You just popped ‘best Spokane SEO agency’ into your browser’s Google search bar.
All you got back is a full-page listicle with faceless agencies, each one guaranteeing they can get you #1 rankings and your own personal pipeline straight to digital marketing nirvana. ☮️
The punchline: these lists are often rigged, not ranked. The top slots didn’t win by mastery—some paid, others begged, or even spammed their way into many of the most prominent directories.
Stakes are real: if you pick wrong, you’ll bleed out unnecessary cash for six months before realizing your leads are actually coming from a call center in Atlanta.
We’re not here to hand-hold—we like to rip open the hood and show you how the sausage is made. If you want sugar-coating, call a franchise agency, but if you want to see who’s actually moving sites in the Spokane market, please continue.
The Anatomy of a Fake ‘Best SEO’ List
The exact search for ‘best Spokane SEO agency’ will show you that many positions are filled with all kinds of directories—UpCity, Clutch, Expertise.com—essentially posing as impartial arbiters.
Spoiler alert: these aren’t legit “rankings” in the sense you probably understand them. They’re modern yellow pages with a coat of data-wash paint and badging.
Agencies can get on these lists by paying a monthly fee to be sponsored at the top, while others are hard at work hustling for fake reviews. If you see an outfit nobody’s heard of sitting in a high position, there’s a decent chance they bought their way there or gamed the review slot machine.
There’s typically zero correlation between list placement and operational talent.
Let’s Break it Down:
UpCity charges $150–$400/month for ‘feature’ placements.
Clutch offers sponsored spots that look like editorial picks but are flagged ‘sponsored’ in font size 9 in the fine print.
Expertise.com scrapes public business data, adds a contact form, then cold-calls or emails some agencies asking them to ‘upgrade’ their listing for visibility. This isn’t curation. It’s pay-for-play.
Endgame? The agencies with deep pockets and the heaviest churn rates occupy the top (meaning they lose or “churn” many clients every year)—even if they couldn’t optimize their way out of a wet paper bag.
- Directories charge as much as $150–$400/month for top placements.
- Sponsored listings often masquerade as “organic” rankings.
- Fake reviews and spammy outreach drive much of the list movement.
How Fake Reviews and Directory Games Work in Spokane
Think Spokane is immune? Not even close.
Agencies know the drill: some buy Google reviews from overseas click farms, others swap testimonials with partner shops across the country, and the worst offenders bribe clients for five stars with Starbucks gift cards.
The ecosystem feeds itself: directories scrape local business registries for agency names, then cold email every owner an offer to “claim your spot” as a top agency—for a fee. Some shops even pay for fake PR mentions on national sites like Yahoo Finance or Business Insider, then plaster ‘as seen on’ badges all over their website and landing pages. Clients then see logos instead of actual competence.
Now that you’ve met “Dumb”, let’s meet “Dumber”:
We personally tried calling three of the “top-reviewed” Spokane agencies listed #1 on several prominent directories—one listing was run out of a mailbox at the UPS Store on Division. Contender #2 outsourced all its work to Fiverr freelancers in the Philippines and Karachi. We couldn’t tell you anything about the third, because that operation didn’t even answer their phone or have a working voicemail. That’s not directory excellence; that’s organized incompetence with a glossy badge.
Watch out for signals like these to avoid directory-biased providers:
- Purchased Google reviews spike suddenly after directory pitches.
- ‘As seen on’ badges from paid PR placements.
- Top-ranked agencies that lack a physical presence.
Reverse-Engineering Real SEO Talent in Spokane
The only Spokane SEO worth your dollar moves local rankings for real businesses—plumbers, lawyers, construction firms—not just their own site.
Start by searching competitive local terms (“Spokane IT”, “plastic injection molding near me“) and see which agencies’ clients regularly appear in the top three organic results. Not all openly advertise their affiliation; however, many of the top agencies in town, like ours, typically use only a single backlink to attribute SEO management to an outside entity.
Thus, you may need to dig for an “about” page to find an authorship-style link near the bottom or midway down the page (the most common location in 2026+). Sitewide footer links are an outdated, almost predatory tactic intended to create hundreds, if not thousands, of backlinks to the agency’s website (thereby passing link equity from their clients to themselves!). Shady AF.
Disregard agencies that only rank for ‘agency’ phrases—many are optimizing for their own sales funnel, not their client’s success. You want to see BOTH: client rankings and their own rankings that most agencies will be incredibly proud to discuss with you.
Remember to:
Look for receipts: They should be able to name Spokane clients and report average results (e.g., traffic increases, changes in call volume). Real operators might even show you Google Search Console data with before/after graphs—not just pretty logos and generic claims.
Ask direct questions: Which sites have you ranked locally in the last 12 months? What did it cost? What changed? If you get hand-waving about ‘proprietary methods’ or evasive non-answers, walk.
The Only Two Signals That Matter (And How To Spot Them)
These are the clearest signals separating real SEO agencies from the billboard crowd:
First: Named local clients ranking for high-intent keywords today—not last year—in organic search. If an agency can’t point to at least three Spokane businesses with live rankings you can verify yourself (not cherry-picked screenshots), move on.
Second: Direct attribution of results using auditable data—Google Analytics, Search Console reports, and call tracking logs tied to real local numbers. If all you get is a PDF full of vanity metrics and stock graphs, you’re being sold theater, not outcomes.
Everything else—awards, badges, directory placements—is noise designed to sell you comfort over competence.
- Ask for live local rankings for named Spokane clients.
- Auditable attribution using Google Analytics or Search Console.
- Ignore vanity awards and directory badges.
Most SEO directory ‘rankings’ are just rented billboards with better fonts. The only agencies worth your time in Spokane are the ones with local track records and receipts you can verify without having to look closely through layers of affiliate noise. Many are just playing pretend to get into your wallet.
Please book a consultation with August SEO – we rank local businesses where it counts.
