73Hub score
The agency behind the SEO Spider crawler, with a technical audit and search marketing practice alongside the software.
Technical SEOEnterprise SEOPaid MediaAnalytics
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SEO companies in South East
3 companies are headquartered in South East and scored on this page, ranked by Hub Score. Entry retainers run £4.5k/mo to £6k/mo, with a median of £5k/mo.
Demand concentrates in Reading, Brighton, Oxford, Southampton. The most common in-house disciplines here are Technical SEO, Content Marketing, Enterprise SEO, and the verticals with the deepest local bench are Ecommerce, Financial Services, SaaS & Technology.
Companies listed
3
In South East
Median retainer floor
£5k/mo
£4.5k/mo – £6k/mo range
Median tenure
10 yrs
Oldest founded 2010
Hub Score range
68–73
Median 72 of 100
Ranked SEO companies in South East
Ordered by Hub Score. Every figure below comes from the company's own published information; nothing is sponsored.
72Hub score
A search and digital PR agency with an in-house build team, best known for structured processes and transparent reporting.
Technical SEODigital PRContent MarketingPaid Media
68Hub score
An SEO-only agency positioned as an outsourced search department, including white-label delivery for other agencies.
Technical SEOEnterprise SEOContent MarketingInternational SEO
Side-by-side comparison
All 3 South East listings on the four facts buyers screen on first: age, headcount, entry price and pricing model.
| Company | City | Founded | Team | Retainer from | Pricing | Hub Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screaming Frog | Henley-on-Thames | 2010 | 20-50 | £5k/mo | Retainer or project | 73 |
| Aira | Milton Keynes | 2016 | 20-50 | £6k/mo | Monthly retainer | 72 |
| Blue Array | Reading | 2017 | 20-50 | £4.5k/mo | Monthly retainer | 68 |
What retainers actually start at in South East
Median entry retainer is £5k/mo, with the range running £4.5k/mo to £6k/mo. These are floors, not averages of what clients spend — scope, competitiveness and content volume move the real number well above them.
£1.5k–£5k/mo1 company · 33%
£5k–£10k/mo2 companies · 67%
Floors shown in GBP, as published or disclosed by each company.
Fast shortlist for South East
Picked mechanically from the data on this page, so you can start a shortlist without reading every profile.
Longest-running
Screaming Frog · 73Trading since 2010.
Lowest entry retainer
Blue Array · 68Starts at £4.5k/mo.
Boutique team
Screaming Frog · 7320-50 people — senior time on the account.
Services available in South East
Share of listed companies that deliver each discipline in-house. Anything missing here is work you would brief to a second vendor.
- Technical SEO3 · 100%
- Content Marketing2 · 67%
- Enterprise SEO2 · 67%
- Paid Media2 · 67%
- Analytics1 · 33%
- Digital PR1 · 33%
- International SEO1 · 33%
- Web Development1 · 33%
Industries with local depth
Verticals the listed companies document experience in. Deep local bench means you can compare two or three shops that already know your SERP.
- Ecommerce3 · 100%
- Financial Services3 · 100%
- SaaS & Technology3 · 100%
- Education1 · 33%
- Hospitality & Travel1 · 33%
- Manufacturing & B2B1 · 33%
How to read this region shortlist
South East listings cluster around 20-50 (3) on headcount, and monthly retainer is the dominant commercial model. That combination tells you what a normal engagement looks like here before you take a single sales call.
Match scale to your problem. 3 of the 3 listed shops are under 50 people, where the people who win the pitch usually do the work. No large-bench agency is based here yet, so multi-market programmes may need a partner from another region.
Treat the retainer floor as a scope signal. A £4.5k/mo floor and a £6k/mo floor rarely describe the same deliverable set. Ask each shortlisted company to map its floor to hours, content output and technical work per month, then compare those, not the price.
Verify tenure independently. Median tenure in South East is 10 years; the longest-running listing, Screaming Frog, has traded since 2010. Founding dates can be checked against company registers and archived versions of the site.
How the Hub Score on this page is calculated
100 points across five factors, each computed from a fact you can check yourself. Nothing here is bought, voted on or averaged from review sites.
- 25 ptsTenure — round(years trading ÷ 25 × 25), capped at 25. 25+ years = full marks. Surviving multiple algorithm eras and at least one recession is the most reliable public signal that delivery is repeatable rather than lucky.
- 20 ptsService breadth — 3 points per in-house discipline, capped at 20 (7+ services = full marks). Each discipline you have to buy elsewhere adds a hand-off. Breadth is not automatically better, but it is a fact buyers price in.
- 20 ptsVertical depth — 4 points per industry served, plus an 8-point focus bonus when the company serves 2 or fewer. Capped at 20. A clear position scores well at both ends: deep specialists know a vertical's SERP, broad shops carry pattern library across many. Vague middle ground scores lowest.
- 20 ptsPricing transparency — 8 points for a monthly-retainer model (6 for other models) + 7 for a stated retainer floor + 5 for a live public site. Agencies that will not name a number until the third call cost buyers weeks of qualification time.
- 17 ptsDelivery scale — Team size mapped to a curve: 10-20 → 8, 20-50 → 11, 50-150 → 14, 150-250 → 16, 250-500 → 17, 500+ → 15. The curve peaks in the mid-hundreds: enough bench depth to survive staff churn, small enough that senior people still touch the account. Very large shops lose a point for delivery distance.
SEO companies in South East: common questions
- How many SEO companies are listed in South East?
- Every company on this page is headquartered in South East and scored with the same published Hub Score model. We only list agencies whose operating base we can verify, so the count grows as research is completed rather than being padded with national firms claiming a local address.
- What should an SEO retainer cost in South East?
- The retainer floors shown here are what each company states publicly, in GBP. Floors are the starting point for a defined scope; competitive verticals, multi-location work and content production typically land above them. Compare like-for-like scope, not headline numbers.
- Is a local SEO company better than a remote one?
- Locality matters when the work depends on local knowledge — map pack visibility, regional press and language nuance. For national or international programmes, discipline depth matters more than distance. We tie every listing to its real base so you can decide deliberately instead of guessing.
- Can a company pay to rank higher on this page?
- No. Ordering is the Hub Score, computed from tenure, in-house service breadth, vertical depth, pricing transparency and delivery scale. There is no paid placement, no sponsored row and no commission on introductions.