Most agencies are doing low-level SEO. Not malicious. Not lazy. Just shallow.
They run the same playbook across ecommerce, SaaS, local services, marketplaces, doesn’t matter. Same structure. Same cadence. Same tasks.
That works if you’re selling SEO as a service. It doesn’t work if you’re trying to grow a company.
How Agency SEO Works
Most agencies are structured to scale themselves, not your business. The work has to fit inside a system that scales across dozens of accounts, so strategy quickly turns into process.
- Keyword research gets done once at the beginning and rarely evolves as the business, competition, or search behavior changes.
- Technical and content work stay limited to predictable, low-risk tasks that fit neatly into a monthly time allocation.
None of this is inherently wrong, but it’s rarely enough to drive meaningful growth. SEO requires adapting to how a specific business makes money, and that doesn’t fit cleanly inside a templated retainer model.
WHY YOU’RE NOT SEEING RESULTS
Because they are hiding from the hard stuff. Updating schema, compressing images, cleaning up bad links, and refreshing a few H1s are all helpful, they just don’t confront whether the overall system is working.
Safe strategies are easier to repeat and easier to report. They avoid migration discussions, page redesigns, large-scale URL consolidation, or reworking internal linking at scale because those require real ownership and cross-team collaboration.
SIGNS IT’S TIME TO MOVE ON
If it feels like it’s time, it’s probably time.
Some obvious tells:
- There are too many people on the account. You’re on calls with an account manager, a strategist, a content lead, maybe someone technical, and you’re not sure who actually owns the outcome.
- The metrics are vague and high level. You hear about impressions, visibility, and keyword movement, but it’s hard to explain how any of it actually impacts revenue or pipeline.
- Every call follows the exact same format. The same slides. The same structure. Nothing new gets discussed. No real commentary on search changes, AI shifts, or what’s happening in the market.
- You’ve started publishing pages for services you don’t even offer, just to “capture demand.”
WHAT GOOD SEO LOOKS LIKE
Good SEO is specific. It starts with a clear understanding of how the business makes money and which pages actually drive it. The strategy changes when the market changes.
It questions assumptions. It pushes back on parts of the site that have “always been that way.” It doesn’t default to more content or more keywords. It asks whether the right pages exist, whether the right pages are being supported, and whether the site is built around how your customers are searching.
It’s proactive, not reactive.
MAKE THE SWITCH
If you’re reading this.. It’s not too late! Search is changing fast, and surface-level SEO will continue to fall further behind. If the team you’re working with isn’t keeping up, find one that does.