Most SEO Agencies Barely Show Up in Google Search
The median SEO agency in The Wall gets an estimated 49 organic visits a month from US Google searches, and 64% get fewer than 100. Searching "seo agency" in their own cities, 9% showed up on page one.
Key findings
- The median SEO agency (n=253) draws an estimated 49 monthly organic visits and ranks for 72 keywords.
- 64.4% of SEO agencies get fewer than 100 estimated visits a month, and 9.1% have no ranking keywords at all in DataForSEO's US index.
- 1 of 253 SEO agencies clears 10,000 estimated monthly visits.
- Across all 2,987 agencies, the top 10% hold 97.3% of the estimated organic traffic. Software vendors in the same directory have a median of 3,034.
- Live test: we searched "seo agency" plus the city for the 20 metros with the most listed SEO agencies. 8 of 88 local SEO agencies (9.1%) appeared anywhere on page one. In 14 of 20 metros, none did. Agency directories and review sites took 24.9% of the first-page organic results (29.9% counting social and forum posts).
Median estimated organic visits by discipline (agencies only)
| Discipline | Agencies | Median est. monthly organic visits | Median ranking keywords | Under 100 visits (%) | No ranking keywords (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | 74 | 11.6 | 17.5 | 77 | 20.3 |
| Content marketing | 143 | 24.5 | 44 | 65.7 | 13.3 |
| Social media | 124 | 30.2 | 25.5 | 70.2 | 10.5 |
| Marketing | 887 | 35.2 | 35 | 64.9 | 13.6 |
| SEO | 253 | 48.7 | 72 | 64.4 | 9.1 |
| Creative strategy | 1,167 | 58.8 | 43 | 61.2 | 11.3 |
| Marketing automation | 37 | 82.9 | 58 | 54.1 | 8.1 |
| Thought leadership and PR | 248 | 86.4 | 59.5 | 53.2 | 10.5 |
| Demand generation | 45 | 172 | 170 | 42.2 | 4.4 |
Do SEO agencies rank in their own city?
Query: "seo agency" plus the city name, Google US with the location set to that city, page one, fetched November 7, 2026. An agency counts as present if its domain is in the first 10 organic results or its exact name is in the local map pack.
Counted as directories and review sites: themanifest.com, agencies.semrush.com, clutch.co, builtin.com, builtinnyc.com, builtinla.com, builtinsf.com, getcredo.com, topseos.com, techbehemoths.com, digitalagencynetwork.com, 50pros.com, m.yelp.com, yelp.com. Counted as social and forum results: reddit, instagram, linkedin, facebook, quora. Listicles published on agency websites are not counted as directories.
| Metro | Query | Listed SEO agencies | On page one | In top 10 organic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York, NY | seo agency new york | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| Austin, TX | seo agency austin | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| Denver, CO | seo agency denver | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| Los Angeles, CA | seo agency los angeles | 6 | 2 | 2 |
| Seattle, WA | seo agency seattle | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Las Vegas, NV | seo agency las vegas | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Portland, OR | seo agency portland | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| Colorado Springs, CO | seo agency colorado springs | 4 | 2 | 0 |
| Miami, FL | seo agency miami | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| San Francisco, CA | seo agency san francisco | 4 | 1 | 0 |
| Orlando, FL | seo agency orlando | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| Boise, ID | seo agency boise | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Raleigh, NC | seo agency raleigh | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| San Antonio, TX | seo agency san antonio | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Milwaukee, WI | seo agency milwaukee | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Brooklyn, NY | seo agency brooklyn | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Plano, TX | seo agency plano | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| San Diego, CA | seo agency san diego | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Tampa, FL | seo agency tampa | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Columbus, OH | seo agency columbus | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Download the city results (CSV)
Download the data (CSV) · Free to use with attribution under CC BY 4.0.
Methodology
The population is the 3,460 US growth-services vendors listed in The Wall on the as-of date: marketing, SEO, creative, content, social, PR, automation, demand generation, sales, and AI marketing firms that sell to established businesses. It is a large directory, not a random sample of every US agency, and results describe it.
The city test uses DataForSEO's live Google results for one query per metro on one day; rankings vary by searcher, device, and day, so treat it as a snapshot. Matching is conservative (domain or exact business name), so it may undercount by a firm or two.
Agencies are vendors classed as marketing agencies (2,987); software vendors are excluded from the discipline table.
Organic visits are DataForSEO Labs estimates of monthly visits from US Google organic results ("estimated traffic volume"): search volume for each ranking keyword multiplied by a click-through rate for its position. They are modeled, not measured, and are best read as a comparison between firms. A firm with no ranking keywords in that index is counted as zero.
Footprint data was pulled on November 3, 2026 for 3,088 domains.
Every figure on this page is computed by one script from The Wall's records and is reproducible from the CSV above. Full sourcing rules: methodology. Corrections: editorial and corrections policy.
Cite this study
The Wall. "Most SEO Agencies Barely Show Up in Google Search." November 7, 2026. https://hitthewall.net/research/seo-agencies-search-visibility.html
Journalists and researchers: inquiry@hitthewall.net for cuts by state, discipline, or firm size.