Looking for the best SEO agency to hire?
I’ll give you a secret: there’s no such thing as THE best SEO agency. Only the best SEO agency for YOU.
You might need an enterprise SEO agency, or potentially a digital PR agency. Maybe you’ve got an SEO strategy on lock, and you just need help with your content marketing production.
Every context is different.
You also don’t need a list of 150 agencies to peruse through, so I’ll list only the 17 best SEO agencies serving specific purposes, industries and price points so you can walk away with a shortlist to compare.
The 17 Best SEO Agencies in 2023
- Omniscient Digital
- Seer Interactive
- iPullRank
- Directive
- Ignite Digital
- Evolving SEO
- Amsive Digital
- WebFX
- NOVOS
- GrowthMate
- Local SEO Guide
- Green Flag Digital
- GrowthPlays
- Organic Growth Marketing
- Flow SEO
- WhiteCap SEO
- NP Digital
1. Omniscient Digital
Best for: Organic growth strategy for ambitious b2b brands
Services: SEO strategy, SEO monitoring and advising, content production, link building, conversion rate optimization, analytics, technical SEO
Notable clients: Adobe, SAP, HotJar, Loom
Omniscient Digital is an organic growth agency that drives attributable pipeline and revenue for B2B brands.
We three co-founders of Omniscient come from in-house leadership roles at companies like Workato, HubSpot, Shopify, and People AI, and we’ve built a cross-functional team of SEO, growth, and editorial experts to build custom playbooks for our clients.
While we specialize in B2B, particularly SaaS, we’ve helped startups scale up from their seed round to millions in revenue, and we’ve also worked with Fortune 500 companies to unlock new growth opportunities.
Our key strength is we build SEO strategies and programs that index on a business’s unique strengths and opportunities, and we aim our programs towards revenue growth (not merely increasing search rankings). Look at our case studies. They have dollar signs on them.
We’re also not a full service digital agency; we specialize in organic.
As an SEO agency, we’ll drive strategy, build analytics and reporting tools, monitor and proactively update and fix bugs, and build backlinks. We’ve also got a content production that can scale to 100s of editorial pages a month (and more if we’re talking programmatic SEO).
If you’re an ambitious B2B brand looking for an SEO agency, talk to me.
2. Seer Interactive
Best for: Performance marketing for enterprise brands
Services: SEO, paid media, analytics, market intelligence, consumer insights, creative, conversion rate optimization
Notable clients: Intuit, Autodesk, Leafly
With over 20 years of experience, Seer Interactive is one of the best SEO agencies out there.
They pride themselves on producing measurable results and using data-driven strategies that consistently increase website traffic. Their clients range from small businesses to fortune 500 companies, such as Hershey’s and LinkedIn, and they have managed to deliver exceptional work that has led to a high level of customer retention.
Their services now expand beyond SEO, but I still view them as being a powerhouse in organic. Now, they also offer digital strategy to increase your online visibility across search, paid, and social.
3. iPullRank
Best for: Technical SEO and generative AI consulting
Services: Technical SEO, SEO strategy, content strategy, generative AI
Notable clients: LG, Ralph Lauren, DocSend
When it comes to technical SEO and enterprise SEO consulting, iPullRank is one of the top SEO agencies.
They’ve got a great team and work with top tier clients, advising and consulting on high level digital strategy. They’re also putting out some of the best information on generative AI right now.
IPullRank is one of my favorite SEO providers for custom SEO strategy, specifically site optimization, on page optimization / on page SEO, mobile optimization, and technical stuff in general.
Great search engine optimization firm, and also worth checking out their blog and SEO podcast.
4. Grow and Convert
Best for: SEO-focused content marketing for startups
Services: SEO, content production, content promotion, PPC, analytics
Notable clients: CrazyEgg, Clearscope, Patreon
Grow and Convert is a content marketing agency with a strong focus on SEO strategies and conversion rate optimization.
They’ve also recently launched a paid search service.
The co-founders, Benji and Devesh, have put forth a ton of interesting frameworks for keyword research and driving organic traffic, like their Pain Point SEO model.
They’re also very analytically focused, making sure your SEO efforts and SEO investment doesn’t go to waste.
If bottom-of-the-funnel content is what you’re looking for, Grow and Convert specializes in it.
5. Ignite Digital
Best for: SEO and PPC for small businesses
Services: SEO, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, WordPress development, WooCommerce development, web design
Notable clients: Volpe Financial Solutions, Mississauga Foot Clinic
Ignite Digital is a full service digital agency that offers exceptional SEO services. Their team of experts works closely with clients to understand their business goals and develop a personalized strategy, increasing their search engine visibility. With their innovative approach,
Ignite Digital is primarily focused on the small business market. Small business SEO is actually quite difficult, a totally different nut to crack than enterprise SEO. They’re a service provider that does it well.
6. Evolving SEO
Best for: SEO strategy and training
Services: SEO strategy, SEO audits, content marketing strategy
Notable clients: Zappos, Harvard Business Review, Gartner, ButcherBox
Evolving SEO is a quiet, steady, and impressive SEO consultancy run by Dan Shure.
Dan, who has been on our podcast and was an amazing guest, is amazing at keyword research, content strategy, and white hat SEO techniques. Beyond basic SEO best practices, he’s great at finding on page SEO wins for quick SEO success.
He also offers SEO training. If nothing else, please listen to his podcast, Experts on the Wire. It’s great.
7. Amsive Digital
Best for: Technical SEO for large websites
Services: SEO, brand strategy, media planning, programmatic, direct mail, email, and more
Notable clients: Forbes, NYU, Home Depot
Amsive Digital is a full service digital marketing agency based in New York.
Their services run the gamut of digital marketing solutions, from social media marketing, web development services, email marketing services, reputation management, web design services, paid search, and of course, search engine optimization.
They’re a performance marketing agency with a large team, tons of resources, and a focus on data-driven strategy.
8. Optimist
Best for: SEO-focused content for product-led SaaS
Services: SEO strategy, content production, link building
Notable clients: HelloSign, Superhuman, Kubera
Optimist is another excellent content marketing and SEO company that is focused on driving tangible business results for clients.
They’re a bit of an interesting SEO company, in that they are a collective of freelance talent opposed to a traditional centralized agency. Tyler Hakes, their founder, explains more on a podcast episode we did.
In any case, they believe a lot of what we believe –
content marketing should sell stuff, it should be aimed at the ICP (not just organic traffic for traffic’s sake), etc.
They focus on product-led SaaS, primarily in the startup and scale-up stages.
9. NOVOS
Best for: eCommerce SEO
Services: Tech SEO, CMS migrations, content strategy, content production, digital PR
Notable clients: Pooch & Mutt, Made, Bloom & Wild
Novos is one of the biggest e commerce SEO agencies out there and one of the few SEO service providers exclusively focused on this niche.
At the heart of everything they do is a reliance on data-driven strategy. They do have a full suite of SEO solutions, including CMS migrations and digital public relations.
If you want more visibility for your ecommerce business online, it’s worth looking into NOVOS.
10. GrowthMate
Best for: Link building for B2B brands
Services: Link building, digital PR strategy
Notable clients: Community Phone, Omniscient
GrowthMate is an off page SEO company, i.e they specialize in building links. And they do it damn well.
I’ve worked with Andriy and the team, and I’ve referred them out to several clients. Every single person I’ve referred them to is insanely happy with their work.
The way it works is GrowthMate analyzes your site against a competitive landscape as well as talks to you about your goals. They then embark on a relationship-based link building campaign to reliably drive high DR links and increase your website’s domain authority and search engine rankings.
11. Local SEO Guide
Best for: Local SEO and marketing
Services: SEO
Notable clients: Upwork, Roblox, Yext
Local SEO Guide is, as it sounds, a local SEO agency.
I’m going to be honest with you – I’ve barely done local SEO. I did a bit back when I worked at LawnStarter, but it’s mostly foreign to me. But people tell me great things about Local SEO Guide (as you can see, their motto is “The SEO Agency SEOs Trust.”
They offer white label services for agencies, but also work directly with brands, both small business and large.
Local SEO Guide is your SEO partner for local internet marketing campaigns.
12. Green Flag Digital
Best for: Digital PR for consumer brands
Services: Digital PR, content creation, link building, technical SEO
Notable clients: MindBodyGreen, Reservations.com
Green Flag Digital is one of the top agencies for digital PR.
They work with your content and marketing team to develop a strategy designed to garner high value editorial placement through premium content creation.
Look at their case studies for Reservations.com and MindBodyGreen. This isn’t your basic link building. It’s a holistic campaign designed to drive increased online visibility, search engine rankings, and leads.
They work with both consumer and B2B brands, and they also offer technical SEO services.
13. Growth Plays
Best for: SEO strategy for technical B2B brands
Services: SEO strategy, CMS migrations, SEO monitoring, content marketing strategy
Notable clients: Calendly, Lattice, Heap
Growth Plays is an awesome SEO agency that drives pipeline for B2B brands through content marketing strategy, SEO support and playbooks, and technical / CMS consulting.
As an SEO consulting agency, they offer SEO monitoring and proactive optimization and management advice.
The team is one of the best in the business, run by JH Scherck, who not only knows his stuff about SEO, but is also a fantastic and spicy Twitter follow.
One of the best SEO companies to work with for businesses serious about high velocity organic growth strategy.
14. Organic Growth Marketing
Best for: SEO strategy for high growth SaaS
Services: SEO strategy, SEO program management, link building, content optimization
Notable clients: Gorgias, Klaviyo, ProfitWell
OGM is another SEO consulting agency with a heavy focus on content marketing.
They work with high growth brands like Klaviyo, ShipBob, and HotJar to drive SEO success at scale, working with content teams to build out a roadmap of high impact blog posts to create and optimize.
They also offer link building / off page SEO, as well as proactive monitoring and on page optimization.
15. Flow SEO
Best for: Performance search marketing for software companies
Services: SEO strategy, PPC (Google Ads, Bing Ads), technical SEO
Notable clients: ELM Learning, MailCharts, Betterworks
Flow SEO is a really cool SEO agency and online advertising firm that works with brands to scale their search marketing channels.
They offer both search engine optimization (organic) as well as search engine marketing (paid).
The team, led by the inimitable Viola Eva, has also put out some amazing thought leadership on artificial intelligence and SGE.
They understand search engines and what goes into search engine results pages — from a holistic perspective of paid and organic – and are a great internet marketing agency for smart brands.
16. WhiteCap SEO
Best for: eCommerce SEO
Services: eCommerce SEO, CMS migration, eCommerce PPC
Notable clients: Custom Ink, Ghirardelli, Bucketfeet
WhiteCap SEO is another e commerce SEO firm with a broader focus on digital marketing and online advertising.
In addition to search engine optimization, they offer ecommerce PPC as well as technical services like CMS migrations and management.
They have dozens of impressive case studies and testimonials on their website and appear to be one of the top SEO agencies for ecommerce and online business.
17. NP Digital
Best for: International SEO
Services: SEO
Notable clients: Hickory Farms, Intuit, LinkedIn
NP Digital is a full service digital marketing agency founded by the notorious Neil Patel.
All in all, their global presence and large team of specialists makes them a great partner for international SEO and global expansion.
They offer pretty much everything from digital marketing strategy to social media marketing, content marketing, reputation management, web design, off page SEO, and pretty much anything internet marketing related.
While they primarily work with large enterprises, they do also have an arm of their agency that works with smaller businesses.
They also have a suite of SEO tools, including AnswerThePublic and Ubersuggest, that have all degraded in utility after their purchase by NP Digital 🙂
What Criteria to Look for in the Best SEO Agency
What matters when choosing an SEO agency?
Scrutinize these five dimensions:
- Specialization and competencies
- Track record and reputation
- Industry focus
- Team
- Cost
Specialization and competencies
Call me crazy, but I like a specialized agency.
That’s just my preference. Other firms want an agency that can do it all – paid, SEO, social, web development, etc.
While some agencies can perform well across multiple domains, I think it’s pretty hard to scale and maintain quality everywhere.
Of course, it’s also not ideal to have to manage 12 different agencies. So what’s the sweet spot?
Well, that’s going to be determined by you and your executive team.
Personally, I think an SEO agency that can build strategy, has analytical resources for attribution, and can actually drive throughput and execute on page creation, technical updates, and link building is the winner.
Really, everyone should be able to conduct SEO audits and do keyword research. But do you need social media management or web development to be housed in the same agency? Maybe, but likely not.
Bonus points if they can scale to ambitious levels. Because, after all, who wants to mess around in the kiddie pool? SEO success follows the Matthew Principle, so go for the gold!
Track record and reputation
“The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior”
No one actually knows who said that, but it’s mostly true. I mean, it’s not true in financial investing, but it is definitely true in hiring talent.
If, for instance, I’m hiring an SEO strategist, I want to see that they have DONE things. Moved the needle. That they’re a driver, not a passenger.
Same is true for SEO firms.
Ideally, they have both public facing case studies (which you should take with a grain of salt) as well as a good reputation in “dark social” (whatever that means nowadays).
Basically, if you ask a bunch of people you trust about them, the overall sentiment should be…good.
Here’s a hint: ask to talk to their current or former clients as a reference check. If they don’t allow it, that’s a huge red flag.
Industry focus
I think this is ultimately much less important than some people do, but it sometimes helps to have experience in a specific industry.
Where I think it matters is in ecommerce vs local vs B2B SEO. The sales cycles, website development, and digital marketing strategy differs a lot here.
Where it doesn’t matter is if the agency has specific experience in your incredibly narrow niche of cloud CDP solutions for cannabis brands.
Who cares? The people on your account, their talent and expertise, matters much more than the serendipitous happenstance of an agency having worked with your competitors in the past.
Team
The team is really the most important thing.
First, who are the founders? What’s their background? No matter what, the ideology and temperament of the founders will drip down, to some level, to the rest of the team.
Second, are you going to work with a talented team or are you getting the B-squad? You can ask who will be on your account, by the way.
We specifically ordain a strategist onto a new account based on their experience and inclination in the space and the specific problems to solve. E.g. If we’re going to work with a web3 client, we’ll place a strategist who has worked in that space, or has at least worked on similar problems (in this case, likely blue ocean SEO strategy).
Ask this question, too: what happens if we want to change the team assigned to our account? Also, will the same team be working on our account the whole time?
IMO, it’s best to have a consistent team, but also have the option to swap out a writer or team member if they aren’t working out.
Team is the one thing you can’t mess with if you want to win.
Cost
Finally, you have to take cost into account. Budget isn’t endless.
Two points here: avoid too high of cost (obviously), but also avoid too low of cost.
There ain’t no such thing as free lunch in SEO, and if the cost is too low, the agency is almost certainly cutting corners somewhere. And shortcuts tend to lead to ruin in this capricious and fickle channel.
If you want lasting organic traffic, if you want to build an SEO brand, if you want to dominate search engines…pony up for the best.
Conclusion
Investing in SEO can make a significant difference in achieving your business goals. With so many agencies claiming they can get the job done, it is essential to partner with a trustworthy and reliable partner.
The SEO agencies mentioned above have a proven track record of delivering results, ensuring that they can take your business to new heights. No matter what your business goals are, one of these agencies will undoubtedly serve you well. We hope this blog post has given you valuable insights and helped narrow down your options for finding the best SEO agency in 2024.
