 and go up to $30,000.

3. Best SEO Agency for Reputation Management: Hibu

Core services:  Local SEO, reputation management, website audit, content review and optimization, voice-optimized FAQs, offsite SEO (backlinks), social media post creation, website creation.

Hibu logo
Hibu
3.8
Pricing On request
Quick overview

With more professional marketing partnerships than any of the SEO agencies we reviewed, you’re sure to reach a wide digital audience with Hibu. As an official Meta business partner, Hibu is vetted and verified for their marketing expertise and their ability to help businesses engage with customers. That’s a rather rare mark of quality among SEO agencies.

Hibu has a good track record in providing decent SEO services for local businesses, particularly when it comes to managing their online reputations. It's a little ironic, however, that Hibu does not have the best reputation according to their own customer reviews on Capterra, Clutch and Yelp. Google reviews enhance the numbers slightly, but Hibu's average customer satisfaction is a woeful 2.7/5. 

Why, then, do we recommend them for SEO? Hibu offers a solid set of SEO services to help your company get established on business directories and web listings. This is crucial to getting noticed by customers online and standing out from your competitors. Hibu scored 4/5 for its range of SEO services.

A particularly noteworthy feature is Hibu's Reputation dashboard, which is a centralized database of your company's online reviews. Thanks to this feature, you can easily track new reviews from a variety of sources and engage with customers directly from the platform. The dashboard also contains handy options to request feedback from customers by text message or email. These features save you time and ensure no customer review slips under your radar.

Strengths

One-stop reputation management platform

Verified Meta partner

Weaknesses

Low average customer satisfaction

No pricing info available

From law firms to small retail – all businesses can benefit from reputation management – it’s basically a PR service which, among other things, corrects the record when unhappy customers leave negative feedback online. Such a service is invaluable for B2C businesses who face strong competition in retail industries and personal services, for instance.

4. Best SEO Agency for Local SEO: Wiideman

Core services: Local SEO, off-site SEO (linkbuilding), on-site SEO, SEO consultation and training, SEO audits, SEO strategy and roadmapping, SEO staff procurement.

Wiideman logo
Wiideman
3.2
Pricing $99+ per month
Quick overview

Wiideman is our pick for local SEO because it's a true thought leader in this area. Giving detailed guidance on exactly how to improve your company's visibility and credibility in Google search results, business listings and map tools, Wiideman is an industry leader in local SEO.

Wiideman only takes fourth place as it doesn't offer all the services you'd need for out-of-this-world SEO; for instance, there's no content creation to speak of. With more of a focus on consulting and training, Wiideman is less of a does-it-all-for-you kind of agency, and more of an equips-you-to-do-it-yourself one. 

That said, they're extremely proficient in technical aspects of digital campaigns and website optimization, and provide in-depth analytical reporting. This means your staff will benefit from expert SEO guidance and practical support rather than blackbox busywork that leaves you guessing at your ROI.

Strengths

Over twenty years' industry experience

Money back guarantee if SEO recommendations fail

Weaknesses

Won't do all your SEO; team needs to be hands-on

No SEO content creation

Pricing
SEO services
Basic monthly SEO monitoring $99 per month
Basic weekly SEO monitoring $199 per month
Premium monthly SEO monitoring $199 per month
Premium weekly SEO monitoring $299 per month
infographic Wiideman features that improve local SEO

Here’s a snippet from Wiideman’s in-depth research on how to rank higher for local SEO.

Wiideman SEO Services Pricing:

While Wiideman is not forthcoming with SEO pricing information, they do state on their website that their SEO monitoring service starts at $99 per month. Services you’ll receive for this include Google Search Console reporting, notification of recent inbound links and risks to your rankings.

  • Basic monthly SEO monitoring: $99 per month
  • Basic weekly SEO monitoring: $199 per month
  • Premium monthly SEO monitoring: $199 per month
  • Premium weekly SEO monitoring: $299 per month

We’d recommend choosing a plan based on how much time you have on a regular basis to read through the reports and implement changes accordingly. If you really have the spare capacity to make SEO updates on a weekly basis, then you could benefit from the weekly reporting. Otherwise, if you’re realistically only going to get around to this once per month, then the monthly SEO reporting price package is best for you.

Here’s a list of what you’ll get in the monthly report if you purchase Wiideman’s SEO monitoring services.

Moreover, Wiideman offers a refund guarantee for clients who implement SEO recommendations and fail to see improvements in organic traffic after three months. There’s some peace of mind for your finance manager! We’ve not seen an offer like that anywhere else, which speaks to the confidence of the firm in the quality of their consulting services.

5. Best SEO Agency for Multichannel SEO: Volume Nine Digital

Volume Nine Digital logo
Volume Nine Digital
3.1
Pricing $2,000–$10,000
Quick overview

As a full digital marketing agency in their own right, Volume Nine Digital is in a genuinely strong position to boost your business' visibility across all kinds of search engines. We recommend Volume Nine Digital for multichannel SEO because of their particular expertise in social media marketing. The agency makes specific claims about optimizing your business in search results across platforms like YouTube, Shopify and Amazon, vital sales channels for health products, cosmetics, homeware, technology and many other B2C, D2C and B2B goods.

Ecommerce businesses looking to grow online would be well advised to seek out the specialist knowledge of Volume Nine because. Reason being, we've hardly seen any other agencies that specifically mention so many search engine channels – including Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter. With Volume Nine's expertise, you'll be able to spread your digital visibility far and wide, hopefully attracting more customers.

Volume Nine is not forthcoming about backlinking services, and this is perhaps a wise approach given the penalties issued by Google for 'poor quality' links from low-authority or otherwise blacklisted domains. Nonetheless, it's considered a basic SEO service and it's a bit strange not to see it included whatsoever. There are ethical "white hat" SEO strategies in backlinking that many agencies carry out as standard.

The agency's customers are clearly delighted with their SEO services overall, with Volume Nine scoring 4.8/5 in customer review scores, the second highest of all companies researched. However, their overall score is just 3.1 out of five given Volume Nine's lack of official channel partnerships compared with Hibu and WTM Digital.

Strengths

Strong customer review scores

Expertise in a wide array of organic search channels

Weaknesses

No backlinking services to speak of

Volume Nine Digital SEO services cycle

Volume Nine Digital takes a six-stage approach to sharpening your business’ SEO, from establishing initial goals and KPI targets to strategy execution and performance review.

Volume Nine SEO Services Pricing:

Volume Nine’s monthly SEO services retainer prices are set between $2,000 and $10,000 per month. This is within the typical price range for the types of SEO services on offer. Broadly speaking, Volume Nine doesn’t offer fixed price packages but the team prefers to work out a tailored set of services and a bespoke price point on a per-client basis.

They also offer a number of free resources online such as this handy social media engagement checklist which reminds you of how exactly to engage with your customers online. While social media is not a ranking factor for Google’s algorithms, it’s still an important strategy to broaden your online presence.

What Does an SEO Company or Agency do?

The best SEO companies will leverage industry expertise and software tools to increase the competitiveness of your business by boosting it higher up on search engine results rankings. Search engines such as Google use algorithms that rank websites shown to users after typing in certain phrases. It’s the SEO agency’s job to get the website of your business to appear over and above the competition because that way you’ll get more clicks through to your company’s web pages, leading to more conversions. 

In effect, SEO agencies can increase the profitability of your website by attracting targeted web users who are already looking to buy what you’re selling. When you’re scaling up a large business, you need to outshine the competition on search engine results pages – only the best enterprise SEO agencies will get you there.

This “pull-em-in” type of marketing is known as “organic search” stemming from the idea of customers naturally flocking over to you using search engines. It’s a “free” kind of marketing because you can’t pay to appear higher on Google search results pages (SERPs). It’s therefore distinctly different from paid advertising, such as Google Ads or Facebook Ads.

Now you may think it’s perfectly possible to undertake your own SEO for your company web presence. While it’s possible to do it yourself, it’s most likely a waste of your time unless you’re extremely knowledgeable and have access to some high-level analytics tools

That’s the broad outline, so now let’s look in depth at exactly what SEO services agencies provide.

On-Site SEO

The best SEO services company will suggest and implement changes to your website to make it appear more attractive to your target audience and to search engine bots. It’s called “on-site” because it relates to tinkering with your actual website. Agencies will do this in a whole multitude of ways, but here are the main features of on-site SEO:

  • The site is indexable and properly tagged in the back-end.
  • The sitemap is logically organized with any broken links appropriately redirected.
  • Content on the front-end has a clear layout, divided into headings and subheadings.
  • Web pages are optimized for keywords, meaning key search phrases feature prominently in headlines and in deep-dive blog posts.
  • Long blocks of text are broken up by relevant images with alt text and keyword-optimized descriptions.
  • Content is high quality, accurate and genuinely valuable to the web user.
  • Web pages should be logically linked together across the website.
  • Web pages are easy to read on a variety of devices, respond to different browser window sizes and meet accessibility guidelines.

Your SEO agency team will analyze on-site SEO opportunities during a site audit, after which they’ll typically suggest a series of strategic changes. During their audit, they’ll use a number of software tools to view your website from a machine’s point of view, revealing areas for change which can’t be seen with the human eye (no matter how great an expert that human is!).

Consumer buying habits have changed – perhaps forever – thanks to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Research collated by Wiideman details what ecommerce business leaders need to know about changing customer purchase habits.

Off-Site SEO

In order to be seen favorably by Google, other websites must include hyperlinks that lead back to your website. This is known as “backlinking” and it’s the main activity of building off-site SEO. Off-site SEO is the harder nut to crack compared with on-site SEO because it typically relies on external relationships with other website editors. 

There are a few different ways to convince other website editors to include links back to your website:

  1. You can pay them.
  2. You can beg them.
  3. You can suggest it nicely.
  4. You can offer to do something in return. 
  5. You can own lots of websites and insert backlinks yourself.
  6. You can spam websites with blog comments that include backlinks. 
  7. You can create genuinely high-quality content that others independently link to.

Some of these are good ideas (numbers three and seven), some are bad ideas (number two), and some are terrible (numbers five and six).

Now backlinking is a tricky game and you really need to get it right. Unfortunately, not all agencies are equally ethical in their approaches here. Search engines such as Google will issue harsh penalties to domains (a.k.a. websites) that gather too many low-quality backlinks. If you opt for a cheap, unreliable or otherwise disreputable SEO agency you may end up paying for services such as “black hat” backlinking which actually harm your SEO in the long-run.

How Do I Choose an SEO Company?

Now that you understand some of the risks of choosing the wrong SEO agency – such as a penalty from the mighty wizard of search engines, Google itself – you want to know how to choose the right SEO company for your business. We’ll examine this important process in three easy steps, followed by a quick summary.

1. Decide on the SEO Services You Do and Don’t Need: Worked Example

Make a detailed list of business aims and match each one up with the individual SEO services you’d need to get there. You can also make a note of service you definitely DON’T need, so you can reject any upselling the agency may try to dazzle you with later down the road.

Example: Janice wants to expand her wholesale beauty supplies ecommerce business, but is a bit clueless when it comes to SEO services. However, she starts by making a list of things she knows very well: her current business needs. Then, Janice brainstorms ideas on how to achieve these aims using her real-world experience. Next, thanks to her having read Expert Market’s guidance on SEO services, she’s in a better position identify what her business needs.

Her notebook ends up looking like this:

What my business needsIdeas of how to get thereSEO I might need
More orders placedMore website visitorsHm, not sure
More visitors to my websiteDon’t know!All of them?
More enquiries to my email inbox per monthMake my website easier to navigateOn-site optimization and technical SEO
Greater recognition of my brand as a go-to-place for wholesale beauty suppliesCan I partner with local pageants, competitions, beauty schools, hairdressers, brick-and-mortar salon supplies stores somehow?Local SEO services (get my business into more business directory listings)
Make savings on paid advertisement costsStop making payments on paid advertising and switch to investing in organic search marketingSEO audit and a plan of action

Janice brings her notebook to the planning meetings she’s arranged with several SEO agencies. At first she’s a bit worried that some of her boxes don’t have many good ideas at all.

However, Janice is pleasantly surprised to learn of the best SEO agencies for small businesses that achieve a variety of business goals with organic search optimization services.

She requests a callback from multiple SEO agencies. Janice then collects ideas from each meeting and expands upon each of the answers in the third and final column. She’s now in a much better position to narrow down her shortlist of agencies and make a final choice.

2. Identify Evidence of Tangible Results on a Comparable Project

The key things to look out for are signals that it’s a reputable agency that delivers quality work. Since it’s harder to review the results of search engine optimization compared with, say, web design, you should spend time reading recent customer reviews. Sometimes SEO agencies even name their current and former clients on their website, so you can feel free to reach out to those clients individually and ask a few questions about the SEO work done for them.

3. Set SEO Targets Clearly Before Handing Over Any Money

Of course, SEO agencies will always showcase their most successful case studies with incredible return on investment figures. Although it’s tempting to believe you’ll definitely get similar results, you should ask prospective SEO agencies probing questions about what ROI you can expect for your particular project. Setting a goal at the start of proceedings – such as a minimum web traffic increase – is a good way to remain in control of the expected outcomes in light of the financial investment your business is making.

Quick Summary: How to Choose the Best SEO Agency

  • Check out our unique research
  • Identify SEO companies based on expertise and services
  • Look for evidence of similar work to your project or business’ needs
  • Read customer reviews of SEO companies
  • Contact current and former clients of SEO company to ask questions
  • Confirm realistic targets with the SEO agency before you agree payment

Now you may be wondering how exactly we chose our best SEO agencies for the purposes of this article. Well, all shall become clear after you’ve read the next section.

Methodology: How We Rate and Rank the Best SEO Companies

For the purposes of this research, we searched ranked listings of SEO companies and hand-picked the best based on a number of criteria (detailed below). It’s important we remain as objective as possible, so our reviews are informed by this objective evidence.

Firstly, we selected the highest-rated SEO agencies according to verified customer reviews.

Once we had a shortlist, we scored each agency individually, assigning points for the following categories:

  • Customer reviews (mean average across six platforms)
  • Range of SEO services offered
  • Number of trusted partnerships indicated on their website

To assign points in the final criteria, we scoured the companies’ credentials and counted the total number of branded partnerships with major platforms such as Meta, Microsoft, and Google. In order to gain these accolades, companies have to pass the vetting standards of the platform in question, so it is another mark of service quality.

Adding up the scores, we converted final totals into a five-star rating system.

Expert Verdict: Best SEO Agencies

You’ve now got plenty of information under your belt about who, what and how to find the best SEO services agencies for your business.

Just in case you weren’t paying attention, here’s the roundup of the five best SEO agencies:

  1. Shoreline Digital Marketing: Best SEO agency for Franchise SEO
  2. WTM Digital: Best SEO agency for Ecommerce SEO
  3. Hibu: Best for SEO agency Reputation Management
  4. Wiideman: Best SEO agency for Local SEO
  5. Volume Nine Digital: Best SEO agency for Multichannel SEO

To make your SEO project smooth sailing, we offer a free matching service for businesses looking for their ideal SEO-ready digital marketing agency. If you simply answer a few quick questions, we’ll match you up with a trusted SEO expert who’ll get in touch with more information about their services and pricing. There’s no charge to use this service, so feel free to use it as many times as you need.

FAQ

Is SEO a waste of money?
It can be if you hire the wrong company. If you’re finding yourself handing over thousands of dollars each month without a clear return on investment (ROI), or even worse, finding your website search results rankings damaged by poor quality SEO work, then yes that’s a waste of money. 

However, in the best-case scenarios, SEO investment sees very high returns and builds future revenue streams. That means a healthy long-term future for your business sales pipelines. So the answer is no, absolutely not. Because you do not pay for web traffic from organic marketing like you do for pay-per-click (PPC), the margin on web visitors who find your website through search engines is 100%. 

In fact, the ROI for SEO spend ranges from 300% to over 1300% according to an agency called First Page Sage. Other agencies report results within this bracket as well. Although not everyone will see ROI so strong, your chances of success improve if your niche is low on competitors and if you’re in a lucrative industry such as medical ecommerce, insurance or legal services.

Of course, using the services of an SEO agency you’ll need to include their fees in your outgoings. However, these costs will always come out at less than the cost of paid marketing because then you’d have to pay the marketing agency plus the advertising platform such as Google Ads or Facebook Ads.

If you’re looking for a competitive price on SEO services from a digital marketing agency, we can match you with a trusted supplier. All you have to do is let us know the basics of what you’re after and we’ll do the legwork for you after that. A capable SEO professional will get in touch with you to talk through details, nice and easy!

Should I hire someone to do my SEO?
Yes, definitely. Even if you’re an expert in SEO you should probably still hire an expert to do your SEO because it’s a time-consuming process which is much better served by outsourcing. Your company will benefit from the dedicated focus of an industry professional who looks through a wide range of professional websites every week. They’ll be able to give insight and perspective that you won’t be able to recreate from within your own company’s bubble.

Another reason it’s more cost-effective to outsource your SEO than attempt to do the work yourself is because agencies will also have access to proprietary tools that can run SEO analysis work which is impossible to do by hand. Moz, Screaming Frog, Semrush, Ahrefs and Ubersuggest are just the start of a long list of paid tools used by the SEO pros. For instance, the agency subscription cost for Moz is priced at $599 per month. We’re guessing you’d rather not dish out so much cash for a complicated set of SEO tools you don’t even know how to use properly.

What is the cost of SEO services?
The services of an SEO professional cost $135 per hour on average. However, if you opt for a monthly price package from an SEO agency then the average (mean) cost is $3,594 according to our research on the costs of SEO

On the other hand, most SEO agencies don’t offer fixed monthly price packages and prefer to offer bespoke pricing because they can pick and choose the services needed based on the client in question. For monthly retainer fees on these kinds of SEO services you’re looking at a monthly spend of between $2,000 and $10,000. 

To get a specific price for SEO services for your company, let us know your needs and we’ll match you with a digital marketing agency that specializes in SEO. They’ll then get in touch to talk through your particular business goals and how their SEO services can help you reach them.

Written by:
Sabrina Dougall
Sabrina is a business journalist whose career began in news reporting. She has a master's in Investigative Journalism from City University London, and her work has appeared in The Times, The Daily Express, Money Saving Expert, Camden New Journal, Global Trade Review, and Computer Business Review. She specializes in writing about SEO (search engine optimization). Having run her own small business, Sabrina knows first-hand how critical digital marketing is to building a client base and local reputation.
Reviewed by:
Caitlin Hathaway
Caitlin is experienced in SEO strategy design and execution, enabling businesses to grow their search engine visibility meaningfully over time. Caitlin was a keynote speaker at international SEO conference BrightonSEO, sharing her knowledge on SEO project management.