I thought those 'done for you' SEO packages were a total scam until last month

I mean, I've been burned before by agencies promising the world for $500 a month. But this one shop in Portland sent me a case study showing how they got a local brewery 150% more organic traffic in 6 months, with real screenshots from Search Console. They actually explained the backlink strategy instead of just saying 'trust us'. Has anyone else found a legit agency doing fixed-price SEO that doesn't just ghost you after the contract starts?

3 comments

3 Comments

mary_kelly2mo ago

That part about getting burned by agencies promising the world for $500 a month hits home. My cousin hired a guy who swore he'd get her bakery on the first page for "wedding cakes." After three months of paying him, her site was actually lower than when she started. She found out he was just using some spammy link building tool that got her a warning from Google. How do you even check if an agency's case study is real and not just made up?

finley_craig532mo ago

Checking their case study is like asking a magician to show you the rabbit before the trick.

the_robin1mo ago

Really look at the date of their case study screenshots. A lot of agencies will show you a graph from Search Console but the dates will be from two years ago when the algorithm was different. Also check if the screenshot includes the actual query data or just the generic traffic line. Real ones show the specific keywords that moved. And do a quick search for those keywords yourself to see if the site still ranks well today. If the case study is from last year but the site dropped off the map after that, it might mean the agency's methods stopped working. That tells you way more than any sales pitch about their process.