Almost every "15 best SEO agencies" article you will find was written by an agency that placed itself near the top. We are an agency too, so there is no reason you should trust a ranking from us either. What we can offer that is worth more is the set of criteria you apply to anyone — including us.
Below: seven criteria with a scoring table, the four questions worth asking on the first call, and the warning signs visible before you sign anything.
Look closely at the agency round-ups for this market and a pattern appears: nearly all of them are published by SEO agencies, and the publisher tends to sit in the top three of its own list. That is neither illegal nor surprising — but it does mean the ordering says nothing about quality.
These articles exist in such numbers because they rank. People search for the best agency, and Google chooses to show comparison content rather than service pages. Agencies that understand this write the comparison themselves.
The deeper problem is that no agency is best unconditionally. One strong on ten-thousand-page e-commerce may be wrong for a clinic that needs to rank in its own district. One excellent at content may be unable to diagnose a JavaScript rendering failure.
So the question is not "who is best" but "who fits the problem we have right now" — which is answerable only once you know what your problem is.
Score each 0–2 and total it. Below 9 out of 14, ask more questions before committing.
| Criterion | Scores 0 | Scores 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Price transparency | You must book a call to learn the rate | States the range and minimum term upfront |
| Defined scope | "Full-service SEO management" | Names what month one delivers and when |
| Can they touch code | Articles and reports only | Reads log files, fixes rendering, builds schema |
| Who you speak to | An account manager only | Direct access to whoever does the work |
| Stance on guarantees | Guarantees a number one ranking | Explains plainly why rankings cannot be guaranteed |
| Ownership of work | Unclear, or reclaimed at the end | Yours from day one, nothing withdrawn |
| Willingness to decline | Takes any budget, any industry | Can name the work they turn down, and why |
The last row is the most revealing. An agency that will take anything from anyone at any budget is telling you either that it has no particular expertise, or that it intends to take your money first and work out the rest afterwards.
"What happens in month one, and how will we measure it?" A good answer is specific: what gets audited, what is delivered and when, which numbers you will look at together. Be wary of answers about strategy and vision with no tangible deliverable attached.
"If we end the contract, what is ours?" Content, code, schema, documentation and tool access should all be yours. If anything is reclaimed, ask exactly what and why.
"Show me a report from a month that went badly." This one works unusually well. Everyone has a good month to show. How they communicate when results miss tells you whether the working relationship will survive one.
"What kind of business do you turn down?" A good answer has real examples. "We can help anyone" means they have not thought about it, or would rather not say.
Guaranteed rankings, or promised results on a short timetable. Nobody controls the algorithm — the full reasoning is in white hat vs grey hat.
Won't say where the links come from. If sourcing is "proprietary", the links were probably bought — and the risk sits on your domain, not theirs.
Reports built from flattering numbers. Keyword counts and third-party authority scores are not Google's metrics and do not mean more customers. Ask for numbers that connect to revenue.
Wants site access but keeps you out of Search Console. That data is yours. If someone is holding you at arm's length from it, ask why.
Pressure to sign today for a discount. SEO is a long engagement. Nothing about the work justifies urgency — only something about the sale does.
It would be unfair to hand over criteria and exempt ourselves. Here are our answers to all seven, each verifiable from our own pages.
| Criterion | Our answer |
|---|---|
| Price | ฿60,000 one-off audit · ฿150,000/month retainer, six-month minimum — on the services page |
| Scope | A four-stage process with real durations, stated on that page |
| Code | Log files, JS rendering, schema graphs — worked examples in the insights |
| Who you speak to | The people doing the work, in Slack, no account manager |
| Guarantees | No ranking guarantee, with the reasoning published |
| Ownership | Yours from day one, nothing reclaimed |
| Declining work | A published list of what we turn down, budget floor included |
We are not claiming to be the best. We are claiming every line above can be checked without talking to a salesperson. Take the same criteria to whoever else you are considering and compare.
There is no single answer, and most of the ranked lists you will find were written by an agency that placed itself near the top. The method that works is applying a set of criteria to whoever you are actually considering, which this article provides as a scoring table. The agency suited to a ten-thousand-page e-commerce site is not the one suited to a single-location clinic.
Four things at minimum: what the price and minimum term are; who owns the work when the contract ends; what happens in month one and how it will be measured; and who does the actual work and whether you can speak to them. A vague answer on any of these is a signal.
No. Nobody controls Google's algorithm. Guarantees usually rest on picking terms almost nobody searches, or on tactics that cause problems later. What can honestly be guaranteed is scope, delivery dates and access to the people doing the work.
Mostly whether the agency touches the site's code. Low-cost packages are usually monthly articles and a rankings report, which changes nothing when the problem is structural. Higher prices should come with work that requires someone to change code. Paying a premium and still receiving only articles and reports means overpaying.
Not for technical work, but it helps considerably for Thai-language content and local SEO, because how Thai people actually phrase searches rarely survives translation from English. If your site is bilingual, ask specifically about hreflang — it is misconfigured on a great many Thailand sites.
Yes, because SEO compounds. Changing every six months means nobody stays long enough to see their own work land, and each new agency tends to start by undoing the last one. If you do switch, insist on a full handover first: documentation, tool access, and a record of what has already been done.
Choosing an agency gets much easier once you know where the site is stuck. Send a URL and we will send a one-page diagnostic, free. Take it to whichever agency you like — it does not have to be us.
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