Choosing a firm
Best Architects SEO Services
Nobody can honestly claim to offer the best architects SEO services, and the firms that do are describing their own marketing rather than reporting a finding. There's no register, no ranking body, and no measurable definition — which makes the phrase a claim you should discount rather than a shortlist you can trust.
What you can do is apply six checks that separate a firm doing the work from a firm selling it. We're one of the firms they apply to. Use them on us.
Put us through it
Send your site and the markets you take work in. You'll get a written answer to all six, alongside a technical read on the portfolio.
One client per metro per discipline. info@seopals.com
The short version
Judge an architect SEO agency on six things: whether it can prove the specialism rather than assert it, whether its own claims survive checking, whether it will put market exclusivity in writing, whether it reports on enquiries rather than impressions, whether you keep everything if you leave, and whether it will ever tell you not to spend. Anyone guaranteeing a position or a date has answered the whole question with that one sentence.
Six checks
What to establish before anyone sends a proposal
Can they demonstrate the specialism, or only claim it?
Every agency has an industries menu and architecture is on plenty of them. That page costs nothing to publish. A firm that genuinely works this discipline knows why portfolio sites stall technically, how a selection committee behaves, and why interiors and architecture searches diverge — without being prompted.
Ask: what share of your current clients are design practices, and what breaks on an architecture site that doesn't break elsewhere?
Do their own claims survive ten minutes of checking?
Partner badges and certification marks are worth verifying rather than assuming — most of the programmes they refer to run public directories you can search. Percentages on a website are free to type. A firm displaying a credential it can't be found in has told you how it handles claims generally, which matters more than the credential.
Ask: send one measured ranking report with the tool, date range and market visible. Redact the client.
Will they put exclusivity in writing?
An agency ranking two practices for the same terms in the same city is selling a service it can't deliver twice, and neither client is told which one loses. Ours is one client per metro per discipline, which means a residential studio and an interiors practice in the same city can both be clients but two residential studios can't.
Ask: do you work with another practice in my market and discipline, and is that policy in the agreement?
Does the report trace to enquiries?
In a low-volume, high-value category, traffic growth is close to meaningless. One additional commission can be worth more than a year of the engagement, so the only number worth judging is enquiries that reached you. Impressions and keyword counts belong in an appendix.
Ask: show me a sample monthly report — which number on it would you want to be judged by?
What do you keep if you leave?
Every account should be in your name with the agency added as a delegated user, not the reverse. Pages, content and schema stay yours, and access should revert on the termination date regardless of any billing dispute — written down rather than promised. Lock-in is a business model in this industry and it's rarely disclosed at the point of sale.
Ask: whose name is on the domain, hosting, Search Console and Analytics, and what happens to each on the day I cancel?
Will they talk you out of anything?
Search isn't the right first spend for every practice. A referral-led institutional firm may need corroboration rather than a visibility campaign, and that's a much smaller scope. An agency that takes the money anyway is doing you harm at your own request, and saying so costs them revenue every time — which is why it's the most reliable signal on this list.
Ask: is there any version of my situation where you'd tell me not to hire you?
Our own answers
Where we'd score badly
A page handing you six tests and implying we pass all six would fail its own criterion six. So, before you find them:
Why the profession is sceptical in the first place is worth reading alongside all of this. We have no case studies from architecture practices. Our measured results come from other verticals, and we'd rather say that plainly than imply outcomes in this discipline we can't evidence. What we can show is method — the technical approach to portfolio sites, the reporting format, and the standards we work to.
We won't guarantee anything, which loses us work to firms that will. And we cap intake at one client per metro per discipline, so we say no regularly and may not be able to help you at all this year if a competitor signed first.
The commitments are public
What we will and won't promise in writing sets out why no honest firm guarantees a position, and the tactics we refuse outright is a more useful document than any list of what we do, and how we earn links, and what we won't do is the service it governs. Read both before the call rather than after.
If the six above check out, the work itself, itemised is what an engagement covers, a prioritised audit is where it starts, landscape practices need a different first move, and an interiors practice has a different first problem again, and which kind of practice you run determines what should lead — a custom residential studio needs an almost opposite first quarter to an institutional firm. We work as an architect SEO firm and take no clients outside architecture and interior design.
Quick answers
Three things practices ask
Are "best of" agency lists worth reading?
As a source of names, sometimes. As a ranking, no — most are written by agencies that appear on them, or by sites earning a referral fee. Use them to build a shortlist, then apply the six checks yourself.
Does a bigger agency mean better work?
It means more capacity and usually more process. It also often means your account is handled by someone junior while the specialist you met is on new business. Ask who specifically will do the work and whether you can speak with them.
How long should I give a new agency?
Six months, with a ninety-day checkpoint on inputs rather than outcomes — is the technical work done, are the pages published and indexed, has anything moved at all. If none of the inputs happened by month three, month six won't save it.
Next step
Run the six on us, then on everyone else
Send your site and the markets you work in. You'll get a written answer to all six criteria above, a technical read on the portfolio, and an honest view on whether search is the right first spend for your practice at all.
Put us through itMeasured reporting, sources stated. No ranking guarantees, ever.