Award-Winning Chicago SEO Agency
Since 2007, Digital Third Coast has delivered SEO services that drive measurable results and filled a shelf with industry awards.
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Honest Reporting, Measurable Results, No Middlemen
We started Digital Third Coast in 2007 with one goal: make a measurable difference for businesses like yours. 19 years later, that goal hasn’t changed. What has changed is the search landscape we navigate to get there.
Google processes billions of searches every day, and more of those searches are ending without a click. AI-generated answers, earned media placements, and brand signals across multiple platforms now shape how your buyers find you. We have been adapting to shifts like this for nearly two decades, and our strategies reflect where search is going, not just where it has been.
When you work with us, you work directly with our SEO experts. No middlemen, no account coordinators passing messages between you and the people doing the work. We connect SEO, Digital PR, and AI search optimization into one system built to drive leads and revenue. And when something isn’t working, we’ll tell you straight and put a plan in place to fix it.
Testimonials For DTC’s SEO Services
“Their work has been absolutely phenomenal.”
“They’re highly responsive to everything that we need and answer any questions that come up. They are incredibly friendly and personable, and they have the ability to self-manage. They stay on top of things and are highly proactive. They’re great to work with, experts in their field, and they’ve been doing exactly what we’ve needed them to do. Their work has been absolutely phenomenal, and we’re planning on working with them again in the future.“
Hallie Stahl, Content Manager, Leaf Trade
“We’re a small company that’s fighting a much bigger fish — thanks to DTC, we’re winning.”
“We’ve seen a 24% increase in our page-one keywords, and our category rankings have more than doubled since 2022. They’ve also helped us acquire a significant amount of high-value links relevant to our business. Before engaging with DTC, our revenue had plateaued — now, we see a 10%–30% increase in income every year. They’ve been a boon to our business.”
John Spaw, Operations Director, Bid-on-Equipment
Don’t just take our word for it. After an initial one-year contract, 95% of our clients continue working with us.
We take pride in our sustainable growth and long-term business relationships. We don’t cut corners, we tell it like it is, our expert resources are in-house, and our reporting is transparent. We’re one of the most experienced Chicago SEO agencies.
Read More of Our Five-Star Reviews
DTC’s SEO Process
Our Chicago SEO team utilizes a holistic approach for search engine optimization. AI is infused into almost everything we do, from auditing technical issues and analyzing search trends to identifying content gaps and tracking competitive positioning. Our team does the thinking, the strategy, and the work; AI just makes us better at all three. That human-in-the-loop model is what ensures our work meets the Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EEAT) standards that both search engines and your audience expect. Discover our process and the key components of our SEO strategy.
AEO/GEO (AI Search)
Search landscape has changed dramatically over the last few years. Today buyers are not only searching Google. They are asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and Google’s AI Overviews to compare options, explain services, and recommend agencies. This means SEO has to do more than simply rank highly in SERPs. To appear in AEO results content needs to be clear, credible, structured, and trusted for AI systems to understand and choose to highlight your brand. At DTC, we build SEO strategies that support both traditional search visibility and AEO. This includes technical SEO, helpful content, entity optimization, structured data, Digital PR, and authority signals that make your brand easier to find, understand, and recommend.
Onboarding
Before we touch your site, we learn your business. Through three phases, we develop an understanding of your sales cycle, your competitive landscape, and your revenue targets. That foundation is what separates a strategy built for your growth from a template built for someone else’s.
- Pre-Kickoff
- Kickoff
- Post-Kickoff
Site Audits
Most SEO problems are invisible until they cost you rankings. Our audits surface the technical, content, and backlink issues that are quietly limiting your visibility and fix them before they become bigger problems.
- Technical & Core Web Vitals Audits
- Keyword & Backlink Audits
- Content & Analytics Audits
Keyword Research
We find the search opportunities your competitors have missed and match them to the queries your buyers are actually using at every stage of the funnel. Every keyword recommendation ties back to your revenue targets and what your business needs to grow.
- Uncovering untapped niche opportunities
- Boosting content
- Employing KOB & topic cluster research
Content Strategy
We create impactful content tailored to audience needs and industry trends, while adhering to Google’s Helpful Content Update. Our strategy emphasizes continuous optimization, technical SEO alignment, and client collaboration.
- Targeted & user-centric
- Informative, engaging material
- Updated & refined content
Content Development
We create and refresh content that earns rankings and converts the traffic they bring. Every piece is built to Google’s standards and your audience’s expectations, not churned out to hit a word count. The service focuses on:
- Tailored content for targeted user intents & Google’s standards
- Continual updates for outdated content
- Strategy implementation
Digital PR & Authority Building
We earn media placements that establish your brand as an industry authority. With over 30,000 earned mentions, we know what it takes to build credibility locally and nationally.
Our approach includes:
- Original research and data storytelling
- Strategic media outreach
- Thought leadership content that earns coverage and compounds SEO value
Local Search Services
For businesses with a physical presence, local visibility drives foot traffic, calls, and appointments. We optimize your Google Business Profile and local signals to make sure customers in your market find you before they find a competitor.
- Site structure
- Core web vitals
- Content quality
- Analytics
Reporting & Communication
Our monthly reports connect SEO performance to business outcomes, tracking how organic search lowers your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and builds Lifetime Value (LTV) over time. The approach includes:
- Monthly performance recaps tied to revenue impact
- CAC and LTV trend analysis across organic and paid channels
- Forward-looking strategy recommendations built into every report
One Strategy. Three Disciplines.
Modern search authority is built across three connected disciplines; our approach keeps them connected to make sure you win in search.
Search Engine Optimization
The technical and content foundation your search visibility is built on. We optimize for rankings, relevance, and the business outcomes that actually matter to your leadership team.
Digital PR and Authority Building
Earned media placements in top-tier publications that build brand credibility with both your audience and search algorithms. Coverage that compounds over time.
AI Search Optimization (AEO/GEO)
Search is expanding beyond Google. We make sure your brand shows up in AI-generated answers, voice search, and the emerging platforms where your buyers are increasingly finding solutions. Learn about our GEO/AEO Audits.
DTC is Among the Top SEO Agencies In Chicago
Our SEO Case Studies: Real SEO Clients, Tangible SEO Results
Meet Your SEO Team
Request A Free SEO Consultation
Schedule a free consultation with our SEO experts to kickstart your journey towards an optimized and high-performing website.
During this complimentary session, we’ll explore your current SEO strategy, specific business goals, and online challenges. Our seasoned professionals will then provide tailored recommendations to help you achieve your marketing goals.
FAQ: Top SEO Questions
How long does SEO take?
SEO is your forever strategy. There is no silver bullet or quick fix to achieve higher rankings, and the target is always moving. We expect most clients to see incremental lift within the first few months of our work together, and larger impact results 6-12 months into our engagement.
Our goal is always to increase your organic traffic and engagement, and where we allocate our time will depend on what has already been accomplished.
Read more about how long it takes to see SEO results.
How does SEO work?
Search has changed. It’s no longer just about ranking on Google. Your buyers are finding answers through AI-generated responses, voice search, and multi-channel discovery before they ever click a result.
Our SEO work is focused on making sure your brand shows up across the entire journey, from the first AI prompt to the final conversion. We identify how your audience searches, where they search, and what it takes to earn their trust at every touchpoint.
When you demonstrate experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trust (EEAT), you become the answer, not just a result. SEO doesn’t make a great business. It makes a great business impossible to ignore.
How can you help with improving AI search visibility?
DTC can improve your AI search visibility by strengthening the signals that influence how platforms discover, understand and reference your brand. We combine technical SEO, AEO-focused content strategy, structured data and authoritative digital PR to improve your visibility in AI searches and overviews. Our team identifies the questions your audience is asking, evaluates current brand visibility and develops content that gives AI platforms clear, credible information to cite. We also track priority prompts, referral traffic, brand search trends and conversion behavior to measure progress. The result is a practical strategy built to improve visibility across both traditional and AI-driven search.
What results can I expect with an SEO strategy?
Our mission is to make a measurable difference. This means we set clear baselines for performance, and measure our progress over time as we work to achieve your marketing goals.
Our priority as a Chicago SEO agency is to drive leads and revenue. With an SEO strategy, key performance indicators include target keyword rankings, organic traffic, and organic conversions which may include lead forms and sales. While we can track a lot of data ourselves, we’ll also look for feedback from you on the quality of the traffic and leads you are receiving to ensure we are fueling growth for your business.
How much does SEO cost?
Because our strategies are all customized, the cost of SEO can vary greatly. Most of our clients typically invest $5,000 to $15,000 per month.
Our goal is to ensure that we can generate a positive return on your investment over time. This means that we want to make sure you can expect to see revenue amounts that exceed the costs of generating that new revenue.
Does link building play a role in SEO?
Yes! Our SEO link building strategy is two pronged. The first strategy is based on a progressive form of digital PR. We have a team of former journalists who create original, data-driven content for your website and a proven track record of leveraging our experience and connections to earn linking media coverage for clients in the nation’s leading publications. This strategy involves PR-style outreach to the media.
The second strategy involves creating content for keywords that have a high traffic potential and that are relevant for your business. We have found that building content for these types of topics, generates highly relevant passive backlinks over time.
Digital association with high-authority online publications like USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and Forbes leads Google’s algorithm to hold our clients’ websites in higher regard, resulting in improved search rankings and increased organic traffic.
Our digital PR and link building strategy is built on a rarely mastered formula we’ve honed over the better part of a decade. If you’re looking for a true advantage, you just found it.
How does SEO reporting work?
We build reports that answer the question leadership actually cares about: is this investment paying off?
While paid media delivers immediate traffic, it stops the moment you stop spending. Our goal is to build an organic engine that compounds over time, steadily lowering your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and increasing the Lifetime Value (LTV) of customers who find you through search.
Every month, your report includes:
- Traffic and keyword performance tied to conversion activity
- Pipeline contribution and form submission trends
- Keyword rankings, impressions, and backlink quality
- CAC comparison between organic and paid channels over time
- On-page health metrics and UX indicators
- Strategic recommendations for the next 30 to 60 days
Reports are built in Looker Studio and formatted to be shared with your executive team without translation.
What kind of clients do you work with?
Our clients range from local businesses to large Fortune 500 companies.
We have experience working with clients in various industries, including healthcare, finance, manufacturing, real estate, travel, B2B, E-commerce, and more.
We are a boutique firm that typically works with 40-60 clients at a time, and we always have ongoing, long-term relationships with them.
Agency vs In-house?
When deciding between managing SEO in-house or partnering with an agency, it’s crucial to consider costs and productivity. An in-house SEO professional may seem cheap at first. However, when you include productivity and PTO, the real hourly cost is $99. In comparison, total 100% productivity and expertise of an entire team support an agency’s typical $185 hourly rate.
Check out our complete breakdown: The true cost of doing SEO with an agency vs. in-house
Do you support international SEO and hreflang implementation?
Yes. Our SEO team has deep experience managing multilingual and multi-regional websites, including proper hreflang implementation. We ensure your global content is indexed and served to the right audience in the right language, preventing duplicate content issues and preserving your organic equity. From technical audits and CMS integrations to testing and monitoring, we handle the details so your brand’s international presence is both compliant with Google’s standards and optimized for maximum visibility.
What if my site needs design or development work before SEO can be effective?
SEO success often depends on having a technically sound, well-designed website underneath it. If your site needs work before or alongside your SEO strategy, we have a network of vetted specialists in web design, development, and creative assets that we trust and recommend. Meet our marketing partners here.
We’ve Helped Businesses of All Industries and Sizes
Digital Third Coast has delivered Chicago SEO success across a wide range of industries, tailoring strategies to each sector’s needs. We’ve helped clients in healthcare, legal services, finance, manufacturing, construction, education, and e-commerce increase visibility and drive qualified leads. Our portfolio includes campaigns for hospitals, dermatologists, financial advisors, cannabis dispensaries, SaaS providers, and even casinos. Whether B2B or B2C, local or national, our Chicago SEO campaigns are built to scale results. This breadth allows us to bring proven strategies to new verticals with speed and precision.
Email Us. Find out how we can help.