Working with an SEO agency in Toronto is essential for a small business to grow. A certain study found that almost 50% of businesses hire SEO firms based on a referral. This can be due to two possible reasons; some SEO companies have a bad reputation for engaging in shady tactics that could get your website penalized or many businesses are uninformed about SEO best practices and what a good SEO should offer.

However, you can still hire a legitimate SEO company without the help of referrals from friends and family. According to Above the Fold Media, you need to keep an eye on a list of bad signs and red flags.




Red flags in an SEO agency you must avoid


1. Guaranteed success
Some unreliable Toronto SEO services boast guaranteed results come in many forms. Below are only some of the most common:

  • Specific Keyword Guarantees. A good SEO expert will not assure you to rank #1 for a specific keyword phrase right away. Their focus should be on the certain increase in qualified leads to your site based on a combination of keywords, instead of just emphasizing one specific phrase. Furthermore, it's impossible to know whether the company already in the #1 spot has more resources than you.


  • Timeframe Guarantees. Look out for a company that offers a month or two of guaranteed results. This is even worse if they’ll get you a certain number of #1 rankings within that specified time period. No one is able to predict to that level of certainty the time it will take for Google to improve your rankings. The majority of campaigns would roughly six to 12 months to see results.

  • Money-Back Guarantees. You should expect SEO to take ample time and resources to keep going. Every good agency would be putting in a good amount of work and time to give you the result that you want. This means they would lose a lot if you ever asked for a refund. A money-back guarantee could be a sign that the agency is utilizing low-cost techniques.

2. Pre-Packaged Price Options
Toronto SEO marketing agencies will offer tiered-price packages for SEO. Some might even send you an instant quote within a couple of hours. A bad agency will not spend much time thoroughly auditing your website and speaking deeply with you about your goals. This means they aren't customizing the work to fit your specific business.

Remember, SEO is highly varied in price because some websites are in better shape than others. Moreover, some markets are more competitive than others.

3. Cheap Prices
Look out for their pricing policy before you find SEO agency Toronto you want to settle on. Extremely low pricing indicates low-quality services too.

It helps to remember that SEO primarily focuses on two areas which are creating high-quality and optimized content for your website, and building relationships with external websites and authorities. These would also take time. Charging only a few hundred bucks is definitely shady.

4. High Ratio of Clients to Staff
As you look for an SEO digital marketing in Toronto, be sure to figure out who will be directly responsible for your account. You should also find out how many other clients that person or team is currently handling.


Do the simple math and if you think that the ratio is quite high, consider this a warning sign that your account may not get the right attention it needs.

Before arriving on your final decision, be sure to research online by searching for their company name plus reviews. An SEO agency in Toronto can easily fake its reviews, so consider digging a little deeper into negative reviews by asking what caused this dissatisfaction among their clients, learn more here.