A good SEO marketer is one that can help your business grow. However, not every agency can provide the services you need, or they may be too expensive. This article will provide advice on how to identify a good SEO marketing agency or freelancer and what questions you should ask before hiring them to avoid wasting time and money. It also includes tips on what to look for when interviewing an agency, as well as warning signs of bad agencies.
As a digital talent platform, Flow Digital has worked with different SEO marketers and clients with varying skill levels. Throughout our experience, we’ve realised that while some SEO talents are highly experienced, they often lack self-branding because they are busy managing client accounts. This means that their quality of work can only truly be assessed by working directly with them.
However, there are ways to identify the makings of a good SEO marketer even before working together. The requirements for identifying a good SEO agency can differ between small business owners and corporations due to varying expectations. Small business owners or single decision-makers often focus on tangible results: conversions, sales, and profit. Meanwhile, corporations aim for long-term objectives such as brand awareness, engagement, and actionable insights that can guide management decisions for future growth. As an agency that has collaborated with numerous SEO freelancers and marketers, we’d like to share our experience in determining the qualities of a good SEO marketer. The following sections will help you better understand SEO and identify quality SEO professionals.
How do they perform SEO audits on your website?
Many SEO service providers offer free audits through auto-generated reports from SEO software such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Backlinko. These reports typically list potential keywords, website traffic, and competitor data. While these tools make reporting faster and more efficient, they often lack meaningful insights since they are generated by AI and not reviewed manually.
On the other hand, professional SEO agencies provide manual web audits that include personalised insights and actionable recommendations to help you improve your business performance. These professional audits are usually chargeable, with fees ranging from RM3,000–RM5,000, as the process is comprehensive and time-consuming.
A professional SEO auditing report will usually include details on website structure, technical issues, opportunities for improvement, and keyword recommendations.
While auto-generated reports are convenient in fast-paced environments, they can never match the accuracy and strategic value of a manual audit performed by experienced SEO professionals.
Strategy and Focus
Different SEO experts employ different strategies. Some focus on keyword optimisation, while others specialise in content strategy. Although both methods can yield results, none can guarantee first-page rankings — especially as Google frequently updates its algorithms.
Today, many agencies no longer focus solely on keyword rankings. Instead, they adopt holistic strategies that include technical SEO, content optimisation, and user experience improvements.
A good SEO team typically consists of marketers, web developers, and content writers, each contributing their expertise to form a comprehensive strategy.
For instance, many freelancers or agencies in India still rely on traditional keyword-based SEO, which explains why their prices are often cheaper than local agencies. While some of these freelancers deliver decent work, it’s still important to review their audit reports and adjust strategies according to your own understanding of your local market.
A reliable SEO service provider will regularly review and refine their strategy based on monthly audit reports. They will analyse results, suggest changes to target keywords, and provide recommendations for further improvement. There is no single formula for SEO success — each project requires a unique approach tailored to your business and industry.
What Is Included in SEO Service?
This is an important criteria to take note of when dealing with the SEO industry. Sometimes, the SEO agencies will expect the task to be done by your website developer without your knowledge. This will cause a grey area to form in which both parties are unsure of the task execution and result in quarrels or disputes between the client and agency.
Generally, these are the lists of items that you can check with your SEO service provider if they cover the scope of work :
- Website Speed Optimization – SEO agencies may give you a list of website problems and ask you to find a web developer to resolve it. Including loading speed, Google Page Score , Core Web Vitals report and a GTmetrix report that affect web performance.
- Image Alternate Text – The SEO agency or freelancer may send you a list of image links that doesn’t come with Alt text, so you will need to get someone to insert the alternate text for the images by themselves.
- Meta Description – Some agencies will propose the new meta description to you, and send you the list of documents. After getting approval, they will replace all the page description, and sub in the meta title for you. However, there are some SEO agencies that don’t do that. Instead, they will send you a list of the changes and you will have to replace it yourself.
- Image resize – This is related to the website speed optimization mentioned above, some agencies will reduce the image size for you while others will require you to resize it yourself.
- Content – Content optimization plays a significant role for SEO success. However, not all SEO agencies include content writing services for you. Some agencies may include a number of articles in their package, while others may do it as an additional cost that ranges from RM200 – RM400 per article.
Google Tools and Tracking Setup
Three of the most commonly used tools in SEO are Google Analytics (GA), Google Search Console (GSC), and Google Tag Manager (GTM).
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Google Analytics tracks and reports website traffic and visitor behaviour.
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Google Search Console helps monitor site performance in search results.
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Google Tag Manager manages tracking tags, scripts, and pixels on your website.
All SEO practitioners should install the basic tracking pixels for GA and GSC. However, not all know how to fully utilise these tools. A skilled SEO expert will also set up custom event tracking via GTM and GA to monitor unique activities such as video views, CTA clicks, or time spent on pages.
Good SEO marketers aren’t necessarily highly technical but usually work closely with developers to ensure that advanced tracking setups are properly implemented.
How Do They Handle SEO Reporting?
When evaluating an SEO agency, it’s essential to understand how they report results, handle revisions, and maintain communication after implementation.
There are generally two types of audit reports provided by SEO agencies:
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Auto-Generated Reports by Software
These reports are produced by SEO tools and usually include metrics such as traffic comparisons, keyword rankings, and competitor analyses. Most agencies provide these to clients and may even automate them through platforms like Google Data Studio, allowing clients to access updated metrics at any time. -
Manual Reports with Insights
These reports combine automated data with professional insights and strategic recommendations. They often include improvement suggestions, next-step planning, and performance analysis. Manual insight reports are particularly valuable for corporate-level clients, where management needs to understand the “why” behind the data to make informed business decisions.
Freelancers or overseas agencies may not always provide this level of detail due to limited familiarity with the local market context, which can affect the quality of their insights.
A good SEO partner doesn’t just send reports, they review results with you, discuss strategy adjustments, and follow up consistently to ensure your SEO efforts are progressing toward long-term goals.
How Do They Approach Backlink Building?
Some SEO marketers prefer to focus more on backlink building, however, there are many different ways of doing it. If you opt to go for low cost SEO marketers for your backlink building, you may want to check the authenticity of the backlink , as it could be a link farmed with poor DA or from unknown sources. This will result in a penalization by Google and hurt your website ranking instead.
There are SEO marketers or agencies that charge you very high service fees since a part of that money goes to quality link building. Backlink building can be a very expensive and tedious process. While it is costly, it is better to have 1 good quality website instead of a hundred from links farm. Like they say, quality over quantity.
It is hard to determine if an SEO marketer is good in the beginning, as SEO marketers do not have a portfolio to serve as proof of their work. SEO portfolio cannot be utilized as a benchmark because every industry is different, as such it takes a different amount of effort to rank their websites. It takes time to identify or evaluate your SEO marketers, which is usually between 3-6 months. SEO processes take a huge amount of patience to perfect as it takes time to rank your website, especially when your business or keywords are very competitive. Most importantly though, your SEO marketer needs to work closely with you to adjust the strategy periodically to achieve your business goal.
Partner with Flow Digital for Trusted SEO Expertise
Choosing the right SEO partner can make or break your digital success. From conducting detailed website audits to providing data-driven strategies and transparent reporting, a reliable SEO agency should always prioritise your business goals. With years of experience working alongside top SEO talents and diverse clients, Flow Digital understands that every business is unique and so is its SEO strategy.
Whether you’re a small business owner seeking growth or a corporation aiming for long-term visibility, our team can connect you with proven SEO experts who deliver measurable results. Let us help you strengthen your online presence, boost your search rankings, and achieve sustainable digital growth.
Get in touch with Flow Digital today to find the right SEO partner for your business and start optimising smarter.
