Are you looking for the best Atlanta SEO company for 2021?
Keep reading because we’ve compiled the top companies based on unbiased data.
Let’s jump right in.
1. Lyfe Marketing
Lyfe Marketing is the top under our scoring system. Not only did it have more website traffic than its competitors combined, but it also had an average Google review score of 4.5 across a total of 148 reviews, making it the top Atlanta SEO company by quite some distance.
Part of its success comes down to strategy. Unlike some, the company focuses on providing its clients with quality website traffic, not just volume. Like other sophisticated SEO companies, it understands that the key to digital marketing success is to give clients the tools they need to generate leads.
On top of that, Lyfe Marketing focuses heavily on achieving measurable results. Every month, it sends its clients a breakdown of relevant search engine optimization and how its efforts are helping improve visibility and ranking – helpful for an industry in which trust can be an issue.
Lyfe Marketing currently has more than 300 local and national first-page rankings for its clients’ pages. Not bad.
2. Cardinal Digital Marketing
Coming in at number two on our list Cardinal Digital Marketing, an Atlanta SEO company that writes for Forbes, The Business Journals, Entrepreneur, WSJ, and the American Marketing Institute.
The company came in second for two main reasons: the quality of its website and its average Google review score. Its website loaded pages in under three seconds was mobile-friendly, and had a valid SSL certification. And clients rated the service an impressive 4.7 out of 5 stars across 77 reviews.
As an Atlanta SEO agency, their primary focus is on helping multi-location companies expand across different local markets. And under the leadership of its CEO, Alex Membrillo, it has expanded its operations impressively fast over the last couple of years. So much so that Inc. magazine named it one of its 5,000 fastest growing privately-held US companies.
The firm boasts a 97 percent client retention rate and offers clients, on average, a 28 percent client lead monthly growth rate. You just can’t ignore figures like those.
3. M16 Marketing
Third on our list is M16 Marketing, the number one Atlanta SEO agency as voted by UpCity. The company focuses almost exclusively on rankings, deploying a five-step strategy to help clients get to number one. It all begins with keyword research and then evolves into content development, technical SEO, and backlinks.
The company came in third on our ranking for two reasons: it’s 4.9 out of 5-star review score and its snappy website. It also has the best feedback of any on this list.
M16 believes that combining art and science is the best way to create value, and it deploys its expertise to dazzling effect. The company claims to offer month-on-month of more than 250 percent, according to its digital marketing. And its impressive customer review scores seem to back that up.
The firm focuses intently on building relationships with its customers from the start. It doesn’t do things in a boilerplate fashion. Instead, it gets to know the brands with which it works, and internalizes them, thereby challenging old ideas and breaking new ground. If you’re looking for an SEO in Atlanta, this one is certainly one to consider.
4. Atlanta SEO Pro
Atlanta SEO Pro focuses on paid advertising, website design, web presence management, and SEO. The company claims that it is “not just another Atlanta SEO company” but one that provides genuine value, retaining nearly 100 percent of its clients.
We were impressed by the overall quality of their operation – something that shone through across our metrics. The website passed our test with flying colors, and their review score was an impressive 4.8 out of 5 on external review sites. What hurt their score (and why they didn’t rank higher here) was their low monthly search traffic – just 260 unique visits to their website per month, according to Ahrefs metrics.
Thus, Atlanta SEO Pro is a quality SEO firm but has low visibility – a tad ironic.
Fundamentally, Atlanta Pro SEO is for companies looking for something a little different to get themselves noticed online. The firm is self-admittedly “sometimes-quirky” and fun-loving, so expect uniquely creative approaches to content. Founder James Bell has experience in search engine optimization, conversion optimization, social media, and hyper-local digital marketing strategies.
5. Captivate Search Marketing
Captivate Search Marketing came in fifth according to our scoring system. While it did well in the review segment, it was hampered, like Atlanta SEO Pro, by a lack of website traffic. Current traffic sits well below five hundred unique visitors per month.
The company likes to focus on producing what it calls “pure value content” for its clients. In other words, it is not in the business of spamming search engines and hitting keyword quotas. Instead, it wants to give its customers genuine insights and artistic content that generates value.
The firm quite admirably focuses on generating high-quality leads for its customers. What’s interesting about its approach is that it doesn’t just try to incent relevant traffic; it also focuses on pre-qualified leads and sales.
While generic Ahrefs data paints the company as a small-time operation, it works with a variety of prestigious clients across the state, including WIFII, Georgia Natural Gas, and Park ‘n Fly. Customers like how the company always delivers in a “time-sensitive” manner, providing content, just when they need it.
6. Propellant Media
Propellant Media’s story began several years ago when the company realized that midsize companies didn’t have access to enterprise-level search engine optimization solutions. The firm, therefore, began developing a host of proprietary techniques, enabling smaller firms to gain access to the same regimes that help the big boys hit the top spot.
The company achieves sixth place on our list. In addition, it has the second-highest traffic of any Atlanta SEO services we analyzed – just one place behind Lyfe Marketing. But, unfortunately, problems with the website loading speed and a lack of Google reviews (we could only find three) meant that the company missed out on a place in the top five. With that said, Propellant Media certainly has the legs to feature higher in our list in the coming years.
The company is headquartered at Tech Square Labs, a widely-renowned hub for innovation and technological development in Atlanta. It leverages this unique environment to develop new expertise at the frontiers of SEO, offering clients profound insight.
7. FindLocal Company
FindLocal Company is an Atlanta-based SEO firm that focuses on both SEO and creating ADA-friendly websites that help its clients avoid unnecessary lawsuits. The site comes in seventh on our list. The average review score across 31 reviews was an impressive 5 out of 5. But the total number of monthly visitors was less than one hundred, meaning that this is still very much a company in development.
Part of this has to do with that FindLocal Company doesn’t rank in the top ten websites for frequent searches. You have to go onto the second or third page to find it, dramatically reducing organic traffic. Again, FindLocal suffers the same problem as Atlanta Pro SEO. Being hard to find is never a good look for an SEO or digital marketing agency.
8. MediaLinkers
MediaLinkers is a bit of an old hand in the Atlanta SEO services market. It first set up shop in 2002, back in the dot-com era, and helped dozens of companies create websites for their online businesses. Today, it has more than sixty employees and specializes in web design and search engine optimization services.
MediaLinkers did well in our SEO best practices test, earning full marks in that segment. It also did well on Ahrefs domain rating score, thanks to its expansive network of do-follow links. The company, however, fell considerably on total website visits, serving less than ten people per month at the time of our analysis.
Nonetheless, it boasts a top design team on its staff. It creates professional, aesthetically pleasant websites, even if its own needs a bit of work.
9. Shiftweb Solutions
Shiftweb Solutions is an Atlanta SEO company founded in 2011 by Sinoun Chea that focuses heavily on providing support to small businesses. Chea believes that her clients are the backbone of local economies and communities and so is keen on helping them gain visibility online in whatever way she can.
We found no issues with the review scores or the quality of the website experience. (The digital marketing agency has an average Google Review score of 5 out of 5 stars across 37 reviews). The main letdown was the quality of the domain. The small number of do-follow links and the relatively sparse monthly traffic reduced the number of points we could award the firm.
Shiftweb Solutions serves a wide variety of companies in the local community, including artists, attorneys, and nonprofits. It has a reputation for working diligently and honestly.
10. Yeah! Local
Finally, Yeah! Local rounds out our list of the top ten best Atlanta SEO services in 2021. The digital marketing firm is the brainchild of Justin Herring and wants to help businesses in the local area get access to non-sleazy SEO services that offer genuine value.
Herring saw first-hand how some SEO companies ripped off their customers, failed to provide them with updates, and ignored their emails. So he set up Yeah! Local as a boutique SEO service to solve the problem, and has been going ever since.
Yeah! Local’s average review score was 5 out of 5 across 41 reviews, but there were a couple of reasons why Herring didn’t rank higher. First, total traffic to the site is less than 500 per month – which isn’t a great deal for a local agency. And second, some pages on Yeah! Local did not load within the three-second time limit. That hurt their score.
Scoring Criteria
We think it is essential to point to data whenever ranking companies instead of just relying on opinion. That’s why we’ve taken a multi-faceted approach, using multiple sources of information to create our scoring regime.
Scoring a firm on the quality of its website is okay. Still, it tells you nothing about the quality of the customer experience or how well the firm markets its digital storefront. Therefore, we delved deep, using Ahrefs metrics and data from publicly available Google Reviews.
Our final scores take into account the following:
- Whether the site has a valid SSL Certificate
- Whether the website is mobile-friendly
- If the loading speed is under three seconds
- If the site ranks in the top ten on Google
- The Ahrefs domain ranking score,
- The number of links from third-party websites
- The volume of traffic
- The number of Google Reviews
- The average rating on Google Reviews
Each parameter above carries a maximum score of 5 points. Thus, agencies earn 5 points for ranking in the top ten on Google, a further 5 for higher domain rankings, and so on down the list.
You can view the scoring criteria here.
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If you’re looking the best Atlanta SEO services, this guide should help inform your decision. Our objective scoring system means that our ranking isn’t just a matter of opinion; it is a consequence of what the data say.
Check out these SEO company websites and decide for yourself which one can most closely meet your business goals.
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