Rat Race Armaggeddon: The 5 Best SEO Companies of 2020

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Anywhere you find a cube of sugar in the open, you’ll find ants.

Today, the SEO service providers’ industry, valued over $65 billion, is like a cube of sugar. It’s why you’ll find countless SEO companies scrambling for a piece of that sugary cake.

And where does that leave you, a business owner eager to reach Google’s top pages, generate qualified traffic, and drive sales?

Insanity!

With all this confusion, I sense you came here pondering:

How do I filter vetted SEO companies?
How can I find a top SEO company that doesn’t need ads to rank its website organically?

You’ll find the answer to those questions here.

And that’s not all.

You’ll also see the SEO companies that go beyond vanity metrics and deliver real business results.

The 5 Top SEO Companies in The World

Neil Patel Digital (best for SEO content marketing)
Voice SEO (best for Voice search)
ReachLocal (best for local SEO)
FATJOE (best for backlinks’ acquisition)
OuterBox (best for eCommerce SEO)

In the past, you could hire any Tom and Harry to stuff keywords into a page or website you wanted to rank, and it’ll make its way to Google’s 1st page.

Not anymore.

In short, the constant evolution of SEO has reached a tipping point where ranking alone doesn’t guarantee business results—qualified traffic, leads, and sales.

To get the most out of any SEO investment today, you need a holistic strategy.

And a holistic SEO strategy must blend your website code, information architecture (IA), and content marketing with context to not only make your business discoverable online but valuable to customers.

Take this guide you’re reading, for example. If it wasn’t valuable to you, would you still be reading?

You’re experiencing excellent SEO execution at play here.

Done well, it drives relevant website visits. But most importantly, it uses high-quality content to engage and convert visitors into leads and customers.

I’m confident the best SEO companies we reviewed below will do no different. Hire any of them, and you’ll attract and convert visitors into leads and customers.

#1 Neil Patel Digital – Best For SEO Content Marketing

Yeah, we’re tooting our own horn, and it’s not because charity begins at home.

We’ve earned our place on this list.

First things first, Neil Patel Digital was founded by hardcore marketers who walk the talk, and not some random wannabe. If you type “SEO strategies” into Google from anywhere in the world, you’ll find well-crafted content by our Co-founder, Neil Patel, on the 3rd and 4th organic positions:

And that’s but the tip of the iceberg.

We generate millions of organic search traffic—about 3.5 million to be precise, to my blog. No ads, only through SEO-optimized content marketing:

As you can see from the snapshot above, through these efforts, our Co-Founder has accumulated more than 1.7 million organic keywords with over 3 million websites across the globe linking back to his content pieces.

To build a rock-solid SEO content marketing company you can rely on, I also partnered with other marketing veterans to form Neil Patel Digital:

Together, the executive team here in Neil Patel Digital has garnered over five decades of hands-on experience. And this excludes other top-level, in-house marketing managers.

In short, SEO-optimized content marketing is one of the prime reasons customers, from startups to enterprise brands, trust Neil Patel Digital to deliver top-notch search engine optimization strategies:

If you’re just starting with search engine optimization or seek better results, it’s best to start with content marketing.

Content is the bedrock that drives all other online marketing campaigns.

It’s how you got here; it’s how your customers will find you, too.

And not only is SEO-optimized content marketing Neil Patel Digital’s core offering, but we’ve also developed battle-tested programs we can bet our life on:

Since you’re still here, get your free consultation with Neil Patel Digital here.

#2 Voice SEO – Best For Voice SEO

No, this company didn’t name themselves Voice SEO for the fun of it. They’re the #1 ranked voice SEO company by TopSEOs.

And that’s for a reason.

Voice SEO took it upon themselves to study the trends surrounding how people use spoken commands—instead of typing words to query the search engines. From there, they discovered the ever-increasing use of voice search and positioned themselves as the go-to company for voice SEO.

If you own any of Siri, Google Echo, or Alexa devices, or you know someone who does, that should give an idea of the growing importance to optimize your website for voice.

But, if you don’t, I’ll quickly let you in on it.

Over 31% of smartphone users across the world use voice technology at least once weekly. Another research projected 50% of all online searches in 2020 to be voice-based. And by 2022, over 55% of households are expected to have voice search-enabled devices.

These stats all point to one direction: The time to optimize your website for voice search is now.

And that’s where Voice SEO, as the name suggests, comes in.

This company started as a small team of SEO experts focused on putting their SEO skills to good use, helping businesses like them to grow.

Through this intense passion for excellence, Voice SEO followed the highest standards in the industry, particularly in voice search engine optimization.

Although there are no client testimonials to their name, they have garnered accreditations, which shows they know their onions to deserve a place on this list:

#3 ReachLocal – Best For Local SEO

ReachLocal is the go-to company for strategic local SEO executions. And their experience, results, and high-value partnerships speak for itself.

Founded in 2004, their expertise in the local SEO niche has generated over 201 million local leads for about 19,000 clients worldwide.

With offices in five continents, they’re a Google Premier Partner, and Bing Ads Certified specialists, and others. ReachLocal proudly partners with Google, Yelp, Yahoo!, Bing, and Facebook to help businesses optimize their local search engine optimization strategies and drive in-store customers.

Local SEO Companies, a domain that vets and ranks top local SEO practitioners, ranked ReachLocal as the best for local SEO strategies.

And not only that, across several review sites, this company’s experience and attention to detail have seen them receive 4.5/5-star ratings from happy customers:

#4 FatJoe – Best For Backlink Acquisition

Search engines interpret the relative importance of your web pages and websites as a whole, using the number of backlinks pointing to them.

In order words, the more backlinks you acquire, the more the search engines see your site as authoritative.

And the more it’ll rank your site over those of your competitors for competitive keywords.

When it comes to acquiring backlinks for SEO, FATJOE comes highly recommended by us. They’ll help you generate high-value backlinks, and you can rest assured because even other SEO agencies turn to them for the same.

FATJOE has grown to become one of the world’s largest outsourced link building agencies, serving over 5,000 clients worldwide.

When you sign up for FATJOE’s SEO link building services, you get premium access to every tool you need: A dashboard to manage and track your orders, and their Blogger Outreach product to find and reach relevant websites to build links from.

About 97% of customers who use FATJOE rates them a 4.5/5, and even though they’re more positioned for agencies—because they do link building a lot.

#5 OuterBox – Best for eCommerce SEO

OuterBox, an SEO and performance marketing company focused on eCommerce brands, is our pick for eCommerce SEO.

If you own an eCommerce website and seek a talented group of dedicated people to power your business through the search engines, you should look OuterBox’s way.

Founded in 2004, this company earned the list of Inc. 500 fastest growing companies in the US, having served hundreds of customers across several eCommerce sectors.

Their clientele speaks for itself: NewAir, AtlasOil, JetDock, UCFS, and others.

And it doesn’t matter which eCommerce platform you’ve built your business with. Be it WooCommerce, Magento, Shopify, Drupal, or others; you can rely on OuterBox for effective eCommerce search engine optimization:

5 Characteristics That Make a Great SEO Company

You’ll find hundreds, if not thousands, of SEO companies out there.

So, let’s say you wanted to go out of our vetted list to find one for yourself. What are the characteristics that make a great SEO company you should be looking out for?

They are as follows.

1. Experience and Process for Implementing SEO

When it comes to SEO these days, anyone with a laptop, access to the internet, and a WordPress-installed blog can boast of being an SEO company.

What you won’t see behind those claims, however, is the experience and process they take to deliver results.

You should always lookout for this.

Scroll their website, do a simple Google search and see if they show up on the search engine’s organic positions. If they don’t, it means they have little to no experience nor implemented what they claim to deliver.

Can you give what you don’t have?

Likewise, a fundamental characteristic of a great SEO company is that they have experience implementing SEO for themselves first.

And they have a process, showing you how they go about getting results:

2. An Impressive Portfolio

The idea of showing off portfolios has become a characteristic of great SEO companies today. And the reason for this is simple.

They’re proud of the businesses they’ve helped increase rankings on Google and driven traffic to get leads and sales.

But, this idea to show off their portfolio does you more good.

Scroll through it, and you’ll see the kind of clients they’ve worked with or frequently work with. From here, decide if you want to be in that mix and get similar results.

For example, at Neil Patel Digital, here are some clients in our work portfolio:

3. Thought Leadership

SEO is always evolving.

Today it’s Google’s RankBrain. Before you know it, it’s Panda. And just when you thought that one would stay, Hummingbird hits you right in the face.

And those are major updates. In one year alone, Google makes upwards of 3,200 updates to its search engine algorithms.

How can you—one focused on managing your business, keep tabs with all these changes?

You need thought-leadership, and that’s a characteristic of great SEO companies.

Look out if they’re keeping up with SEO best practices as they evolve, and sharing tips to help businesses adjust for maximum impact:

4. Real Life Testimonials

Who wouldn’t toot his own horn?

Definitely not search engine optimization companies. Developing winning SEO strategies, managing its implementation, and guiding teams on its execution to generate results is hard.

When an SEO company does all this hard work and gets those fantastic results, their customers reward them with testimonials, having got value for their money.

Thus, sharing real-life testimonials is a characteristic you’ll find with most great SEO organizations:

5. A Complete Team of Leaders, Managers, and Executors

Just as no man is an island, turning SEO ideas into higher rankings, website visitors, leads, and sales needs a diverse team of specialists.

When an SEO company makes too many promises without showing you the team to make it happen, hold tight. Why?

Because that’s a red flag they’ll charge you a premium and outsource your job for pennies on the dollar overseas or Fiverr for $5.

From strategic leaders to managers and different teams of specialists to execute your strategy, great SEO companies are proud to show off their amazing team members:

What to Expect from a Great SEO Company

So far, I’ve listed our recommended SEO companies and highlighted the characteristics that make a great search engine optimization company, suppose you decide to find one yourself.

Either way, after making a choice, what should you expect from a great SEO company?

1. Discovery session

Your decision to work with an SEO company may come from the need to rank your site higher, generate more traffic, drive sales, or all three.

But, no business case and needs are exactly the same. The SEO strategies that worked for another company won’t work automatically for yours.

Great SEO companies, from experience working with different organizations, know this. Thus, they’re not quick to send proposals. Instead, to help you, they allow you to share your unique needs and business case in a discovery session:

2. Research and Recommendations

After sharing your needs and business case with an SEO company, they take what you tell them and use their expertise to conduct in-depth research.

They do this to get the right context needed to bring themselves on the same page with you, your target audience, and industry.

After they’ve performed this research, expect a great SEO company to share their recommendations of what you need to do to get maximum results. This, they can do over another discovery call or via email.

3. Contract with Deliverables

If your discovery session and follow-up conversations with an SEO company looks like a good fit for the exchange of mutual value, you’ll receive a contract for your business.

However, a great SEO company won’t only send you any contract. In it, expect to see a detailed list of what they’ll deliver, how they plan to deliver it, and when you should start expecting results.