What is an SEO agency and what do they actually do?

Date: 21/08/2026

Read time: 10 minutes

About the author: Ryan Walsh

I have been involved in SEO and digital marketing for over 10 years. I now act as the lead consultant for many e-commerce projects, helping businesses in the U.K. sell more of their goods and services worldwide.

I also work with businesses in local competitive niches that need a really good SEO carried out in terms of say, auditing, strategy, link building, the technical side of things and, of course, help steer the content marketing in a direction of success.

 

What is an SEO agency?

An SEO agency- what is it and what do they do?

Well, for any business to survive and thrive, it needs to increase enquiries and revenue. To do that, people head over to Google to find what they need (I know we are stating the obvious here).

However, what’s not so obvious is how Google’s algorithm works; in fact, it’s a form of magic.
To make the magic happen, you need to understand how Google sorts and interprets the organic results. These are powered by a distinct algorithm that’s different from what powers paid clicks or “PPC Ads”. Therefore, organic work is very different from PPC work, and you need to understand that Google, with a colossal number of staff and weight in the search engine market, doesn’t keep their algorithm the same way for long.

The engineering team at Google are always busy improving, refining, and making search results that bit better.

The result is that you need a team of specialists with their finger on the pulse; that team is called an SEO agency. When they are not sipping fancy coffee, they monitor tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console and read reams of information on influential sites like Search Engine Land.

It’s technical, time-consuming, and often implemented by testing something and monitoring the results. However, partner with the right agency, well, the sky’s the limit. Partner with the wrong agency, and there are many out there; well, this can often mean the shutters come down on a business and may never go back up, so it’s that crucial to partner with the best! Like Walsh & Partners.

 

No magic formula and why it’s not like a gym routine

Some agencies treat SEO like a commoditised product: writing X amount of blogs, building certain links, and posing on social media with fake smiles like everything is going well. It’s not a gym routine; you need to understand the business, the website, the competitive landscape, and offer really good-quality advice.

It’s not, therefore, about writing naff content

It’s not about building a certain number of links per month

It is about offering the best advice by understanding, in part, Google E-E-A-T. It is about understanding the customer and absolutely offering them what they want. Plus, it’s also about spending endless hours with web developers, telling them to fix various glitches before the e-commerce website sinks in the organic ranks faster than, well, something that’s sinking!

Its also about experience, Google EEAT wants you to show you’re an expert and have experience in your chosen field. Well when it comes to the correct implementation of SEO services, you have to be an expert. Its all well good let SEO tools guide you, but they are just that tools.

Instead, it’s the knowledge, the accumulated knowledge of how Google’s algorithm reacts in certain ways. For example, a lot of people don’t know a sudden spike in inbound links is not a good thing, so link velocity must be managed.

 

It’s not all about ten blue links anymore.

Back in Google’s early days, when PageRank reigned supreme, things were much simpler.
By simpler, we mean you could build links, and PageRank would reward you with higher rankings in a few days or weeks. Now things are much more complicated; shoppers find solutions and answers everywhere. Think Google AI Overviews, think rich snippets, the organic results, and much more.

 

You need specialists

Okay, so some agencies offer everything: PPC management, social media management, and even rubbing your feet while you wait in reception (optional).

No, we deviate, but we encourage you to seek out specialists. Seek out really good specialists who love what they do. So, in an agency, you should have a local SEO boffin, link-building expert, content marketing pro, and technical SEO wizard.

 

What you don’t want

You don’t want to hire an agency pretending to be an agency (there are many of these)

That is where the most junior of staff who don’t know a backlink from alt text! These people exist in SEO agencies! There are so many agencies these days that are with you during the good times, yet when a big, sweeping Google update happens and knocks rankings sideways or “de-indexes the website” completely, sometimes a shocked look comes over their face, and they cannot explain it.

What work does an SEO agency carry out?

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the art of helping AI bots and Googlebot crawl, render, and index your pages. For example, a high-priority issue could be something blocking an e-commerce store’s homepage from getting indexed. Other issues include broken links to content, robot metas, and ensuring robots.txt is configured correctly. That creates a lot of work for a technical SEO team, plus additional tasks like managing the website’s crawl budget.

SEO auditing

A large e-commerce website could have in excess of 1,000+ pages; therefore, you need to use a quality SEO auditing tool. For example, Ahrefs is a really good option; you need to look for broken links, redirect chains, pages flagging 404 errors, and inbound backlinks that have become lost. Then there’s other important work, such as detecting duplication issues and fixing thin content pages. So much to do, we agree.

 

On-page SEO

On-page SEO and content creation take up most of an agency’s time. The text shouldn’t sound robotic, so you have to think about NLP. E-E-

A-T and YMYL also matter, which means if you offer, say, medical or legal advice, your content marketing must be highly accurate to satisfy the Google YMYL update. It must meet a higher standard of accuracy. Then there’s the user experience (U.X) the page offers, including bounce rates and dwell time monitoring.

Then you have to think about adding structured data/json/schema etc. Adding the actual on-page SEO elements- that’s the straightforward part- so you have to add the H1- H6 tags, meta titles and descriptions, plus alt text as well.

 

Links and digital PR work

Backlinks are crucial and critical part of SEO, that’s if you want to rank in the top spot on Google. You knew that already, we bet- however, what not so many businesses know is that the backlinks must be super high quality today if they are to work. So don’t go link-building crazy, thinking “more is better”, because when it comes to links, it’s not. You need just super high-quality backlinks, resulting in a stronger backlink profile.

Instead, aim for higher-quality links. Think of backlinks like chocolate: you can have tons of cheap chocolate, but that’s not good for you and will make you fat. On the other hand, you can have some really high-quality chocolate in a smaller amount that tastes great. So, avoid low-quality links; don’t build spammy links. Instead, build quality links that are very relevant to your business niche.

Content marketing

If you poke your head around an SEO agency’s office, most of the time they should be writing content marketing. This is what the rest of the SEO work truly hinges on; for example, there are often no inbound links if there’s no content to link to, and you won’t have to concentrate on technical SEO if there are no pages published. However, as you might have gathered if you have been following our advice closely, quality matters in every aspect of a business’s search engine optimisation. This is especially true when it comes to creating content marketing.

 

Content marketing must therefore be:

• Drip-fed (don’t add too much new work at once)
• High quality- don’t bash out 1000 words in practically no time; take your time; they must be well researched. It must have a high
• Google E-E-A-T score.
• Useful- what’s the work’s purpose? Is it truly useful at answering that query?
• Helpful- super helpful, helping prospective customers to solve problems they have
• Original- don’t go copying a competitor; Google will know, and mark you down as a copycat.

 

SEO Reporting

In the world of SEO, it’s easy to keep doing the same things that don’t generate results. That’s why you need reporting; you need reporting, say once a month. You will need to pull the data from Google Search Console, and Google Analytics, and focus on the “meat and potatoes”: organic traffic, links earned, bounce rate, and dwell time.

 

Can’t we use an AI tool to do all the SEO for us?

So, can SEO be handled by an AI? Well, just the same way you could hire a robot to paint an oil painting, it can be done, but the results are often not what you want to achieve! There are super cheap SEO services out there; however, you do get what you pay for in terms of search engine optimisation. Cheap often means rubbish results, or even worse, a Google penalty.

Top brands and leading companies in their fields don’t hand their websites and marketing over to AI because they don’t want it to go wrong.

That is why SEO agencies offer valuable advice and implement human work so other humans buy from you.

Turn that into a robotic process, a process whereby Google’s very clever algorithms think you’re implementing rubbish work, and it will trigger either a “manual action penalty” or an “algorithmic penalty”. This will cause the business’s organic ranking to nose-dive.

 

Costs- what does an agency charge for their services?

This depends on who you hire; a really good boutique Seo agency- well, they won’t be cheap. However, you don’t want cheap; you need to think about where your business’s sales come from. For some UK e-commerce businesses, the vast majority of sales and new business comes via organic visitors. So it’s not an area where you want to save money. You can save a few quid on carpets, chairs, and, say the contents of the vending machines, but not on SEO, because you want it done to a super high standard.

 

So, what do agencies typically charge?

Under £1,000

Well, this depends on the scale of the competition you face. If you’re facing super stiff levels of competition, well, a grand is like a drop in the ocean.
However, if you’re, say, a niche brand, super niche products, such as a newly launched product category, well, a grand may go some way to getting you where you need to go. But realistically, consider UK wages right now: how far will a grand really stretch beyond keyword research, on-page SEO, and some advice over the phone? We’re not sure.

 

£1,000 to £3,000 per month

Now you’re entering the price category for smaller e-commerce businesses selling something niche. The business owner may spend Monday to Friday running around like a headless chicken; this budget lets the agency do the more meaningful work for them on their behalf, taking away the need for them to write content marketing, to carry out keyword research and building links.

 

£3,000 to £7,000 per month

Now you’re starting to talk about small to medium enterprise SEO, where there’s enough meat on the bone to start doing some really nice SEO work. Think espresso drinking: picking apart every competitor’s backlink profile and writing content marketing that draws in traffic and keeps shoppers on your website for longer, resulting in super high bounce rates.
We like this level of spend; it’s not enough to go after your UK PLC, but enough to get some serious organic visitors coming your way.

10k plus per month

Now, this is where you start to employ absolute SEO wizards (we have been described as such), although it’s not an official SEO term; it’s lovely to hear nonetheless.

This is where you have SEO consultants who use the various well-known tools, yet don’t need to rely on them. Just by merely casting their eyes over a site, looking in the dashboard, looking at links, they start to get a sense of what’s going on, where to take things. It’s less now about doing X, Y and Z work, more about spotting the gaps, the areas where you can close the gap on the competition and therefore, this is where the commercial awareness aspect comes in, which the blooming good SEO consultants need to have. They basically go after your competition like a hungry dog.

Agency vs Freelancer

Some people have nasty things to say about freelancers, saying they can’t compete with the agencies out there. They can; you can find a top-tier freelancer; they can often wipe the floor with some agencies, which are more interested in posing for Instagram posts than improving the client’s backlink profile.

Top agencies often employ top SEO consultants who dip in and out to offer advice. They are often the true specialists, the ones that cut the mustard, and don’t rely on spouting buzzwords until they are blue in the face to make it look like they know their stuff.
So, yes, don’t dismiss an SEO consultant over an agency, as sometimes they are really, really good.

How to choose the right agency:

There are truly a vast range of agencies out there, so much so, how do you wade through the choice?

Well, here’s some things to mull over a iced latte:

AI Search and how the content marketing is produced

If the agency says something along the lines of, they using AI text or highly edited copy, we would probably advice you get back in the car and go elsewhere. You need the text to be written by a real human; the copywriter needs to grasp Google E-E-A-T and blend that into the work.

 

How do you find an SEO agency that’s right for you?

As this whole article serves to illustrate, finding the right SEO agency for your business is absolutely crucial. The good agency by your side simply helps to sell more products and services and there’s nothing more critical in business than that.

However, too many companies are attracted by false promises. For example, the “we get you to number 1 position on Google or your money back”. That may sound super attractive, and it may sound like exactly what your business requires at that given time.

However, for those with a lot of experience in this business sector, we have seen businesses that are indeed ranked number 1 position by their agency. However, if the keyword, or the search term has a zero search volume, well its about as much use as a chocolate tea-pot.

Therefore, there’s absolutely no point sometimes in ranking for a long tail keyword, if no one is searching for it.

The honest agencies, the hardworking agencies will work with you to grow your business. Agencies like Walsh & Partners want to see your company succeed, from that we can obtain long and flourishing business relationship. This is much more important than making flashy promises which technically do deliver, such as getting a business on page one of Google, but if that doesn’t increase turnover by one single penny, they what is the point in that?

 

Collaborative working

Its important to have a collaborative working relationship with the SEO agency. If for example a client is pushing too hard for results, sometimes this can lead to SEO issues itself. For example building too many backlinks way too quickly can look like you have bought them.

This can lead to link velocity issues.

Therefore, in terms of organic search engine optimisation, its better to slowly drip feed, and work on high quality work. The results will come, however, it does take time.

 

Google updates

Its also important that whichever agency you hire, that Google updates can cause “ranking flux” from time to time. No matter if you’re the best SEO expert in the entire world, from time to time, ranking flux will cause the organic rankings to substantially change from time to time.

Therefore, the point being made here is simple, choose an agency that can explain to you why the SEO data might be showing substantial changes to organic visitor numbers and rankings. Often a good SEO consultant can point you in the direction of Search Engine Land, or advice published on MOZ and explain to that for example it was due to a Google Core update that’s rolling out and things will often resettle back in a few days time.

 

Seeks to understand your business

A good SEO agency will seek to understand your business, its products and services. Now this might sound like commonsense, however it is not.

Some agencies only understand the business products and services through an SEO tool, for example offering keyword research.

However, to truly understand how to market a business and its products, you must first understand the business, its goals and receive knowledge about the products from the owners of the business. Its then you start to here how the products were developed, where they are built, plus you can start to understand what are the commonly asked product questions. Its then you can start to create content marketing which has a high dwell time, low bounce rate and also high Google EEAT score.

Would you like to work with Walsh & Partners?
If you would like to work with Walsh & Partners, do give us a call today. We offer SEO, GEO and AEO services.