SEO resources for people hiring an agency
Straight answers on what SEO involves, what it costs, how to judge a proposal and how to spot a bad one. Written by the findseo editorial team, sourced to primary documentation, and free of agency sales pitches.
Hiring guides
Read these before you brief, shortlist or sign with an SEO agency.
Hiring guideQuestions to Ask an SEO Agency Before HiringWhat to ask in a pitch meeting, what good and bad answers sound like, and a printable checklist to score each agency.9 min readHiring guideWhat to Expect in the First 3 Months of SEOMonth by month: what a good agency does in the first 90 days, what you should receive, and what results are realistic.8 min readHiring guideHow to Spot Fake SEO GuaranteesWhy ranking guarantees can't be real, the wordings to watch for, what Google says, and what an honest commitment looks like.8 min readHiring guideHow Much Does SEO Cost? Pricing Models ExplainedRetainers, projects, hourly and performance pricing explained, what drives cost, hidden extras, and how to set a sensible budget.8 min readHiring guideHow to Compare SEO Agency ProposalsA side-by-side method: what a good proposal contains, how to normalise scope and price, and a weighted scorecard.8 min readHiring guideIn-house SEO vs Agency vs Freelancer: Which Is Right for You?Strengths, limits and hidden costs of each option, plus hybrid set-ups and a simple way to decide.8 min read
Data reports
Built only from data in the findseo directory, with the method, sample size and limitations stated.
Data report · 11 Oct 2026SEO Agency Landscape 2026781 SEO agencies in 37 countries: locations, service mix, founding years and team sizes, from facts on each agency's own website.781 agencies37 countriesCSV downloadCC BY 4.0 charts
Coming later: SEO pricing
We won't publish pricing figures we can't back up. Agencies can share their typical monthly retainer anonymously from their findseo dashboard, and we'll publish a pricing report once at least 100 agencies have responded.
Run an SEO agency? Claim your listingSEO glossary
54 terms explained in plain English, with what each one means when you're hiring.
- E-E-A-TE-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. It comes from Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines, which human reviewers use to assess result quality. It isn't a single ranking factor, but it describes the qualities Google's systems aim to reward, with trust the most important.
- Core Web VitalsCore Web Vitals are three Google metrics for real-world page experience: Largest Contentful Paint (loading), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness) and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability). Google uses them in its page experience assessment, measured from real Chrome users and reported in Search Console.
- Generative engine optimisation (GEO)Generative engine optimisation (GEO) means improving the chance that AI systems such as Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT or Perplexity cite or mention your brand and pages in their generated answers. It builds on SEO fundamentals: accessible, accurate, well-sourced content and a reputation that other credible sites reference.
- Canonical tagA canonical tag is a line of HTML, rel="canonical", that tells search engines which URL is the preferred version of a page when the same or very similar content is available at several addresses. It helps consolidate signals onto one URL, but Google treats it as a strong hint, not a command.
- Crawl budgetCrawl budget is the number of URLs a search engine can and wants to crawl on your site in a given period. It is mainly a concern for very large or frequently updated sites. Wasting it on duplicate, filtered or broken URLs can delay the discovery of the pages that matter.
- Local packThe local pack is the block of map results Google shows for searches with local intent, such as 'dentist near me' or 'plumber Leeds'. It usually lists a few businesses from Google Maps with ratings, address and opening hours. Rankings come from Google Business Profile data, based on relevance, distance and prominence.
- Link buildingLink building is the work of earning links to your website from other sites. Links help search engines discover pages and are one of the signals of how others regard them. Ethical link building earns links through useful content, research, PR and genuine relationships; buying links that pass ranking credit breaks Google's rules.
- HreflangHreflang is an HTML attribute that tells search engines which language or regional version of a page to show to which users, for example English for Australia versus English for the United Kingdom. It helps the right version appear in each market and is used on multilingual and multi-country websites.
Free SEO tools
- SEO ROI CalculatorEstimate the leads, revenue, ROI and payback month an SEO budget could produce.
- Page Authority CheckerEstimate a page's authority from domain popularity and on-page signals, and see what would raise it.
- Google Index CheckerCheck whether Google can index a page, and what is stopping it if not.
About the findseo Editorial Team
How these guides are written and kept up to date.
- Who produces them. Guides, glossary entries and reports are produced in-house by the team that runs findseo, a directory that lists only SEO agencies, and checked against primary sources before they are published. When a named specialist reviews a piece, their name appears on it.
- Sources. Technical claims link to primary sources, mostly Google Search Central documentation. We don't quote statistics we can't trace, and when a number isn't known we say so instead of guessing.
- Independence. No agency pays to be mentioned, and guides never recommend a specific agency. findseo is operated by a digital agency that may appear in listings; that agency gets no special treatment in our guides or rankings.
- Updates and corrections. Each page shows when it was last updated. If you spot an error, tell us and we'll fix it and change the date.
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