Last updated: Aug 2022 Find the right SEO company for your specific needs - fast, free, and with only the highest quality standards. Here at Credo, every company featured on our platform has passed our 28-point pre-vetting process. With just 60% of applicants to our network accepted, you can hire the right team with absolute confidence. Here's how Credo's bespoke hiring process works: Hire fast. Hire right. Hire once. That's our goal for you. Schedule a call with our team today to find the right partner.
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The content marketing space has never been more competitive than it is today. To compete and drive traffic, leads, and sales through content marketing, you need to create high volumes of high quality content that targets your target market. Codeless has the experience, expertise, and team to do just that….
Titan Growth is a leading agency in the digital space. With over 18+ years under out belts, we’ve helped some of the largest brand names grow their traffic, market share and revenue. Specializing in SEO and Paid media, Titan Growth is also part of a larger portfolio that includes any…
Search Nurture is a full-stack digital marketing agency offering expertise across all digital channels, including organic search, content development, paid search, and social ads, as well as retail marketing with various prominent retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, and Instacart. We specialize in driving growth for B2B SaaS and eCommerce companies. This…
Founded in 1986, Elevato is an industry leader in digital-first solutions. What started as a web development company, evolved into a team of digital marketing and engineering experts on a mission to create premium solutions for the client’s digital presence. Through the combination of talented individuals, abundant resources, and in-depth…
RankHammer was founded by a pair of long time digital marketing professionals who met working in one of the most challenging verticals for SEO. Steve came from a background of engineering and big brand marketing, while Nathan had experience in programming and big advertising agencies. The unique combination of the…
Canal Digital Studio is a boutique Digital Marketing agency based in New York City. We alleviate the anxiety of digital growth by delivering more traffic, more conversions, better rankings and faster results. We work primarily with DTC, SaaS, Consumer Product and eCommerce brands. Our small team has previously worked at large…
We’re an SEO agency for SaaS (software as a service) companies with over 12 years of experience helping companies and tech startups succeed with Search Engine Optimization. Our ethos is based around being simple and effective. We take the 80/20 approach to everything we do, focusing our efforts first on…
Organic Media Group is a content focused SEO and link building agency based out of San Diego, California. Our goal is to generate organic traffic growth that results in an ROI as quickly as possible. We achieve this through a combination of technical on-site SEO fixes, link building, and new…
Are you looking for an ROI focused digital marketing agency to help take your company to the next level? For the past 10 years, our team has been working in the digital marketing industry helping companies small and large develop and execute SEO, content marketing and pay per click advertising…
Stryde is a specialized eCommerce digital marketing agency. We specialize in building customized, scalable digital marketing campaigns for small to medium-size ecommerce businesses. Business owners and marketing managers look to Stryde to help: Reduce customer acquisition costs on Facebook, Instagram and Google by improving marketing funnels, audience targeting and incorporating…
John is the founder of Credo and a freelance growth marketing and SEO consultant based in beautiful Denver, Colorado when he is not traveling. With almost a decade of of digital marketing experience, John has worn many hats and seen many things at companies that both help them succeed in…
Conversion Media helps innovative companies generate more traffic, leads, and revenue by creating & distributing world-class content. We believe that marketing has undergone a fundamental change in the past few years. Traditional “Buy Now” advertising messages just don’t work anymore. Instead, we need to meet our prospects where they’re at, and…
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"When I was tasked with hiring someone to help with our marketing, I turned to Credo. They introduced us to two vetted pros who specialized in what we need. Credo saved us a lot of time and money by getting us the right pros the first time."
"We contacted Credo and after a 30 minute discussion where they asked deeper questions to clarify our needs and current setup (including other agencies we already work with), they introduced us to two agencies who ended up being a perfect fit for us."
"This was my first time using Credo and I will never hire another agency without them. I needed a PPC agency and I needed one FAST. Credo got me 3 discovery calls in a day with some seriously high quality companies. The hardest part was choosing between them. If you're going to hire an agency, use Credo. Seriously."
"All 3 candidates were awesome and I really appreciated the process. Using Credo blew my mind in terms of saving time, 3 super high quality candidates, and we got a lot out of hearing their various approaches."
A company can be polished and professional and still not deliver great results, so we specifically ask each network applicant about their clients and results they have driven.
We ask every applicant for:
Quality of work delivered is extremely important to us and extremely important to you.
Our professional vetting involves the following:
Every network applicant must also pass our culture screening to make sure they're aligned with our standards.
This involves a 30 minute call covering:
All SEO companies on Credo have passed our initial three step and 28-point vetting process before joining, and are continuously vetted via client feedback. When you speak with SEO companies from our network, you can trust they're the best we can find.
"GetCredo.com is one of the few trustworthy places to find a good SEO."
"After working with a number of clients who had been burned by illicit consultants, industry veteran John Doherty was inspired to create [a company] that would help companies find reputable search marketing and SEO professionals."
"I don't know of anyone who puts as much care and attention into properly vetting and matching SEO projects with vendors than Credo."
Prioritize agencies who have experience with the channel or channels you need help with. If you have multiple needs, we recommend prioritizing a full service firm who can do all channels as opposed to hiring individual agencies or contractors for each channel. This will reduce the number of providers you have to contact as well as the management overhead once they are hired.
Note - at Credo we match you with providers from our network who both fit your marketing channel needs and have experience with your type of business (SaaS, Ecommerce, etc). Where possible, we also match you with providers who have experience in your industry.
We recommend speaking with multiple agencies to verify that they have the experience you require and that you like speaking with them. Culture fit between you and your agency is the unspoken factor we find that determines if an engagement will be successful. We then recommend that you conduct longer strategy sessions (about an hour) with 2-4 agencies to dive deeper on your needs with their team.
Note - Credo schedules the initial discovery calls for you with agencies from our network.
Once you’ve gone deeper with 2-4 agencies, ask for proposals that you can review that include scope, timeline, cost, and terms. We recommend that you use our Agency Reviewer resource to make it easier. Some agencies may have a separate contract with terms and conditions, which is fine.
Once you receive proposals, you can negotiate back with agencies. The most common things to negotiate back on are scope and timeline. If ideal budget is above your ability to pay, see if you can reduce the scope to get the project within budget while understanding the tradeoffs.
Finally, make a decision about who to work with and commit for a period of time that is long enough to know if you’re able to get results but not so long that it traps you into something that isn’t working. We recommend that you agree to at minimum a 3 month contract, and ideally a 6 month contract with a three month out.
Make sure healthy expectations are set and your agency fully understands your objectives. The best results are created when you have alignment with your agency around your business goals.
The best SEO company for your business is likely different from the best SEO company for someone else's business. The best SEO company for your business is the one that you can afford, has proven results working with businesses like yours, and with whom you can work well.
Finding the right SEO company doesn't have to be hard. Use Credo.
To find the best SEO for your business, you should conduct research online, ask your friends for referrals, and work with a company like Credo that specializes in helping you find and hire the right SEO.
Finding the right SEO company doesn't have to be hard. Use Credo.
Companies of all types, sizes, and budgets use SEO as an acquisition channel to drive more customers, revenue, and profits. SEO is commonly understood as a viable digital marketing channel that has many intricacies, and thus many companies hire an SEO company or consultant to help them properly optimize their site and rank in search engines.
SEO costs vary widely based on your business, the scope of the engagement, the experience of the SEO company or consultant, location, and more. Most SEO companies charge around $150 per hour, between $1,000-$5,000 for a single project (pricing depends on the need and scope), and between $1,500-$4,000 per month (and up, depending on need and scope) for retained SEO consulting and services.
Drive results for your marketing needs with the Credo network. Get started today (it's free and there is no obligation)!
History of SEO
As the amount of data, the number of websites, the the sheer mass of media—information on the internet is growing by the day, it can be nearly impossible to get noticed through all this white noise.
The key to standing out is getting on Google’s good side–the side where they rank you high on their search results page. Because only when you become a best match for user queries will you start to see your website traffic skyrocket.
But how are the best matches chosen? Every search engine has their own algorithm. They base it on a variety of factors, including keyword matches, trustworthiness of the website, and much more. And they do a good job of this. Unfortunately, because so many websites have information that matches the search query, there can be pages and pages of results. Yet users are 25% less likely to choose the fifth ranked website than the website that is ranked first on the search results page. Therefore, businesses looking to grow and reach a wider market need to rank high in the results. Thus the creation of search engine optimization.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is comprised of strategies used by professionals to rank higher on a search engine’s results page, or SERP. This leads to an increase in the number of visitors that a website brings in, and should result in more revenue for the business. Statistics show that the highest ranked pages are the most visited pages—internet users simply do not scroll through page after page of search results, instead they trust Google to find the best result and rank it at the top.
In short, SEO breaks down a search engine’s ranking algorithm to find out what it bases its rankings on. It then uses various methods for addressing each of these ranking factors, optimizing a website for the algorithm.
The SEO industry is big and it is growing at a rapid rate. In 2018, experts estimate that businesses will spend $72 billion on SEO services. By 2020, they expect this number to jump to $80 billion. A big part of these services is the SEO software that supports them, which is also growing rapidly—estimations show the market growing at a CAGR of nearly 15% between 2018 and 2022.
And it is not just the big, enterprise businesses that are contributing to this growth. Yes, enterprise companies do spend the most on SEO, with 45% of these organizations spending more than $20,000 each month. But medium and small businesses are spending significant amounts on SEO as well. 20% of medium-sized businesses are also spending over $20,000 on SEO monthly and 9.3% of small business are doing the same. The fact is that organizations of every size and from every industry are very aware that SEO needs to be a priority.
While many people think of SEO in only present terms, the practice has a history and it goes back further than most would think. SEO’s creation is closely linked to the search engine’s creation, which is why SEO popped up within a year of Archie’s development—the very first search engine.
The first SEO methods were basic because the search engine ranking methods were basic. The algorithm was solely based on keywords and authority—or how many backlinks a website had. Therefore, in order to rank higher, websites stuffed their pages with keywords, going so far as to even repeat words excessively. They would also use spam as backlinks, making it appear to the algorithm that they were an authoritative source.
In 1998, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page put an end to this problem by creating Google and its more complex algorithm. The idea was to use website quality, rather than just keywords, in the ranking process. And to help quality websites make their web pages better, Google released SEO guidelines in the early 2000s. But until 2003, these guidelines were very much still in their infancy. It was only with Google’s “Florida” algorithm update that SEO truly began to take shape and become an industry in its own right.
Florida upended Google’s ranking system. Many sites lost their rankings, while others shot up to the top. The reason for this was that Google started penalizing sites that keyword stuffed and made other moves that prioritized the users’ needs. And this dramatic change to the algorithm is when many companies began to significantly invest in SEO.
After Florida came the Nofollow Attribute, which penalized websites for spam links. And then there was personalized search, allowing Google to use an individual’s history, both browsing and search, to provide more accurate results. Then came Caffeine, Google Instant, Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, Pirate, RankBrain, and all of their 2.0 and 3.0 versions.
Through each of these updates, Google has consistently perfected their algorithm, finding ways to root out spam sites and provide users with exactly what they are looking for. And as the algorithm has grown in complexity the SEO industry has grown. There are firms dedicated to SEO, software for perfecting SEO, and blog upon blog upon blog written on the topic. In all likelihood, SEO will only continue to grow as search engine algorithms transform and increase in complexity.
Because of these regular changes, as well as the fact that SEO impacts everything from a website to Tweets to advertising, companies need to take SEO seriously—with their business strategy and their annual budget. When SEO is prioritized it gives organizations a jolt of energy. The kind of energy that creates profits and excites the market.
You need to partner with the right SEO expert. We can assist with this. We have a comprehensive list of SEO providers, each with their own unique set of experiences and expertise. We look at your specific needs and match you up with providers who know SEO in your industry and have worked on projects similar to your needs. You then interview them to discover who is the right fit for your business and hire them directly.