White label SEO is when an agency sells SEO to its clients under its own name, and a partner does the work. The client sees the agency's brand, the agency's reports and the agency's account manager. The partner stays in the background.
Agencies usually look at this model for one of two reasons. Either clients keep asking for SEO and the agency does not have a team for it, or the agency already sells SEO and has more work than its people can deliver. In both cases, hiring and training an in-house team takes months, and the work is needed now.
This guide explains how white label SEO works, what a partner should deliver each month, how the money usually works, and what to check before you put your name on someone else's work.
How white label SEO works
The flow is simpler than the name suggests. The agency sells and owns the client relationship. The partner does the SEO work. The agency presents the results as its own.
At Codeja Infotech, the process for a new agency client site looks like this:
- Brief. The agency shares the client's website, goals and any access it wants the partner to use.
- Audit and plan. The partner reviews the site and sends a plan the agency can present to the client as its own.
- Deliver. The partner does the agreed work. Anything that changes the client's site is explained to the agency first.
- Report. A monthly report in the format the agency needs, plus a short weekly update.
- Scale. The agency adds more client sites as it sells them, and each gets the same process.
The important detail is step three. A partner that changes a client's site without telling the agency first is a liability, because the agency is the one who has to explain it to the client.
White label SEO vs SEO reselling
The two terms are often used as if they mean the same thing, and in practice they overlap. The useful distinction is about whose name is on the work.
- Reselling usually means passing on a partner's packaged service, sometimes under the partner's own name, with the agency acting as a sales channel.
- White label means the work is delivered under the agency's brand. Plans, reports and recommendations are written so the agency can present them as its own.
Most agencies want the second. If a partner's proposal is really a reseller programme with their logo on everything, that is worth knowing before you sign.
What a white label SEO partner should deliver
"SEO" on its own is not a deliverable. Before you agree to resell anything, you should be able to list what the client will actually receive. For a typical client site, that list is:
Technical SEO audit and fixes
Indexing, canonical tags, redirects, sitemaps, Core Web Vitals, structured data and crawl errors, with a prioritised fix list. Ask whether the partner can make the fixes or only report them. A partner that also builds websites can fix the problem rather than hand you a list for someone else to act on.
On-page optimisation
Titles, descriptions, headings, internal links and content improvements for the pages that matter to the client's revenue. Not every page: the pages that bring in enquiries or sales.
Keyword research and a content plan
The searches the client's customers actually use, grouped into pages and posts, with the difficulty and volume behind each choice. The plan should explain why each keyword was chosen, so you can defend it when the client asks.
SEO content
Blog posts and service pages written for the searches in the plan. You should get to review them before anything is published under your name.
Local, Shopify and AI-search work where it applies
Clients who sell to their own area need Google Business Profile optimisation and consistent business details. Shopify clients need duplicate product URLs, collection pages and app bloat dealt with. And increasingly, clients want to be named in AI answers, which means structured data, AI crawler access and an llms.txt file. Google's own guidance on AI features and your website is the right starting point for that conversation.
Reporting you can forward
Every month: what changed, why it matters and what is next, in plain language. If you have to rewrite the report before the client can read it, the partner is making work for you rather than saving it.
How the money works
Most white label partners quote per client site after a short review of that site. The agency then sets its own price to the client, and the difference is the agency's margin. The partner never sees or sets the client price.
This is where an India-based partner changes the arithmetic. Our rates at Codeja Infotech are typically lower than hiring an SEO specialist or a local freelancer in the US, UK or Australia, so there is room for a margin without the agency charging more than the local market expects. We quote per site after a review, so the cost is known before the agency prices the work.
Two things to confirm with any partner before you quote a client: whether the price covers the fixes or only the audit, and what happens to the price when the client adds pages, locations or a second site.
What to check before you resell SEO
Putting your name on another company's work carries risk, and cheap should not mean risky. Before you sign with any white label partner, including us, check the following.
- No guaranteed rankings. Nobody controls Google's results. A partner that promises a position is guessing, and your client will hold you to the promise.
- No paid link networks or bulk backlink packages. Offers of "1,000 backlinks" are the reason so many SEO offers look cheap. Google's spam policies cover link schemes in detail; a partner should be able to explain how its link work stays within them.
- No fake reviews, ratings or testimonials, on the client's site or anywhere else.
- Changes are explained before they happen. Especially anything that touches a live site.
- Working hours that overlap with yours. Our working day in India overlaps with UK and European mornings and Australian afternoons. For US agencies, work moves forward overnight, and calls are arranged around your time zone. Ask the partner the same question.
- A clear answer on client contact. You should decide whether the partner ever speaks to your clients. With us, you stay the point of contact, and reports can be branded however you need. If you need an NDA before sharing client details, tell us.
- Engineers, not only marketers. Technical SEO problems get fixed properly when the same team builds websites, Shopify stores and Shopify apps. Ask who will actually make the changes.
Is white label SEO right for your agency?
It is a good fit when clients are asking for SEO you cannot deliver in-house, when your SEO team is at capacity, or when you want to add a recurring service without a recurring payroll cost. It is a poor fit if you are not willing to review the work before it goes out under your name, because the model only works when the agency stays in charge.
If you want to see how we run this for agencies in the US, UK, Australia and beyond, the white label SEO page lists exactly what we deliver and what we will not do. To talk about a partnership, use the enquiry form and tell us about the first client site.