Five kinds of work, every month, aimed at one result: more customers finding you on Google. Here is what that looks like in practice.
An SEO agency makes your website show up when people search for what you sell. The work falls into five areas: technical fixes, keyword strategy and content, earning links from other sites, local signals like Google Business Profile and reviews, and tracking so organic calls and forms are measured. A good agency does all five monthly and reports on leads, not just rankings.
Every legitimate SEO agency does some mix of the same five things.
Agencies package these differently, so ask for the specific deliverables. The broader services an agency may add on top are described in what a digital marketing agency does.
Owners often wonder what happens between reports. Here is a realistic month for a local or regional client at an agency that is doing its job.
Week 1: the strategist reviews last month’s rankings, organic leads and Search Console data, and sets the month’s priorities. Weeks 2 and 3: new pages and articles are written and published, technical fixes ship, Google Business Profile gets posts, photos and review responses, and link outreach goes out. Week 4: rankings are pulled, leads are reconciled with the tracking data, and the report is written: what was done, what moved, what is next.
The first two or three months are heavier on technical work and foundation; later months shift toward content and links as the base is solid. Timelines are covered in how long SEO takes to work.
The report is how you judge the agency, so know what belongs in it.
If organic leads are missing, the agency is not tracking them and you cannot tell whether the work is paying off. That single gap is the most common reason businesses lose money on SEO, as covered in is SEO a waste of money.
The labels overlap, but they usually mean this:
Which one you need depends on the size of the job and whether SEO is your only channel. If it is, an SEO agency or a strong specialist fits. If leads come from several places, see full-service digital marketing agency. Either way, vet them with how to choose an SEO agency.
REALTOP founder Nik Tsoukales on the same question, from the agency’s YouTube channel.
Nothing meaningful. Both describe a team that handles technical, content, links, local and reporting on a monthly basis. "Agency" is the industry term; "company" is simply how many business owners phrase the search. Judge either by results and deliverables, not the label.
Keyword research, writing and optimizing pages, fixing technical issues, updating Google Business Profiles, requesting and responding to reviews, reaching out for links, and checking rankings and Search Console. Most specialists are strongest in one or two of these areas.
Read the full answerVisible work across technical, content, links and local, plus a report showing rankings for money keywords, organic calls and forms by source, and a plain list of what was done and what comes next. Everything built should stay in your name.
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Nik Tsoukales, Founder
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