7 Signs It’s Time to Hire an SEO Agency (Before Your Competitors Win)

Your competitors might already be scooping up the clicks and customers in your industry if your website isn’t showing up where it should be. And that means you’re missing out. SEO is how you stay visible in a crowded online market.

The right SEO agency can help with everything from better search rankings and traffic to keeping your content in front of the people who matter most. But it’s not easy to know when to bring these experts in if everything seems fine on the surface.

Our team has put together all the telltale signs you’re ready for outside SEO help and why investing early saves you from playing catch-up later in this article.

Why Timing Matters in SEO More Than Ever

Your competitors may already be building momentum if you delay investing in SEO. And this widens the gap with each blog post and backlink while you play catch-up.

For example, when a hot new search trend emerges or Google rolls out a major update, early movers grab the top spots. If you’re late to the game, you might find that the front page is already a who’s who of your industry (with your site absent).

Every month you postpone optimizing your site is a month your competitors can solidify their lead. They get the organic traffic (and customers) that could have been yours.

Conversely, starting sooner rather than later helps you stay in the game instead of scrambling later.

Sign #1: Your Website Traffic Has Dropped or Declined

It’s a big red flag when you log into Google Analytics and see your organic traffic line take a nosedive. Especially if your site is used to get steady traffic. But don’t jump to conclusions, because a drop in organic traffic isn’t always a Google penalty or the end of the world. There are plenty of reasons traffic can decline:

Why Organic Traffic Drops (And Why It’s Not Always a Penalty)

Organic traffic can dip for many reasons that have nothing to do with a manual penalty from Google. According to Google’s own Search Central documentation, common causes include things like:

• Algorithm updates
• Technical site issues
• Changes in user behavior or seasonality

Different patterns of organic traffic drops happen for different reasons. If your traffic decline is sudden and steep (top left), it could be an algorithm update or a site-wide technical problem.

A gentle drop that correlates with certain times of year (top right) might suggest seasonality. A big continuous decline affecting your whole site (bottom left) points to technical issues (like pages being deindexed), whereas a sharp drop that quickly recovers (bottom right) could just be a reporting glitch.

So look closely at your traffic pattern. Did it drop off overnight or gradually? Is it site-wide or just certain pages? A sharp, across-the-board plunge might mean something broad (say a Google core update or your site went down without you noticing). A slow decline might mean your content went stale or competitors slowly siphoned your rankings. And sometimes, weirdly, it’s just a tracking glitch.

The key is not to panic but to diagnose. An SEO agency has seen all these patterns before and can quickly figure out if you lost traffic because of a known Google update or something else entirely.

The Hidden Cost of Missed Opportunities

Less traffic literally means fewer visitors and sales. If people aren’t finding you in search, they’re finding someone else (likely your competitor).

For example, if your daily visitors fell from 1,000 to 600, those 400 “lost” visits could have been potential customers ready to buy. That’s revenue left on the table every single day and it kills your growth over time.

And consider the ripple effects: if your site isn’t pulling in visitors, you might feel pressure to spend more on ads to compensate. Many businesses that see an SEO traffic drop end up turning to paid ads or other costly channels like SMS marketing campaigns to “stop the bleeding.”

This is essentially paying for what you used to get for free (or at least organically). As one study noted, 94% of Google search clicks go to organic results, not ads. So if you disappear from those organic results, you’re forced to chase that 6% click share in the ad world. Often at a high price.

An SEO agency can help plug this leak and find both quick wins and long-term fixes to get your traffic trending upward again, so you’re not missing opportunities or overspending on emergency measures.

Sign #2: You’re Investing in SEO, But Getting Little to No ROI

Maybe you haven’t experienced a dramatic traffic drop, but you have been putting time and money into SEO and it feels like you have nothing to show for it.

If you’re spending on SEO tools or even paying an in-house person or freelancer, yet your sales aren’t increasing, it’s a major sign something’s wrong with the approach.

Symptoms of Ineffective SEO Execution

How do you know if your SEO efforts are falling flat?

• Few Conversions or Leads From Organic: Maybe you get some traffic, but those visitors aren’t converting into customers or inquiries. No ROI = SEO isn’t working properly.
• Rankings Stuck on Page 2 or 10: You might see your keywords in search console, but they hover in the wrong areas (page 2 might as well be page 20 in terms of click-through). Despite efforts, you’re not cracking the top positions that matter.
• Using Random Tactics with No Cohesion: One week you’re disavowing links because a blog said so, the next you’re obsessing over meta keywords (which haven’t mattered since like 2009). There’s no strategic thread. Just a mix of “SEO hacks” that aren’t effective.

It’s often just a lack of effective effort. SEO is one of the highest ROI marketing channels when done correctly (an average of $22 return for every $1 spent on SEO). So something’s off in your execution if you’re investing and not seeing those returns.

When Tools & Tutorials Aren’t Enough

There’s no shortage of SEO tools promising to solve all your problems or tutorials claiming to teach you “SEO in 30 minutes a day.” These can be useful, but tools and generic tutorials have their limits.

SEO isn’t about chasing a perfect score in a tool; it’s more about making a strategy (content + technical + links + user experience) that aligns with your business goals.

Many business owners follow generic checklists (“add meta tags, check!”) but lack any cohesive plan tailored to their site. The “formula” can change depending on your industry or audience.

An SEO agency can look at why you’re not seeing ROI. Maybe your keyword targeting is off (you’re attracting visitors who aren’t buyers) or your site’s user experience is tanking conversions (slow site, poor mobile design).

Often, an experienced team can spot in a week what might take you months to figure out. They can audit your efforts and say, “You’ve been focusing on vanity metrics instead of revenue metrics,” or “Your content is great, but nobody’s seeing it because you have zero backlink strategy.” They refocus your strategy and turn your investment into tangible results.

Sign #3: You’re Struggling to Keep Up with Algorithm Updates

Google makes thousands of changes to its search algorithms every year. In 2022, for instance, Google launched 4,725 changes to Search (that’s an average of 13 per day!). It’s a lot for any one person to keep track of, let alone implement tweaks for.

From Helpful Content to Core Updates: It’s a Lot

Google rolls out core updates multiple times a year (in some years, we’ve seen spring, summer, and fall core updates). One year it’s about E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness), the next they’re all-in on cracking down on AI-generated content or rewarding original research.

Then there are ongoing updates like the “helpful content update” which is basically Google’s way of saying “we’re getting better at spotting low-value content, so don’t try it.” It is a lot to absorb. It’s not just Google, either. If you rely on other platforms (like YouTube search, etc.), they have their own algorithms and updates.

What happens if you don’t keep up? You risk your site’s traffic dropping due to an update you didn’t even know about. For example, say Google decides to prioritize page experience. If you weren’t ahead of that, you might have lost ground to competitors who made their sites super fast and mobile-friendly.

Or maybe a new spam update demoted sites with certain link patterns (and maybe your DIY backlink efforts fell into that category).

How Agencies Stay Ahead of the Curve (And Why That Matters)

Good SEO agencies:

• Follow every Google announcement
• Read the analysis from industry experts
• Run tests across their client sites to gauge impact

When an algorithm update hits, an agency is already analyzing what changed and what to do about it. They also tend to have historical data, so that’s access to data from dozens of sites during an update that helps them spot patterns much faster than a single site owner could.

Staying ahead of Google’s changes is crucial because it prevents costly mistakes and long recoveries. An agency can adapt your strategy before an update causes issues. For example, if they catch wind that Google is dialing up the importance of fresh, expert content in your niche, they’ll adjust your content calendar accordingly.

Consider the Helpful Content update that Google rolled out. Agencies knew that meant content written for people (not just for search engines) would be favored. So, they double-downed on removing fluff and improving articles to be genuinely useful before the update came out.

Another big advantage: agencies have specialized tools and insider knowledge. They use enterprise-grade SEO tools that can cost a fortune (and would be overkill for a single website owner) to monitor algorithm changes. They:

• See ranking volatility indexes
• Can tell if an update is major or minor
• Often get a heads-up from industry connections about what an update targeted

All of this matters because falling behind in the SEO game can let competitors leapfrog you overnight. It saves you stress and protects the search presence you’ve worked so hard to build.

Sign #4: Your Competitors Are Outranking You for Money Keywords

These are the queries your potential customers use when they’re ready to buy or take action (like “your service + near me” or “best [your product]”). If you search those terms and find your competitor in the #1 spot while you’re on page 2 or 3, it means they’re grabbing the attention and clicks of high-intent customers better than you are.

Losing Visibility = Losing Sales

The difference between ranking #1 and #5 can be the difference between making money and folding. The #1 result on Google captures around 3 out of every 10 clicks, whereas results on the second page get less than 1% of users clicking them. 

So if a competitor outranks you for a lucrative keyword, they’re potentially getting 20-30% of all those searchers landing on their site.

When your competitor takes the top spot, they also get a credibility boost. Users often trust whatever comes up first (assuming the top result is “the best”). There’s also a branding effect: even if a user doesn’t click the competitor, seeing their name over and over for important searches makes that brand stick in their mind. Many users won’t even know you exist if you’re on page 2.

Also, think about the lifetime value of a customer. Often, the company that wins the customer initially keeps them for the long haul (through email marketing, loyalty programs, etc.).

So, when a competitor outranks you and wins a customer today, they might also be winning months or years of that customer’s business. It’s not just the sale you lost today, but all the repeat business and referrals that customers could bring.

Why Competitor Wins Are Usually a Sign of Smarter SEO

If your rivals are consistently beating you in search rankings, they might be working with a skilled SEO agency. Chances are, they’ve:

• Optimized their content to answer customer questions directly
• Built a fast and user-friendly website
• Earned quality backlinks through PR or industry partnerships
• Continuously refined their strategy based on data

It’s also possible they’ve done good keyword gap analysis. Basically, they identified keywords you’re not targeting and created content to fill that void.

That’s why an SEO agency can help, because part of their job is to spy on your competitors and see what keywords they rank for.

But the good part is that once you know why they’re winning, you can form a plan to win back. An agency can help you craft a strategy to reclaim those money keywords. Maybe through a:

• Targeted content campaign
• PR push to boost SEO visibility via high-profile media mentions
• Site overhaul to improve user experience.

Sign #5: You Have No Real SEO Strategy (Just Random Efforts)

Random SEO acts here and there usually lead to underwhelming results:

Tactics Without Strategy = Burned Budget

You might be spending hours or dollars on activities that aren’t actually what your site needs. For instance, maybe you’re fixated on tweaking your homepage title tag repeatedly, but your bigger issue is that you have no authoritative content or backlinks.

Or you keep writing blog posts on random topics that aren’t part of any broader content plan. They don’t build on each other or target any sort of funnel or user need effectively.

Structured campaigns are different. A strategy will outline:

• Target audiences
• Keyword themes
• Content plans mapped to those themes
• On-site technical improvements
• Link outreach plans
• And more, all scheduled and executed in a logical order

Also, random efforts make it impossible to measure success properly. If you do 10 different things and your rankings go up a bit, do you know which effort paid off?

Being focussed tells you what actions lead to which outcomes, so you can double down on what works and cut out what doesn’t.

Why SEO Needs to Be Structured Like a Business Plan

Good SEO strategies will include elements like:

• Technical SEO and Site Structure Fixes: Making a prioritized list of technical issues to fix and improvements like internal linking structure. All scheduled so that, say, foundational fixes happen before content expansions (no point adding 50 pages to a site that’s not crawlable).
• Link Building/Outreach Strategy: Identifying how you’ll attract backlinks (through link-worthy content, doing digital PR, etc.) and setting monthly or quarterly targets for outreach. This builds authority and doesn't just rely on people randomly linking to you.

Sign #6: You Don’t Have Time or In-House Expertise

Is SEO something that keeps getting pushed back because you or your team are swamped with other responsibilities? That’s a classic reason to consider hiring an agency.

SEO Is a Full-Time Job: Not a Side Task for Your Developer

A common scenario: the company’s web developer or IT person, who already has a full plate maintaining the website or internal systems, is also expected to “take care of SEO stuff” on the side.

Or maybe the content writer is supposed to also do keyword research and on-page optimization in between drafting articles. The reality is, SEO done right can easily occupy a full-time role (or several). It’s not something you squeeze in for 30 minutes.

There are so many facets to SEO:

• Technical (site health, speed, schema markup, etc.)
• Content (keyword strategy, content creation, on-page optimization)
• Off-page (link building, digital PR, local citations if you’re local)
• Analytics (monitoring, tweaking, reporting).

Then each of these sub-areas has depth. For example, technical SEO itself can involve things like managing crawl budgets and fixing duplicate content issues, which can be complex and time-consuming.

If your developer is busy just keeping the site running, expecting them to also stay on top of SEO best practices is unrealistic.

And SEO is a specialized skill. Maybe you’re great at social media or excellent at sales, but expecting yourself to also be an SEO expert on top of that is tough. Without an in-house SEO specialist, you’re likely missing opportunities.

In fact, nearly half of companies that we speak to use a combination of in-house and outsourced talent to execute SEO, meaning they know they need extra hands.

Agencies Offer a Plug-and-Play Growth Engine

When you hire a cost-effective SEO agency, you’re essentially getting a plug-and-play team of experts ready to hit the ground running. They’ll already have specialists for each aspect of SEO:

• Strategists
• Content creators
• Technical experts
• Link builders
• Analysts

And they have the bandwidth to give your SEO the consistent attention it needs. Meanwhile, you can focus on the areas of the business that you have the skills for, from closing deals to improving your product.

Your in-house team might be really strong in one area (say, writing content) but weak in another (improving SEO visibility). An agency fills the gaps.

Time is also important. The agency’s team is paid to spend time on your SEO. Unlike your internal staff who juggle tasks, the agency has it as its core job to execute the SEO strategy.

Also, consider the cost-benefit: hiring a full in-house SEO team is expensive because you might not have the budget for one or the workload to justify multiple full-timers. With an agency, you often pay a monthly fee that’s likely less than one full-time salary, yet you get access to a whole team. It’s cost-effective because you’re sharing that team’s time and expertise with their other clients.

Lastly, agencies often come with premium SEO tools and software that they use on your behalf (they usually have agency-wide subscriptions). If you tried to replicate that toolkit yourself, it could cost hundreds or thousands per month.

For example, everything from advanced rank trackers and competitor analysis tools to content optimization platforms cost money. And you benefit from the insights without directly footing each of those bills.

Sign #7: You’re Launching Something New and Want Results Faster

Getting SEO momentum from day one can make a huge difference. If you’re on the brink of a launch (or just did one), this is prime time to consider an SEO agency’s help to hit the ground running.

From Website Launches to New Product Pages: SEO Shouldn’t Be an Afterthought

You ideally want to integrate SEO into the launch process from the beginning. So it helps to bring in an SEO agency during the planning phase of a new website because they’re able to:

• Guide site architecture (for example, making sure your important pages aren’t buried deep in the navigation)
• Help with URL structures and content strategy so the site can rank well
• Do keyword research so you can appropriately name certain pages or sections
• Make sure you have pages targeting all the relevant topics your audience will search for
• Set up proper 301 redirects if it’s a redesign (to carry over any SEO equity from an old site). This can save you from the “launch and slump” where a site goes live and then traffic tanks or stays flat because the SEO foundation wasn’t laid.
• Optimize new pages before they go live
• Advise on supportive content, like writing a blog post announcing the new product that targets some long-tail searches
• Creating FAQ content around it to capture informational queries.

SEO is somewhat slow-burn by nature (it can take months for new pages to fully mature in rankings), but you shorten that time to traffic if you start early.

If you wait 6 months after launch to think about SEO, that’s 6 months you’ve lost where you could have been climbing the ranks.

Agencies Bring Momentum from Day One

SEO agencies can do a lot very quickly because they have tried-and-tested launch checklists. For instance, they might:

• Make sure your new site has a properly generated XML sitemap that gets submitted to Google and Bing immediately (so search engines discover your pages faster)
• Check that your robots.txt isn’t accidentally blocking anything important
• Ensure all the crucial pages have unique, optimized title tags from day one.

They should also have a pre and post-launch SEO plan. So they’ll do things before you launch like keyword research and on-page optimization. Maybe they even start an initial link outreach for the domain (like press releases or reaching out to relevant sites to announce the new launch so you can earn some backlinks).

But then post-launch, they’ll have a chance to:

• Monitor how search engines are indexing the site
• Fix any emerging issue (like unexpected 404s or misindexed content)
• Continue to build on that early momentum with content marketing and link building

Launching a new local business website? An agency will ensure you quickly get your Google Business Profile up, NAP (Name/Address/Phone) consistent across directories, and perhaps run a quick local citation campaign.

New e-commerce site? They’ll help optimize category and product pages and maybe run some Google Shopping ads in parallel so they can drive initial traffic that gets turned into organic reviews and word-of-mouth later.

Another thing: when you’re launching something new, you have a million things on your plate. Everything from debugging last-minute website issues to handling marketing campaigns and maybe even a launch event.

Having an agency means you’ve got dedicated people thinking about SEO throughout all that. They might catch something everyone else missed, like “The new site doesn’t have analytics installed properly” or “We should really have a page targeting [common question] about this product, let’s put that in.” Their outside perspective is really valuable during that launch phase.

Agencies also bring the benefit of experience. If they’ve helped launch dozens of sites, they know what can go wrong. For example, maybe they know that oftentimes a new site’s internal link structure is weak, so they proactively ensure your new homepage links to all the key pages with the right anchor text.

Or they know a new product page might not rank instantly, so they support it with a couple of blog posts or a press mention to give it a boost. Essentially, you’re paying for their lessons learned from past launches so you don’t have to learn the hard way on yours.

Finally, an agency can help set realistic expectations and timelines. They’ll tell you, “Okay, you’re launching in October. With SEO, we might see some movement by November, solid traction by January,” etc., and plan interim strategies to bridge the gap.

The Risk of Waiting: What Happens If You Don’t Act Now

“Sure, those issues sound familiar, but can’t I just DIY a bit longer or wait until next quarter’s budget?”

Opportunity Windows in SEO Close Fast

If there’s a trending topic or a question in your niche gaining traction, any content you create for it now could ride that wave and become an authority. Wait too long, and a competitor will have filled that content gap. By the time you get around to it, you’re the 11th article on the subject, not the first or best.

It’s similar in local markets. If you’re a local business and your competitors haven’t done much SEO yet, acting now can let you dominate local search before they do. Wait, and you might find every local competitor hires an SEO firm in the meantime and suddenly everyone’s fighting for position with solid tactics.

Also, consider seasonal or more cyclical opportunities. Say you sell products that peak in the summer. If you start SEO in June, you’ve missed a chunk of that season’s search traffic; whereas if you started in winter or spring, you could be doing well by summer.

SEO often takes a few months to really show results (commonly 4-8 months to see significant movement for new campaigns), so waiting until you need the traffic means you’ll be late.

Playing Catch-Up Is Always More Expensive

If you let your competitors get a good foothold (lots of content and backlinks, strong user engagement) you’ll have to invest significantly to beat them.

And there’s data to back up how costly catching up can be. Businesses that rely heavily on paid ads due to weak SEO end up with higher customer acquisition costs. Conversely, if you boost SEO relative to paid ads it can cut acquisition costs by up to 60%.

Waiting often means you’ll lean on paid channels to compensate for the lack of organic, which is expensive. And if later you try to build organic, you’re paying on both fronts for a while.

There’s also the cost of lost revenue during the time you waited. For example, if not investing in SEO meant you were spending an extra $5k/month on Google Ads to get traffic, that’s $60k in a year essentially spent because your SEO wasn’t delivering that traffic “for free.”

There’s also a compound interest effect in SEO. Content and links can compound over time, so the sooner you start building them, the more momentum you have later. Delaying is like not investing money that could be earning interest.

When you finally start, you don’t get that lost time back; you’re just starting from a weaker position. Think about domain authority: a site that started blogging and earning links a year ago might now have, say, 50 decent backlinks and 100 pieces of content. A site that’s done nothing has 5 backlinks and 10 pieces of content.

If they compete, the one with the head start has more assets. The one starting late might have to double up effort (maybe doing content and a big PR campaign and heavy link outreach) just to get on par.

How the Right SEO Agency Can Transform Your Business

So, what happens when you finally bring on a good SEO agency?

Final Thoughts

Bringing in an SEO agency means you’re getting the right expertise on your side so you can focus on what you do best. Facing traffic drops or just wanting to launch faster? They handle the roadmap and technical work on your behalf. The earlier you start, the sooner you’ll see steady growth.

And unlike ads that stop giving when you stop paying, the work you put into SEO has lasting value. But remember that SEO isn’t magic and won’t “guarantee” you instant #1 rankings overnight, so do provide the agency with a bit of time to start showing you results.