SEO companies plan, implement, and measure organic growth through technical fixes, content, and links tailored to your site.
Hiring an outside team can feel murky. This guide breaks the process into clear steps—what they do, how the work flows week-to-week, what you’ll see in reports, and how to judge progress. By the end, you’ll know what a solid partner delivers and how to hold them to it.
What You Get From An SEO Partner
An experienced team uses a repeatable playbook: audit the site, set goals, fix crawl issues, tune pages, create content, earn links, and validate results. The first month is heavy on discovery and fixes. Months two and three lean into publishing and outreach while tracking impact.
Service Menu, Deliverables, And Proof
The table below shows the common work streams you can expect, the outputs you should receive, and how proof of progress is typically shown.
| Work Stream | Deliverables You Receive | Proof Of Progress |
|---|---|---|
| Technical Audit | Crawl map, issue list, priority fixes | Error counts down, pages crawled up |
| On-Page Tuning | Updated titles, headers, internal links | Better snippet quality, higher CTR |
| Content Planning | Topics, briefs, publishing calendar | New pages live, match to search intent |
| Content Production | Drafts, edits, images, alt text | Indexation, impressions, time on page |
| Digital PR & Mentions | Pitches, placements, brand mentions | New referring sites, referral traffic |
| Local SEO (if needed) | Profile cleanup, NAP checks, reviews plan | Map pack visibility, calls, directions taps |
| Reporting | Goal tracking, dashboards, next steps | Leads or sales tied to organic |
How An SEO Agency Operates Day To Day
This close look at the rhythm of the work helps set sound expectations.
Week 1–2: Discovery And Baselines
Access is set up for analytics, Search Console, and the CMS. The team runs a crawler, reviews server logs if available, studies top pages and queries, and gathers business goals. You’ll see a short list of quick wins and a longer list of fixes that need dev time.
Week 3–4: Fixes And First Content
They address broken links, thin templates, missing meta data, and internal linking gaps. A publishing plan begins with briefs for topics that match search intent. The goal is to ship a few live pages this month to start a clean feedback loop in Search Console.
Month 2: Scale The Work That Moves The Needle
Technical tickets continue while content ramps. Pages that already rank on page 2–3 get targeted edits and better internal links to lift them. Outreach starts for resources that deserve mentions, and brand guidelines are used in every pitch.
Month 3: Momentum And Refinement
By now you should see rising impressions, better click-through on improved snippets, and early lifts on updated pages. The team trims ideas that don’t show promise and doubles down on topics that earn links and engagement.
Pricing Models And What They Mean
Common options include project, monthly retainer, or hybrid. A project suits a site relaunch or a one-time audit. A retainer fits ongoing content and link earning. Hybrid keeps a monthly base and adds a scoped sprint for migrations or large fixes.
What’s In Scope
Ask for a written scope: number of URLs to audit, count of new articles each month, how many dev tickets they will draft, and the cadence for reports and calls. Clear scope keeps both sides aligned and reduces back-and-forth later.
How To Vet A Provider
Ask about method, tools, and how they judge success. Ask for sample audits and redacted reports. A solid partner will reference public guidelines and steer clear of shortcuts. Google’s own page on hiring help outlines smart questions and warns about tactics that can cause harm—link schemes, doorway pages, or fake reviews. See Google’s guide: Do You Need An SEO?
Six Clear Red Flags
- Guarantees about rankings or exact timelines.
- Secret methods or vague “proprietary” tactics without detail.
- Paid placements pitched as “editorial mentions.”
- Mass directory blasts or spun content.
- Thin reports with no actions.
- Access requests that bypass your controls.
Technical Work: Crawl, Index, And Architecture
Search engines need to crawl your pages, understand them, and place them in the index. A good team removes crawl traps, fixes duplicate paths, adds internal links to surface depth, and makes sure templates output clean titles, headings, and structured data where it adds clarity.
Robots And Index Controls
The file at /robots.txt guides crawlers on where not to waste crawl budget. It does not block indexing on its own; use noindex or access control for that case. Google’s documentation spells this out in plain terms. Reference: Robots.txt Overview.
Links And Link Attributes
When linking out, some links need a label through rel to explain the relationship. For paid placements use rel="sponsored". For user-generated comments use rel="ugc". When a link should pass no signal, you can use rel="nofollow". See Google’s note on link qualification: Qualify Outbound Links.
Content And On-Page Workflow
Content drives discovery. The team starts with topics your audience already searches for, then maps each topic to a page type. The brief covers intent, subheads, FAQs to answer within the content body (not as a separate accordion), internal links to related pages, and specs for images and alt text.
Titles, Snippets, And Internal Links
Titles should match how people search. Keep the core phrase near the start and add a helpful modifier. Meta descriptions should set up the value in one or two punchy lines. Internal links point readers to the next step—buying, contacting, or learning more. Link anchors should read like natural calls to action, not strings of keywords.
Quality Signals That Stick
- Clear authorship on the site and accurate bios.
- Plain claims backed by data or measurement.
- Timely updates for pages that rely on changing facts.
- Media with alt text and sensible file sizes.
Link Practices That Pass Reviews
The best mentions come from content that deserves attention. That includes original studies, sharp explanations, checklists, or tools. Outreach should be personal and relevant. Anything paid should be labeled. The safest rule: earn mentions with content that people cite because it helps them do a job.
What An Agency Usually Does Here
- Finds pages that already attract links and improves them.
- Builds resource pages that answer a specific need.
- Offers quotes or data to reporters when it fits the beat.
- Audits your site for broken inbound links and reclaims them.
Reporting, Goals, And Timelines
Good reporting shows change across three levels: visibility, engagement, and money. Visibility includes impressions and ranking distribution. Engagement includes clicks and click-through rate from search. Money ties pages or groups of pages to leads or sales. A growth plan should state the few metrics that matter and show progress to goals each month.
What Reports Should Contain
- A compact scorecard: sessions, conversions, and revenue or lead count.
- Movement for tracked pages and groups, not just single keywords.
- Work shipped this month and what’s shipping next.
- Issues blocked by access, dev, or content bandwidth.
When A Migration Is In Scope
Domain changes, protocol changes, or major URL maps need careful planning. The safe way is well-scoped redirects, clean sitemaps, and close monitoring in Search Console. Google documents these steps in detail; see Site Moves With URL Changes and the page on Redirect Types.
Launch Checklist For A Move
- Map every old URL to the best new match with a 301.
- Carry over titles, headings, and schema where they still fit.
- Update internal links, canonicals, and hreflang if used.
- Regenerate XML sitemaps and submit them.
- Watch crawl stats, coverage, and error counts daily for two weeks.
Sample 90-Day Plan With Milestones
This model shows a practical rollout. Adjust scope to fit your site size and publishing capacity.
| Week Range | Primary Tasks | Success Signals |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Access, crawl, baseline, quick fixes, topic list | Crawl errors down, plan approved |
| 3–4 | Implement fixes, ship 2–4 pages, improve titles | New pages indexed, CTR up on updated snippets |
| 5–6 | Add internal links, publish 4–6 pages, start outreach | Impressions rising, first placements live |
| 7–8 | Update pages stuck on page 2–3, ship dev tickets | Rank lifts on target pages, faster load on templates |
| 9–10 | Local profile cleanup (if local), review prompts | Map pack exposure, reviews trend up |
| 11–12 | Publish best-performing topics, prune dead pages | Clicks up, conversions from organic rising |
What You Should See In The First Quarter
New pages should appear in the index and start drawing impressions. Updated pages should earn better click-through. Early wins often come from fixing cannibalization, trimming thin pages, and upgrading templates. Bigger gains from links and stronger content usually land in later months as assets earn citations.
How Guidelines Shape The Work
Public documentation sets the guardrails. Google’s Search Essentials urges people-first pages, clear titles, crawlable links, and clean media. The SEO Starter Guide explains basics that an outside team should follow by default—tidy URLs, helpful headings, and smart internal linking. Ask vendors to show how their plan lines up with these resources.
Owner Checklist For A Healthy Engagement
- Grant access to analytics, Search Console, CMS, and code repos as needed.
- Elect a point person for sign-offs, questions, and asset delivery.
- Set two or three growth targets that track to revenue or leads.
- Review a short monthly plan that lists shipped work and what’s next.
- Keep a living doc of redirects, page templates, and content tags.
Final Takeaways
A steady program beats one-off bursts. The right team ships fixes quickly, publishes helpful pages on a set cadence, earns mentions with real value, and ties progress to business goals. With the playbook in this guide, you can brief vendors, compare proposals, and steer the work with confidence.