Insight

How to Choose an SEO Agency UK

How to Choose an SEO Agency UK
Quick Summary

The most effective and widely popular organic way to make your website appear in the top places of search engines, including Google, Bing, Yandex, Yahoo, and more, is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

Furthermore, according to a stat by StatCounter Global Stats, from May 2024 to June 2025, Google has a market share of online searches of 93.35% throughout the UK. Therefore, if you hire the Best SEO Agency UK, you can easily make your UK business appear in the top places of Google SERPs.

Now, the real question arises: how will you determine which is the best SEO company in UK, with hundreds of agencies offering seemingly identical services, ranging from freelancers to large London-based companies?

It’s easy to feel stressed. However, it’ll be worse if you choose the wrong agency, which can cause real damage, such as draining your marketing budget, risking Google penalties, or wasting months on metrics that don’t generate revenue in your business. After all, it’s what matters in a business.

Don’t worry! Just read our blog, and you can confidently select the Best SEO Agency UK that aligns with your business objectives, niche or industry, and long-term growth.

Search Engine Market Share United Kingdom

What to Look for While Selecting the Best SEO Agency UK?

Before you start your search, the first step you’ve to take is to understand what you want SEO to achieve. There are many goals you might consider, which are –

  • Boosting organic traffic.
  • Increasing qualified leads or eCommerce conversions.
  • Improving visibility in local searches (e.g., “accountant in Lincoln”, “lawyer in London”, etc.).
  • Reviving a website hit by Google’s algorithm updates, or even a combination of all.

If you set up your goals, the chances are higher that your business will be successful. The guidance begins now –

Relevant Experience of the SEO Company in UK

Every SEO service is different from the other. What works for local businesses won’t work for large eCommerce or B2B platforms. Therefore, you have to consider the following –

  • Industry-specific experience: Verify their work experience in your business niche specifically (e.g., SaaS, retail, professional services).
  • Geographic knowledge: If you’re running a business in Lincoln or Birmingham or any other city in the UK, and collaborate with an organic SEO agency in Lincoln, all you have to do is ensure that the agency understands nuances in those cities’ British search behaviour and regulations.
  • Case studies, testimonials, and client referral lists (if available): Read them carefully.

Remember to look for an agency that talks about your business goals, not just traffic or rankings.

Check Their Own SEO

When hiring any SEO marketing agency UK, you must verify whether they are good at making their own website appear in higher organic rankings on Google. Consider the following factors –

  • If they can rank for their own target terms or phrases, i.e., “SEO agency UK”, and other ones if they offer any specific services, such as “Top SEO agency in Lincoln for Solicitors”, and others.
  • Do they have industry-recognised awards, or are their sites visible in industry publications or speaker lists?

If you find great reports on these factors, it’s a good indication that the SEO company is effective.

Transparency and Ethical Practices

You must be clear in your mind about the SEO company you’re shortlisting, follow 100% transparency in their process and ethical practices (approved by Google) or not.

Never hire an SEO marketing agency UK that –

  • Guarantees a #1 ranking in SERPs.
  • Engages in black-hat tactics, including link buying, cloaking, and keyword stuffing.
  • Provide vague tools‑only SEO audits with no human analysis.

Instead, you have to choose those that –

  • Use a clear and customised SEO roadmap based on your business goals, target audience, and niche.
  • Provide you with regular reports in an understandable format to review KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), such as keyword rankings, traffic quality, engagement, and conversions.

Budget Finalisation

SEO budgets in the UK can range significantly, with a small agency charging from £500 to £1,000 per month, a Mid‑sized/regional agency charging from £1,000 to £3,000 per month, and a large specialised agency charging £3,000 or more per month.

Therefore, if you are looking for affordable SEO services UK, you need to analyse their service charge and understand the billing process clearly to determine whether the SEO agency charges fees on a retainer, hourly, or project-based basis. Remember to avoid “too good to be true” offers, and ask each of them to outline what outcomes you can expect within your marketing budget.

Ask the Right Questions

There are certain questions that you can ask directly to an SEO agency to get more detailed insights about them. These are discussed below –

  1. What outcomes can I expect, and by when?
  2. What deliverables are included in your services?
  3. Will I be given an account manager?
  4. What tools do you use, and how frequently will you report?
  5. What is your SEO process?

Once you have an answer to every question you need, the time comes for shortlisting or directly hiring them.

Different SEO Services offered in the UK

There are many SEO services that UK agencies offer, and you should select those that you need precisely. Some of them are discussed below.

SEO Audits

This is the foundation of any effective SEO roadmap. No matter whether you purchase affordable SEO services UK or an expensive one from a large enterprise company, you’ll get it. SEO agencies audit local markets, mobile usability (important in densely populated cities), and regional search trends. A quality audit provides an actionable roadmap for your SEO campaign.

What it includes –

  • Site speed and performance analysis.
  • Crawlability and indexing review.
  • On-page SEO factors (titles, meta descriptions, H1-H6).
  • Broken links, redirects, and duplicate content.
  • Competitor analysis (keywords, backlink profile, and other strategies).
  • Keyword gap analysis.

Keyword Research

The best SEO Agency in Lincoln can easily identify the search terms your ideal UK-based customers are using to find your products or services. Effective keyword research involves understanding regional dialects (e.g., “solicitor” vs. “lawyer”), consumer intent, local search behaviour, as well as seasonal factors like Boxing Day or other holiday shopping cycles.

What it includes:

  • Finding high-volume with low-competition keywords.
  • Localised keyword targeting (e.g., “top restaurants in Leeds”).
  • Intent-based keyword mapping (navigational, informational, transactional).
  • Top competitors’ keywords comparison.

On-Page SEO

It refers to optimising different web pages with relevant and high-intent keywords so that search engines can understand, index, and rank them effectively. Besides, a top SEO marketing agency UK focuses on creating content that matches the needs of British audiences, maintaining spelling standards (colour vs. color), tone of voice, and even culturally appropriate CTAs. They also adapt content for UK mobile users, who account for over 60% of searches.

What it includes –

  • Optimising meta titles, descriptions, headers, and URLs.
  • Image optimisation (size, alt tags).
  • Great internal linking strategy.
  • Keyword placement and density maintenance.
  • Schema markup (rich snippets) implementation.
  • Proper content structure and better readability.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO involves optimising your website’s backend so it can be efficiently crawled, indexed, and ranked by search engines like Google. Our top organic SEO agency in Lincoln, SwitchUp Marketing, has excellent, in-depth technical expertise to ensure your site meets performance standards.

What Our Technical SEO includes –

  • Mobile-friendliness and responsive design.
  • HTTPS and site security checking.
  • XML sitemap and robots.txt implementation.
  • Crawl budget management.
  • Core Web Vitals maintenance (page speed, interactivity, layout shift).
  • Fixing crawl errors and duplicate content.

Link Building

The best SEO marketing agency UK uses various link-building techniques to acquire high-quality backlinks, including .co.uk links, which improve your site’s credibility, domain authority, and trust among potential customers.

Some Famous Link-Building Techniques are:

  • Guest posting through outreaching to bloggers and news sites.
  • Broken link building methods.
  • Unlinked brand mentions.
  • Press releases and digital PR campaigns.
  • Niche-specific link acquisition.
  • Influencer partnerships.

Local SEO

This service helps businesses rank for geo-specific searches (e.g., “hairdresser near me” or “plumber in Glasgow”). More than 70% of UK consumers use Google to find local services.

Our SEO agency in Lincoln, SwitchUp Marketing, helps physical stores, restaurants, dentists, law firms, and other businesses increase their visibility in the top positions of Google Maps and local search results.

What it includes:

  • Google Business Profile (GBP) optimisation.
  • Local keyword optimisation throughout the website and creation of location-specific pages.
  • Citation and directory management (Yell, Yelp, Scoot).
  • Review management strategy.
  • Location schema markup.

Ecommerce SEO

The UK ecommerce market is highly saturated with many eCommerce stores availability, even for niche-based businesses. Our SEO company in UK ensures your products and categories are visible and competitive in Google search results.

What Our eCommerce SEO service includes:

  • Optimised product titles and descriptions.
  • Category page structuring.
  • Site architecture for large inventories.
  • Product schema markup implementation.
  • Proper internal linking.
  • We provide platform-specific eCommerce services, no matter whether you use Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, Wix, or other CMS.

International SEO

If your business operates across borders (e.g., EU or global), our international SEO services ensure your site appears in the right regions, languages, currencies, and SERPs.

What Our International SEO includes:

  • Hreflang implementation.
  • Country-specific domains or subdirectories.
  • Geo-targeting and server location optimisation.
  • Multilingual keyword research and implementation throughout the whole website.
  • International backlink building.

Conclusion

We hope you have thoroughly reviewed the entire article and understand how to choose the Best SEO agency UK that is right for your niche.

Our SEO agency in Lincoln focuses on your specific business objectives, website’s visibility, user experience, relevant organic traffic, compliance with UK search terms and regulations, and revenue.

Whether you’re a local bakery in Birmingham or a fintech startup in London, contact SwitchUp Marketing for affordable SEO Services UK to outperform competitors and achieve long-term organic growth.

Morgan Varlow
About The Author
Morgan Varlow

Morgan is an experienced marketing professional with expertise across various marketing disciplines. Passionate about helping businesses grow, Morgan works with clients worldwide but particularly enjoys supporting local businesses in and around Lincolnshire. This support includes managing entire marketing operations or collaborating with existing teams to enhance their efforts.

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