You’re right to be skeptical.
The SEO industry has a trust problem, and it’s structural. The work happens behind the scenes. Results take months to materialize. And it’s genuinely difficult to evaluate whether an agency is competent until you’re already paying them. Bad actors have exploited this gap for years, which is why so many business owners have been burned by agencies that overpromised and underdelivered.
So when you search “what does an SEO company do,” you’re probably not looking for a glossary definition. You’re trying to figure out whether this whole thing is worth it, what you’d actually be paying for, and how to avoid becoming another cautionary tale.
What SEO companies actually do
At the core, SEO companies help your website appear when people search for things related to your business. But “appear in search results” is a bit like saying “restaurants prepare food.” Technically accurate, completely uninformative about what happens in the kitchen.
What agencies actually spend their time on:
Keyword research means identifying what your potential customers type into Google, how competitive those terms are, and which ones are worth pursuing. Good agencies don’t just hand you a list of high-volume keywords. They map search terms to buyer intent and business value, then prioritize based on what will actually move revenue.
Technical SEO covers the behind-the-scenes work that helps search engines crawl and understand your site. Site speed, mobile responsiveness, proper indexing, fixing crawl errors, structured data markup. Most business owners never see this work directly, but broken technical foundations limit everything else. If you’ve ever paid for content that never ranked, there’s a decent chance this is why.
On-page optimization involves improving individual pages to rank for target keywords. Title tags, meta descriptions, header structure, internal linking, content quality. This is where keyword research translates into actual page improvements. It’s also where most DIY efforts stall, endlessly tweaking meta descriptions while ignoring the content quality issues that actually move rankings.
Content strategy and creation is the long game. Creating valuable content that attracts search traffic, answers questions your customers have, and positions you as a credible source in your space. Some agencies write content in-house, others manage freelancers, others guide your internal team. The best content reflects genuine expertise from your organization, not generic articles that could apply to any company in your industry.
Link building is where most SEO horror stories start. It remains one of the strongest external signals for rankings, and also the area with the most potential for damage. There’s a massive difference between earning a mention in a trade publication and buying links from a blog network. Legitimate agencies build relationships to earn links from relevant sites. Less scrupulous ones take shortcuts that can get your site penalized.
Analytics and reporting should show you what’s working, what’s not, and what’s changing. The keyword is “should.” More on this shortly.
Local SEO matters if you serve a geographic area. Google Business Profile optimization, local citations, review management, location-based content. Different skillset than national SEO, and not every agency does both well.
SEO now includes AI discovery
This list covers traditional SEO, but the landscape is shifting. Search isn’t just Google anymore. People ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI assistants questions that used to go into search engines. And those AI systems form opinions about brands based on the sources they’ve been trained on and the sources they retrieve and cite.
SEO companies are now responsible for visibility in both traditional search and AI-mediated discovery. Forward-thinking agencies track how your brand appears in AI-generated responses. What prompts mention you? What sources do large language models cite when recommending companies like yours?
This is measurable, though it’s not as standardized as Google Search Console yet. Tools like Profound, Peak.ai, and others in this space let you run repeatable prompt sets, track share-of-mention over time, and audit which sources AI models pull from when answering questions relevant to your business.
Here’s what this looks like in practice. Say you’re a manufacturing company looking for marketing help. You might run a prompt like “what are the best marketing agencies for manufacturing companies” across ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, then analyze: Are you mentioned? Who is mentioned instead? What sources are being cited in the responses? Are there incorrect brand associations or outdated information? Running these prompts monthly shows you whether your visibility is improving or declining in AI-driven discovery.
Citation source analysis identifies where AI models pull their information. They can and do make things up, which is exactly why citation sources matter. These systems tend to synthesize from Reddit discussions, YouTube content, industry directories, news articles, and authoritative websites. Understanding which sources influence AI responses lets you prioritize where to build presence.
Digital PR has always mattered for link building, but it now serves a dual purpose. Getting mentioned in publications, podcasts, and industry resources builds traditional SEO signals and increases the likelihood that AI systems will reference your brand when answering relevant questions.
This means modern SEO strategy includes building presence on platforms that AI systems trust: Reddit threads where your expertise adds value, YouTube content that demonstrates authority, directory listings that establish legitimacy, and earned media that AI can cite.
So when you’re evaluating SEO today, you’re also evaluating whether an agency understands the work that makes your brand show up in the answers people trust, not just the links they click.
How good agencies use AI (and how they don’t)
While we’re on the subject: a modern SEO company uses AI, but doesn’t try to automate its way to results.
AI tools help agencies do more and better. Research that used to take days can happen in hours. Content briefs can be more thorough. Competitive analysis can cover more ground. Pattern recognition across large datasets becomes practical.
But SEO still requires human judgment. AI can accelerate research; it can’t replace the strategic thinking about which opportunities actually matter for your business. It can help draft content; it can’t capture the expertise that makes your company different. It can surface data; it can’t build the client relationships that turn insights into action.
The agencies getting this right use AI to amplify senior expertise, not to replace it with automation. Be wary of agencies selling AI-powered SEO as if the AI does the work. The value is still in the thinking. AI just lets good strategists operate at higher leverage.
What a good SEO relationship actually looks like
Here’s where most “what does an SEO company do” articles stop. Services listed, boxes checked, article complete. But knowing what services exist doesn’t help you understand what you’re actually signing up for.
A good SEO engagement functions as a partnership, not a service subscription. That distinction matters more than which specific tactics an agency offers.
Communication cadence. At minimum, expect monthly check-ins where strategy is discussed. Weekly is better for larger investments. One-off emails when quick wins or issues arise. Access to dashboards showing real-time progress. If your agency disappears for weeks and then sends a generic report, something’s wrong.
Information flow goes both ways. Your agency needs to know what’s happening inside your business. What services or products are you focusing on? What’s changing in your market? Which customers are most valuable? SEO strategy should align with business strategy, and that requires you to share context they can’t discover independently.
Strategy conversations, not just task reports. There’s a difference between “we published three blog posts and built four links this month” and “here’s why we’re prioritizing these keywords over those, what we learned from last month’s data, and how we’re adjusting the approach.” One is task execution. The other is strategic thinking applied to your specific situation.
If you’re paying $5k a month and the only thing you get is a PDF report and “traffic is up 8%,” you’re not in a partnership. You’re in a subscription.
Access and documentation. Good agencies maintain records of what’s been done, what decisions were made, and why. You should be able to ask for this at any point. If the agency can’t produce it, they’re either disorganized or they don’t want you looking too closely.
Quarterly level-setting. What’s working? What’s not? Are the original assumptions still valid? SEO isn’t set-it-and-forget-it. The agencies that outperform are the ones that adapt based on evidence, not the ones that run the same playbook month after month regardless of results.
At Connective, we run a quarterly sprint model. We don’t lock into a 12-month strategy on day one because the data will tell us something different by day 30. Month one of any new engagement focuses heavily on research: understanding your competitive landscape, your customers, your positioning. Then service allocations adjust in following months based on what we’re actually learning. That first month of deep research sets a strategic foundation that most agencies skip because it doesn’t produce immediate deliverables. But without it, everything else is guesswork.
How progress actually shows up
A note for marketing directors who need to report results to leadership: SEO progress shows up in stages, and knowing the leading indicators helps you evaluate whether things are working before the traffic arrives.
Early signals (months 1-3): Technical issues getting resolved, pages getting indexed that weren’t before, impression growth in Search Console (people are seeing you in results even if they’re not clicking yet), ranking improvements for lower-competition terms.
Mid-stage signals (months 3-6): Ranking distribution shifting (more keywords in positions 4-10 instead of 20+), click-through rates improving as you move up, non-branded search visibility growing, content starting to attract backlinks naturally.
Lagging indicators (months 6+): Meaningful traffic increases, lead volume from organic search, pipeline quality improvements, and ultimately revenue impact.
If your agency only talks about traffic and rankings, they’re skipping the context that helps you understand whether the strategy is working. Good agencies walk you through the full picture.
How to tell if an agency is legitimate
You can’t easily evaluate SEO competence until months into an engagement. The work happens behind the scenes. Results take time to materialize. And agencies are skilled at explaining away poor performance.
But there are signals you can look for before you sign a contract.
Ask what the first 90 days look like. A strong agency should walk you through a concrete plan: what they’ll audit, what they’ll research, what early actions they’ll take, and what you should expect to see. Vague answers like “we’ll optimize your site” are red flags.
Ask how their team is structured. Who will actually work on your account? If the person pitching you won’t be involved after you sign, ask to meet the people who will. The bait-and-switch between skilled salespeople and junior executors is one of the most common complaints.
Ask for case studies with specifics. Not “we increased traffic 300%” but “for this type of business, targeting these keywords, we achieved these specific results over this timeframe.” Vague claims without context are meaningless.
Ask what they’ll need from you. An agency that says “just sign and we’ll handle everything” is either lying or planning to apply templates without customization. Legitimate SEO requires understanding your business, which requires your participation.
Ask about their communication process. How often will you meet? What will reports include? How quickly will they respond to questions? Get this in writing.
Ask about contract terms and ownership. What happens to your content if you part ways? Who owns the analytics data? What are the exit terms? Agencies that lock you into long contracts with unclear ownership are protecting themselves, not you.
Ask to see a report from a bad month. Any agency can show you a chart with green arrows. The real test is how they communicate when things aren’t going well. Do they explain what happened, what they learned, and what they’re adjusting? Or do they hide behind jargon and deflect responsibility? How an agency handles setbacks tells you more than how they celebrate wins.
Red flags that should make you walk away
Some warning signs are more serious than others. These should stop a conversation entirely:
Guaranteed rankings. Nobody can guarantee specific positions in search results. Google’s algorithm considers hundreds of factors. Anyone promising “#1 rankings” is either lying or planning to use tactics that could damage your site long-term.
Very low prices with vague scope. SEO done properly is labor-intensive. If someone offers comprehensive SEO for $500/month, they’re either doing very little actual work or using automated shortcuts that create risk.
Reluctance to explain their methods. Legitimate agencies should be willing to explain what they do and why. Secrecy often indicates techniques they know you wouldn’t approve of if you understood them.
Pressure tactics and artificial urgency. “This price is only available today” or “your competitors are about to dominate” are sales tactics, not strategic recommendations.
Cold outreach claiming your site “needs help.” Agencies that send unsolicited emails highlighting problems with your site are almost universally running automated outreach. They haven’t actually analyzed your situation.
What SEO actually costs
Most articles on this topic avoid pricing entirely. That’s convenient for agencies who want to quote whatever they think you’ll pay, but not helpful for you.
A realistic breakdown based on current market rates:
For local small businesses (think single-location service providers, local retail), expect $1,500 to $3,000 per month. That typically covers local optimization, Google Business Profile management, some content development, and basic technical maintenance. This isn’t the work we do at Connective, but it’s useful market context.
For regional businesses or competitive niches, $3,000 to $6,000 per month is more realistic. You’ll get a dedicated team, consistent content production, active link building, and proper strategic oversight. This is where most mid-market companies should expect to start.
For competitive national markets, $6,000 to $10,000+ per month provides comprehensive programs with enhanced content, substantial digital PR efforts, and the technical resources to compete against established players.
At Connective, our SEO engagements start at $3,000 per month, which includes authority building, standard articles, technical SEO hours, and on-page optimization. Our Growth package at $6,000 adds digital PR and increases volume across deliverables. Scale at $10,000 includes enhanced content development and expanded capacity. We also offer a custom calculator where you can configure exactly what you need. Use our numbers as a benchmark for what mid-market SEO investment looks like, not necessarily as the right answer for your specific situation.
What matters more than the number is understanding what you’re getting for it. Ask for a detailed breakdown. “SEO services” as a line item tells you nothing. Specific deliverables with clear quantities let you compare across agencies and hold them accountable.
What affects pricing
Your competitive landscape. Trying to rank for “personal injury lawyer Los Angeles” costs more than ranking for “vintage bicycle repair Omaha.” More competition requires more resources.
Your starting point. Sites with existing authority, clean technical foundations, and established content need less remediation work than sites starting from scratch or recovering from past mistakes.
Your goals and timeline. Faster results require more aggressive investment. If you need meaningful traffic in six months rather than eighteen, the resource allocation changes.
Deliverable quality. A 500-word blog post costs less than an in-depth research piece with original data. Template-based work costs less than custom strategic development. But the outcomes differ too.
When you shouldn’t hire an SEO agency
This might seem counterintuitive coming from an agency, but there are situations where hiring an SEO company is the wrong move.
If you need revenue today. SEO is a long game. Even well-executed campaigns typically take 6 to 12 months to produce meaningful results. If your business needs leads next month, that money should go to paid advertising or other channels with faster feedback loops. SEO compounds over time, but it’s not a short-term solution.
If your expectations don’t match reality. Wanting page-one rankings in 60 days on a $1,500/month budget isn’t realistic for competitive terms. If an agency accepts that engagement without resetting expectations, they’re setting you up for disappointment.
If your offer is still changing weekly. SEO builds assets around specific positioning. If you don’t yet know your ideal customer or your service mix is in flux, you’ll waste money optimizing for things that won’t matter in six months. Get the foundation stable first.
If your sales process can’t handle more leads. More traffic only helps if you can convert it. If leads are already falling through the cracks, fix that before investing in more volume.
If you can do it yourself. SEO can be done in-house if you have someone with both the expertise and the bandwidth. The threshold is both: someone who can execute effectively, stays current on algorithm changes, and has actual time to do the work. If that exists in your organization, the ROI of bringing it in-house may beat agency fees. Even then, an outside consultant to pressure-test strategy can add value.
If foundational problems need solving first. SEO can’t compensate for a website that’s technically broken, hard to update, or missing basic functionality. If your site requires a developer to publish a blog post, fix that first. Similarly, if your brand positioning isn’t clear, SEO will struggle to champion a message that doesn’t exist. The foundation matters.
The consultant model alternative
For businesses that want strategic guidance without full-service execution, there’s a middle option. Some agencies offer hourly arrangements where they guide strategy and you execute. This works well for organizations with capable marketing teams who need expert direction more than additional hands.
We offer this at Connective for clients who are willing to put in the work and have enough internal knowledge to act on good strategy. Not every business needs a full-service engagement. Sometimes the highest value is someone experienced to discuss approach with, identify blind spots, and validate direction.
Your role in making SEO work
The best agencies can’t succeed without client participation. This rarely gets discussed, but it’s a core reason engagements fail.
Share business context. What are you focusing on this quarter? What services are most profitable? What’s changing in your market? Which customer segments matter most? SEO strategy should ladder up to business strategy, and that requires information your agency can’t discover independently.
Provide access to subject matter expertise. The best SEO content reflects genuine expertise. If your agency is writing about your industry, they need access to people in your organization who can provide insights, answer questions, and review content for accuracy. This isn’t about creating extra work. It’s about capturing the knowledge that differentiates your company.
Participate in reviews. Content approvals, strategy discussions, progress reviews. These require your attention. Agencies that chase clients for feedback eventually stop asking, and the work suffers.
Ask good questions. Monthly check-ins should include questions like “why is this the best use of our budget right now?” Not to catch them out, but to understand the strategy. Are they seeing errors on the site? Are there opportunities they’d pursue with more resources? What’s working better than expected? What’s underperforming?
The agencies that produce the best results are the ones with clients who engage actively. Not a transaction where you pay and wait, but a collaboration where both parties contribute to outcomes.
What happens if you’ve already been burned
If you’re reading this after a bad experience, the path forward is straightforward:
Get access to everything. Google Analytics, Search Console, any tools they had access to. Change passwords. Make sure you have admin access to your own properties.
Audit what they actually did. Check for bad links that might need disavowing. Review any content they published for quality issues. Identify technical changes that may have caused problems.
Document what happened. Not for litigation purposes (usually), but for your own understanding of what went wrong and how to avoid it next time.
Don’t overcorrect into DIY unless you’re equipped for it. Bad agency experiences create understandable distrust. But the answer isn’t necessarily bringing everything in-house. It’s finding a better partner and structuring the relationship to protect yourself.
Ask better questions earlier. The vetting process outlined above can prevent most bad partnerships before they start.
The bottom line
SEO agencies handle the specialized work required to improve your visibility in search results: keyword research, technical optimization, content development, link building, and ongoing monitoring. The best ones now also track how your brand appears in AI-generated responses and build presence on the platforms that influence those systems.
What separates good agencies from expensive mistakes is how they do this work, whether they take time to understand your specific business, and whether the relationship functions as a true partnership rather than a task subscription.
The industry’s trust problem is real, but that doesn’t mean the discipline itself is flawed. Companies that invest in legitimate SEO, with realistic expectations and genuine participation, build compounding assets that drive business growth for years.
The question isn’t just “what does an SEO company do.” It’s whether the specific agency you’re evaluating will do it well, for your particular situation, with transparency and accountability.
Ready to discuss what SEO could look like for your business? Schedule a conversation.
