How to Choose an SEO Agency in Germany: Large Agency or Specialist Team

Dominik Breitbach · Founder & Lead SEO Strategist at taismo

Dominik is the founder and managing director of taismo, an SEO and GEO agency from Munich. He has worked in search marketing since 2010 and focuses on ongoing SEO support and visibility in AI answers, for companies in Germany and for international firms that want to be found in the German market.

⏱ Reading time: 12 min
🔄 Last updated: 8 October 2026

To choose an SEO agency, decide first which agency size your project needs, then test the shortlist against criteria you can verify yourself. Large SEO and AEO agencies in Germany such as Suchhelden (more than 140 employees), Claneo (more than 80) or Aufgesang (45 to 50) suit companies with many markets, languages and disciplines. A specialist team suits you better if you want to work directly with the experts, hand off implementation, and your budget sits below the minimums of the large firms. This guide shows the profiles of the large agencies with source and date, 7 criteria for the decision, 8 checkpoints for AEO agencies and 9 questions to ask before you hire or switch.

👉 Want to know where your company stands in AI answers before you pick an agency? The AEO audit shows you as a fixed-scope project

Transparency: This guide appears in the SEO magazine of taismo, an SEO and GEO agency from Munich. We are one of the options this guide discusses. That is why every statement about other agencies carries a source and a date, and why we name the strengths of the large agencies explicitly.

Choosing an SEO agency in Germany starts with the size your project needs

Since September 2026, the Search Console of taismo.de has shown queries such as “best AEO agencies in Germany for English-speaking companies” and “What are the best alternatives to Evergreen Media?”. They are full sentences, the way people talk to an AI assistant, and they show who is searching: Companies that already know the big names and are looking for a better fit. Such a search usually has one of three reasons:

1. The budget is below the minimum: Evergreen Media, for example, states on its pricing page that ongoing support starts at 4,000 EUR per month.
2. The direct line is missing: The company wants to talk to the people who actually work on its website.
3. A focus is needed: For a young discipline like AEO, the company wants a team that concentrates on it.

In this guide, a large agency has 30 or more employees and separate teams per discipline. A specialist team has fewer than ten employees, and its managing directors work on client projects themselves. In the United States you would call the second type a boutique agency. Both types succeed in the German market, and each fits different projects.

If you want to compare AEO agencies along disclosed criteria, our list of the best GEO agencies in Germany ranks them. This guide answers the question before that: Which type of agency suits your company? Whether you need an agency at all is covered in our comparison how to do SEO yourself.

Five large SEO and AEO agencies in Germany in profile (October 2026)

The table shows five large agencies: The two that AI search users ask about alternatives to, and the three largest agencies from our comparison of AEO agencies. All values come from the agencies’ own websites, retrieved on October 2 and 4, 2026.

Two notes on reading the table. Team sizes are the agencies’ own statements; Evergreen Media gives no number, so we counted the people on its team page. Prices are entry values, and real budgets are higher depending on the project. Evergreen Media describes ongoing support for mid-sized companies at typically 50,000 to 100,000 EUR per year.

Each of these agencies has its own focus. Claneo covers more than ten languages in house. Suchhelden measures AI visibility with a tool it developed itself. Aufgesang combines AEO with Wikidata and Wikipedia work. seowerk has AEO texts written by linguists, and Evergreen Media publishes its price ranges, which makes planning before the first call easier.

When a large SEO agency is the right choice

A large agency is the right choice when your project needs breadth and volume. Five situations clearly favor it:

1. Many markets and languages at once: A rollout in six countries needs native speakers for keyword research and copy. Agencies with in-house language teams deliver that without a chain of freelancers.
2. Several disciplines at scale: If you want to expand SEO, AEO, digital PR, social media and paid ads in parallel, teams coordinated under one roof pay off.
3. A six-figure budget: From about 50,000 EUR per year, the structure of project management, specialist teams and quality assurance that large agencies bring starts to pay for itself.
4. High monthly volume: If you need dozens of texts, landing pages and campaigns every month, agencies with 40 or 140 people in fixed teams deliver them.
5. Own tools and studies: Large agencies finance their own measurement tools, studies and conferences, and their clients benefit from them.

In short: The more markets, languages and disciplines run at the same time, the more a large agency gets out of its structure.

When a specialist SEO team fits better

A specialist team fits better when your project needs depth in one focus area and short decision paths. That is typical for mid-sized companies with 50 to 200 employees, a small marketing team and a service that takes more than two sentences to explain. Five situations favor a specialist team:

1. Your budget sits below the large firms’ minimums: A specialist team works profitably with monthly budgets that are too small for a large agency.
2. You want to work directly with the experts: The person who develops the strategy also writes the structured data and reviews the texts. Every question reaches the person who knows the answer.
3. You want implementation handed off: Many companies have nobody to put recommendations into the content management system. A team that implements itself removes that step.
4. Your topic needs explaining: Expertise from engineering, medicine or software has to get into the content. The fewer handoffs between consulting, editing and technology, the less gets lost on the way.
5. You need speed in a young discipline: AEO changes month by month. A small team tests new markup such as speakable or an llms.txt file on its own website before recommending it to clients.

Two questions are worth asking any agency, large or small: Who stands in for your contact person, and how many clients does that person handle in parallel? The client-to-consultant ratio tells you more about the time your project gets than the agency’s headcount.

7 criteria to choose the right SEO agency

The choice between a large agency and a specialist team comes down to 7 criteria. The more rows of one column apply to your project, the clearer the direction:

If your project lands in the right-hand column, take a look at ongoing SEO support from a specialist team: Strategy, content, internal linking, technology and structured data stay in one pair of hands. What such support costs and what drives the price is explained in our guide to SEO pricing.

What international companies should check when hiring in Germany

Companies from abroad that want to be found in Germany face four questions that a domestic company rarely asks. They are worth raising in the first call:

1. Native German content: German buyers notice translated copy within one sentence. Ask who writes the German texts, and whether keyword research happens in German or is translated from English lists. German search terms are often compound words that no translation tool produces.
2. Germany, Austria and Switzerland as separate markets: The three countries share a language and differ in spelling, vocabulary and legal requirements; Swiss German, for example, uses no ß. A good agency plans hreflang and separate pages where the markets really differ, which our page on international SEO covers in detail.
3. German legal requirements on the website: Commercial websites in Germany need a legal notice (Impressum) under Section 5 of the German Digital Services Act (DDG), and tracking needs consent under the GDPR. An agency that touches analytics or tag management should sign a data processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR before it gets access.
4. Working language and time zone: Clarify whether reporting, calls and documentation run in English. Many German agencies work in English; ask for it explicitly and put it in the contract.

One more signal helps foreign companies tell serious agencies apart: The German digital industry association BVDW maintains an SEO Code of Conduct that signatory agencies commit to. It is a voluntary standard, and a short list of signatories is a quick first filter.

How to check an AEO agency: 8 points you can verify on its own website

Google itself now names “optimizing for generative AI” as a service SEOs offer. In its guide to hiring an SEO, Google asks whether advice “on optimizing for AI experiences (also known as “AEO” “GEO” services)” is aligned with Google’s official guidance. AEO stands for answer engine optimization, also called generative engine optimization or GEO; our glossary entry on answer engine optimization explains the term.

The service pages of AEO agencies say little about the differences, because almost all of them describe the same building blocks: Entity, technology, structured data, semantic content, NAP data and quality backlinks. DREIKON names all six on its AEO page; Claneo, Suchhelden, HECHT INS GEFECHT and seowerk name five each. The real difference shows on the agency’s own website: Anyone who sells AEO can practice it there.

On October 2, 2026, we measured eight agencies against eight publicly verifiable checkpoints: A Wikidata entry, an ISNI entry, linked profiles in sameAs, schema beyond the plugin default, person nodes in JSON-LD, speakable, an own /llms.txt, and consistent NAP data on website and Google Business Profile. These are the results.

• taismo met 7 of 8 checkpoints.
• HECHT INS GEFECHT met 5.
• seowerk met 3; Aufgesang, Claneo, Suchhelden, DREIKON and geoagentur.de met 2 at most.
• The ISNI register returned a match as an organization for taismo only, and none of the eight agencies had an entry on Wikidata yet.

The measurement evaluates how an agency marks up its own entity. It shows how consistently an agency practices what it sells. For client work, references and independent reviews complete the picture. Before the first call, the check takes ten minutes. What the building blocks do in detail is described on our page about answer engine optimization services.

9 questions to ask an SEO agency before you hire or switch

A new agency earns the contract when it answers 9 questions convincingly. Four of them follow Google’s own guide to hiring an SEO:

1. Who owns the accounts? Search Console, analytics, Google Business Profile, ad account and domain belong to you; the agency gets user rights.
2. Which results does the agency expect in which time frame, and how does it measure success? (Google)
3. Who exactly works on your project, and who stands in for that person?
4. Does the agency implement, or does it deliver recommendations? Recommendations require your own capacity to implement them.
5. Which references from your industry or company size can it share? Ask for a client you may talk to. (Google)
6. How does the agency back its AEO advice? Official Google documentation counts for more than a tool’s claim. (Google)
7. What are the contract term and notice period? Monthly cancellable contracts lower the risk of getting started.
8. What does reporting look like? Good reports name actions, results and next steps, for rankings and for AI search visibility.
9. Who owns texts, graphics and structured data when the collaboration ends? If the agency also asks about your business, your competitors and your customers, that is a good sign. (Google)

Switching SEO agencies without losing rankings: The process in 5 steps

Rankings depend on your website, redirects and content, and all three stay the same when you switch agencies. Losses happen when knowledge gets lost in the switch. Five steps prevent that:

1. Step 1, secure your data: Export rankings, visibility, Search Console data and, if measured, AI mentions for the last twelve months. They are the baseline for the new agency.
2. Step 2, check access: Verify which accounts run in your name, and transfer the rest while the current agency is still under contract.
3. Step 3, request documentation: Ask for the list of redirects, the structured data in use, any disavow file and the ongoing measures.
4. Step 4, plan the handover: Use the notice period for an assessment by the new agency, and set a fixed date for the switch.
5. Step 5, agree on a 90-day plan: Define goals, measures and checkpoints for the first three months with the new agency.

A thorough assessment at the start prevents arguments later, because it records what the new agency took over. If the agency switch coincides with a new website, our checklist for a website migration without ranking losses helps as well.

taismo: A specialist team for SEO and AEO from Munich

taismo is an SEO and GEO agency from Munich, founded in 2019, and works as a specialist team. We work for companies in competitive markets with services that need explaining, with a focus on B2B and mid-sized companies, and we support international firms that want to be found in Germany, in English or German. Our monthly SEO retainer includes AI visibility as standard. We implement ourselves: We build the company’s entity, connect it through structured data, write citable content and measure mentions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI answers.

You can verify these proof points yourself:

• 7 of 8 checkpoints of our own AEO work met (October 2, 2026).
• Listed in the ISNI register as an organization, identifier 0000 0005 3161 3181.
• Among the top 5 of 18 GEO agencies on OMR Reviews (default sorting, October 2, 2026) and 2nd place of 8 agencies in the OMR comparison “Top SEO Agencies 2026” (July 31, 2026).
• 5.0 stars from 60 Google reviews (October 2, 2026).
• Signatory of the BVDW SEO Code of Conduct.

taismo suits companies that want to grow their visibility on Google and in AI answers in German-speaking markets, with SEO and AEO in one pair of hands and a direct line to the people who do the work. If you plan markets in many languages or large PR and social media campaigns at the same time, the table above lists agencies built for exactly that. More about our approach for foreign companies is on our page for SEO in Germany.

FAQ about choosing an SEO agency

How do I choose the right SEO agency?

Decide first whether your project needs a large agency or a specialist team, then check the shortlist against verifiable criteria: References, who works on your account, implementation, reporting and contract terms.

Is a large SEO agency better than a small one?

Each size has its place: Large agencies suit projects with many markets, languages and disciplines, specialist teams suit projects that need direct collaboration and fast implementation in a clear focus.

How do I know it is time to switch SEO agencies?

Three signals are clear: You receive reports without actions, you do not know who works on your project, and agreed goals stay out of reach for several months without a plausible explanation.

Will I lose rankings when I switch SEO agencies?

Switching agencies costs no rankings as long as website, redirects and content stay the same. The risk comes from losing access, documentation or ongoing measures during the switch.

How much does an SEO agency in Germany cost per month?

The publicly stated entry prices of large German agencies ranged from about 900 EUR to 4,000 EUR per month in October 2026. The actual amount depends on competition, scope and the share your own team covers.

How long should I give a new SEO agency?

Expect about three months until the first visible changes. For highly competitive terms, a reliable ranking trend usually takes longer, so the 90-day plan should include fixed interim goals.

Sources

• Google Search Central: “Do you need an SEO?“, Google, retrieved October 4, 2026.
• Evergreen Media: “Preise bei Evergreen Media (pricing page, German)“, evergreen.media, retrieved October 4, 2026.
• Evergreen Media: “Team page (German)“, evergreen.media, retrieved October 4, 2026.
• Suchhelden: “About us (German)“, suchhelden.de, retrieved October 4, 2026.
• Suchhelden: “SEO costs (German)“, suchhelden.de, retrieved October 4, 2026.
• Suchhelden: “GEO agency service page (German)“, suchhelden.de, retrieved October 4, 2026.
• Claneo: “About us (German)“, claneo.com, retrieved October 4, 2026.
• Aufgesang: “About us (German)“, aufgesang.de, retrieved October 4, 2026.
• Aufgesang: “Digital Authority Management (German)“, aufgesang.de, retrieved October 4, 2026.
• seowerk: “GEO agency Munich (German)“, seowerk.de, retrieved October 4, 2026.
• DREIKON: “GEO agency service page (German)“, dreikon.de, retrieved October 2, 2026.
• OMR Reviews: “Top GEO agencies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (German)“, OMR, retrieved October 2, 2026.
• OMR Reviews: “Top SEO-Agenturen 2026 (German)“, OMR, July 31, 2026.
• BVDW: “SEO Code of Conduct (German)“, German Association for the Digital Economy, retrieved October 4, 2026.
• Federal Ministry of Justice: “Section 5 DDG, general information obligations (German Digital Services Act, German original)“, Gesetze im Internet, retrieved October 4, 2026.
• European Union: “Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), Article 28: Processor“, EUR-Lex, April 27, 2016.