The SEO agency that is worth your time and money is trustworthy, brutally honest, offers flexible month-by-month contracts, keeps up to date with the latest trends, doesn’t get flustered by the hype, and is just plain enjoyable to partner with.
Not all SEO agencies are created equal. Here at Cadence SEO, we have had many clients come to us after frustrating experiences with other SEO agencies. It’s unfortunate, but true: the SEO industry doesn’t always have the strongest reputation. Common complaints include unclear reporting, poor communication, long contracts, the use of vanity metrics, and an inability to explain how SEO efforts are impacting the business.
If we compare a business’s website to a car, most people don’t know how to fix their cars. Instead, they rely on mechanics who have a good reputation, are skilled, reliable, and able to explain what they’re doing and why clearly.
It’s the same with websites. Most business owners aren’t experts in technical SEO, content strategy, website architecture, LLM optimization, or digital analytics. And while SEO is easy to learn, they shouldn’t have to become experts in the field for their business to succeed. What matters is having a partner who can explain the work clearly, communicate openly, and demonstrate real business impact.
Trust is the foundation of every successful SEO partnership. In this article, we’ll explore why some SEO agencies earn a poor reputation, what businesses should look for in an SEO partner, and what we believe sets Cadence SEO apart.
What is an SEO Agency?
An SEO agency is a team of people skilled in technical SEO, knowledgeable in on- and off-page optimization, and with a solid grasp of content strategy. SEO agencies help businesses show up in organic search results and AI-generated answers. Their main goal is to increase qualified traffic from organic search and boost brand visibility and authority online.
SEO agencies examine the technical side of your website, your overall content strategy, and how you’re building expertise through press releases and backlinks. They help you strengthen your presence in LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude through structured, authoritative content.
Why Do SEO Agencies Have A Bad Reputation?
When foul players insist on rigid, lengthy contracts, use smoke and mirrors tactics, gatekeep information, or hold websites hostage, they give the whole SEO world a bad reputation. Here are some complaints we’ve heard from clients who ditched their prior agencies and came to us to clean up the mess:
Long Contracts With Little Accountability
12-month contracts are common in the SEO industry. Another thing we’ve seen is difficult cancellation processes that take time, even when campaign results don’t match the promises made. Contracts and cancellation policies need to be realistic and easy to understand.
Reporting that Hides Reality
It’s very easy to cherry-pick metrics and show growth in the SEO industry. It takes an honest agency to show the good, the bad, and the ugly, rather than only showing favorable rankings, hiding traffic losses, and concealing conversion declines.
Making SEO Sound More Complicated Than It Is
As with a mechanic, there is a specific language associated with SEO that can be very complicated and overwhelming for beginners. Gatekeeping in the SEO industry is common, as is jargon overload and intentionally confusing clients. You should be leaving your meetings with answers, not with more silent questions.
Lack of Communication
It’s not uncommon for clients to be unsure about what work is being done at the SEO agency, or for agencies to disappear between meetings. Given how much marketing happens in real time, it’s important that your SEO agency is accessible and communicates clearly with you.
Holding Websites Hostage
While less common, it is not unheard of to run into issues with an SEO agency controlling hosting, blocking access to domains, or disappearing after a botched migration. This is a horrific thing that no one should ever have to go through.
What Should You Look For In An SEO Agency?
| Red Flag | Positive Signal |
| Long contract | Flexible terms |
| Vanity metrics | Conversion reporting |
| Infrequent communication | Regular meetings |
| Generic strategy | Custom roadmap |
| Secrecy | Transparency |
Transparent Communication
Look for agencies that clearly define how and when they’ll be communicating with you. This can look like regular meetings, a clear explanation of strategy, visibility into completed work, and honest discussions about wins, losses, and challenges. If you’re only hearing good news from your SEO agency, that could be a red flag. You must understand what work is being performed, why it matters, and how success is being measured.
Clear SEO Reporting
Before you sign a contract, make sure you ask about what kind of reporting you can expect. Reporting should explain where your site and its keywords are ranking in search engines, how much traffic is coming to your site and from where, your conversion pathways and how well they’re performing, and, finally, how much revenue has been generated from SEO efforts.
Common reporting angles to look for are:
- Organic traffic trends
- Keyword performance
- Conversions and leads
- Page-level performance reviews
- AI visibility and citation trends
Real Business Alignment & Meaningful ROI
Successful SEO looks like revenue growth, lead generation, qualified traffic finding your website, and contribution to the sales pipeline. While rankings are important, they are not the end goal. All of your SEO efforts should support your broader business goals. This is why an agency that listens to you, understands your industry, and even your niche is essential.
Also important is mapping keywords to business objectives, tracking conversion paths, and understanding assisted conversions. A successful SEO campaign can explain cost per lead, how SEO has influenced your revenue, and customer acquisition trends.
What Makes CadenceSEO Different?
At CadenceSEO, we are distinguished by many qualities, including our brutal honesty, transparency, and flexibility. We are committed to excellence and are passionate about educating and empowering our clients!
We Don’t Sell People Lies
We prioritize our clients’ success from the beginning, starting with a weekly check-in at the start of engagement, then transitioning to bi-weekly meetings to keep our clients aligned and informed. We are committed to transparency as a core differentiator from our competitors. There is no smoke and mirrors here, and our reporting will show you the reality. Like our co-founder, Christy Olsen, said in an interview with Agency Analytics, “We don’t sell people lies.”
We Don’t Lock Clients Into Long Contracts
CadenceSEO offers a month-to-month agreement with a 2-week cancellation notice. Rigid long-term agreements don’t serve our clients or us. Flexibility with your marketing partners is essential because marketing priorities change, and we believe clients should stay, not because of contracts, but because of results.
We Don’t Lose Our Cool Everytime There is an SEO Curve Ball
We aren’t fluffed by trends or algorithm updates. We stay on top of all the important news, consider multiple perspectives, and test the hype against real data. We help our clients make sense of the noise and understand what matters most.
We Are Our Own Guinea Pigs
We are constantly testing tools and tactics on our own site, and adapting client strategies based on our findings. When clients are eager to experiment with a new solution or approach, we discuss the pros and cons (and unknowns), and move forward together.
We Create Our Own Tools
We vet all of the big (and small) tools, and if we don’t like what we see, we build our own. With a wicked smart internal team of developers, we creatively solve visibility or workflow problems that larger companies have yet to address.
We Use AI Intelligently
AI assists humans, but humans drive strategy. We use AI to support our humans, but not replace them. AI tools can be valuable when used correctly. When used incorrectly, however, agencies run the risk of producing slop, which at best leads to a poor user experience and at worst, censure from search engines.
We Focus on Education
We believe in teaching people to fish (we aren’t fishmongers over here), and we don’t gatekeep our SEO expertise. We help our clients understand our strategy, providing clear, regular reporting, understanding their priorities, and tailoring our tactics to current opportunities, including AI visibility trends. Educated clients make stronger, long-term partners, and they value our collaborative, inclusive approach.
| Typical SEO Agency | CadenceSEO |
| Long contracts | Month-to-month |
| Rankings only | Business metrics |
| Generic reporting | Transparent reporting |
| Limited communication | Weekly/Bi-weekly meetings |
| Reactive | Tests and innovates internally |
| SEO only | SEO + LLM optimization |
Problems Clients Bring To Us From Other Agencies And How We Fix Them
At CadenceSEO, we’ve helped clients bounce back from many difficult circumstances, including botched migrations, confounding (or entirely lacking) communication, and unsatisfying ROI.
Agency Never Communicated
Many clients come to us after a lack of communication from their previous SEO partners, or even being charged for questions. Here at Cadence, we prioritize client communication through regular meetings and are open books when it comes to SEO and digital marketing questions.
Rankings Improved, But Revenue Didn’t
Another common issue our clients have faced is seeing improvements in rankings without a corresponding increase in revenue. At this point, we divide and conquer, looking at everything from which keywords support core pages to how the site appears on mobile, and conducting a full conversion audit to identify any pain points in the conversion pathway.
Traffic Dropped After a Migration
Moving is never fun, especially when it comes to website migrations. A drop in traffic is common when a migration is poorly executed, which many of our clients have experienced. Our approach is to back-track through the migration and identify and fix any issues, such as redirecting pages to the new site.
Case Study: A Local Garden Center’s Botched Migration
After a site migration went wrong, this client came to us with a website riddled with broken URLs, significant losses in search engine rankings, and a poor overall user experience. As every day passed, their rankings continued to slip, and more and more people were turned away at their digital front door.
Our first step was a thorough SEO audit of their site to identify what was broken. After we identified all the broken pages, we undertook the complex project of retrieving the lost content, recreating and republishing the pages, and then redirecting them to the new site.
While we were fixing their site, we also conducted keyword and competitor research to inform their new SEO strategy. Within a year, after continual site checks, the garden center saw a huge increase in website engagement and sales, both in-store and online.
Read more: The Garden Center Turnaround
Let’s Build a Smarter Marketing Plan Together
We focus on measurable growth, and we have adapted our SEO services to account for evolving search behavior on AI platforms and traditional search. We are collaborative, strategic, ROI-focused, and forward-thinking about changes to the search landscape.
If you’d like to learn more about CadenceSEO, please schedule a free consultation to explore growth opportunities together. We will evaluate your current AI and SEO discoverability and site performance, and work together to develop a long-term plan for your growth and online presence.
SEO Agency FAQs
Is SEO dead?
No, but SEO has evolved to include appearing on AI platforms. The foundations of SEO (a working website, solid content, and authority) are increasingly relevant as search evolves to include AI.
Can I just use ChatGPT for my SEO?
While ChatGPT is a useful tool, it is not a substitute for a trained SEO agency, any more than it is an effective way to replace a lawyer, mechanic, or doctor.
Why do I need an agency if I just use Shopify’s built-in tools?
An SEO agency’s core function is to understand your business and industry, and to design a strategy accordingly. Shopify’s built-in tools are helpful, but they aren’t a substitute for a custom strategy crafted around your business.
If SEO takes time, why not just run paid ads?
Paid ads can have a high, ongoing cost. With SEO, you build up recognition and gain your spot at the top of SERPs organically. While SEO requires ongoing maintenance, it doesn’t require the constant expense of paid ads. Furthermore, paid ads don’t buy you a good reputation and domain authority the way that ongoing SEO can.
Why pay for SEO if AI can create content for free?
Search engines and AI platforms prioritize human-centered content. Google’s E-E-A-T framework for evaluating content includes experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. While AI can support quality content creation, it takes a special human touch to meet this entire framework.
References:
https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1u3zrk7/seo_company_holding_clients_websites_hostage/https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cadence-seo_seo-digitalmarketing-marketing-activity-7415413781721387009-wKge?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAADXX_6gBNLpOTiwxBnlTmVMGAGbeZ95zw64
