How to choose an SEO agency: 12 questions to ask before you sign

How to choose an SEO agency: 12 questions to ask before you sign. Choosing an SEO agency is usually decided in a single meeting, and the questions asked there say more about the future working relationship than any sales presentation.

Google has an official page dedicated to exactly this decision, in the Search Central documentation. The questions below start from it and add the checks we recommend before signing a contract.

How to choose an SEO agency: 12 questions to ask before you sign

For each question you will find below the answer worth hearing and the answer that should stop you. You don't need to ask them all in the same order, but it is worth having them written down in front of you at the meeting.

Write down the answers. The difference between two agencies rarely shows in the monthly price and often shows in how they answer uncomfortable questions.

What Google says about hiring an SEO specialist

On the "Do you need an SEO?" page in the Google Search Central documentation, Google recommends a few questions for interviewing an SEO service provider. Among them: examples of past work, compliance with the Google Search Essentials rules, expected results and the time frame, and experience in the client's industry and country.

The same page also contains a plainly worded warning: nobody can guarantee the number 1 spot in Google. Google recommends caution toward companies that email you unsolicited and toward those that talk about link popularity schemes or submitting your site to thousands of search engines.

There is also a simple rule about transparency: an SEO specialist should explain all the changes they make to your site. If the provider is secretive or does not explain what they intend to do, Google advises you to be careful.

Questions about experience and results

1. What projects similar to ours have you worked on?

A good answer comes with concrete examples: the type of site, the market, what was done and what changed, with the client's consent to be named. A public portfolio, with projects described stage by stage, is a good starting point for discussion.

The answer to avoid is a list of logos with no explanation, or a refusal to show any example "for confidentiality reasons", with no alternative. Confidentiality can also be respected through anonymized examples.

2. What results do you estimate and in what time frame?

A good answer describes stages: what gets fixed in the first months, when the first changes can be seen in Search Console and what the speed depends on. A serious provider talks about ranges and conditions, because a site's position also depends on competition, the domain's history, the technical state of the site and what is done in-house.

The answer to avoid is any promise of a fixed position by a fixed date. Phrases like "on the first page in 30 days" directly contradict the warning in the Google documentation.

3. What experience do you have in our industry and in our city?

For a local business, what matters is experience with Google Business Profile, reviews, city pages and identical contact details across all platforms. For an online store, what matters is category pages, filters, product descriptions and out-of-stock products.

The answer to avoid is "we do SEO for everything", with no question about how your customers find you. An agency that asks nothing about the business has nothing to build a strategy on.

Questions about method

4. What do you start with in the first month?

A good answer starts with an audit: indexing, technical errors, speed, page structure, existing content and the link profile. Only after the audit does the priority list appear, ordered by impact and by effort.

The answer to avoid is starting straight away with "articles and links", before anyone has checked whether Google can index the site correctly. An SEO audit done at the start avoids months of work on pages that won't show up in the results anyway.

5. How do you get links to the site?

A good answer explains the sources: real partners, industry publications, resource pages, relationships with suppliers and customers, content that other sites have a reason to cite. Google's spam policies explicitly describe link schemes, including buying links that pass authority.

The answer to avoid is a fixed number of links per month, delivered from "our network", without you ever seeing those sites. Ask for the list of domains before accepting any link building package.

6. What changes do you make to the site and who approves them?

A good answer describes a clear workflow: the written proposal, your approval, implementation and verification after publishing. Important changes, such as redirects or changing URLs, are documented separately.

The answer to avoid is full access to the site with no list of changes. Google's recommendation that you be told about all changes applies exactly here.

7. Do you use automatically generated content?

Google does not forbid text written with the help of artificial intelligence tools. Google's policies target content produced at scale with no value for the reader, regardless of how it was written.

A good answer explains who checks the facts, who signs off on the text and how the company's real experience is added. The answer to avoid is a promise of dozens of articles a month at a price that wouldn't even cover reading them over.

Questions about reporting and ownership

8. What do we get in the monthly report?

A good answer shows a sample report: the work done that month, progress in Search Console, the pages that rose or fell and the plan for the following month. A useful report can be read in ten minutes and checked against the site.

The answer to avoid is a report made up only of automatically generated charts, with no list of work done. The structure of a verifiable report is described in the article about the monthly SEO report for clients.

9. Whose name are the Search Console and Analytics accounts in?

A good answer is simple: the accounts belong to your company, and the agency gets access as a user. Google Search Console has distinct roles of owner, full user and restricted user, and Google Analytics 4 has roles such as administrator, editor, analyst or viewer.

The answer to avoid is creating the accounts under the agency's address. When the collaboration ends you would lose the data history, sometimes years of it, exactly the information the next provider needs.

10. What happens to the site and the content if we part ways?

A good answer confirms in writing that the paid-for texts, images, pages and technical changes remain yours. Access is handed over, and passwords are changed at the end.

The answer to avoid is any wording under which the links obtained are "withdrawn" when the contract ends, or under which the content remains the agency's property. Clauses of this kind are analyzed at length in the article about the SEO services contract.

Questions about cost and contract

11. What exactly does the monthly price include?

A good answer is a list of activities, with their pace: how many pages are optimized, how many new texts are written, what technical checks are done and how many hours of consulting are included. Prices differ a lot between providers precisely because the lists differ.

The answer to avoid is a "complete package" with no list. The factors that explain price differences are presented in the article how much SEO services cost, and you can find an example of a structure on the SEO optimization prices page.

12. What is the minimum term and how does the contract end?

A good answer explains why a minimum term exists, usually tied to the audit and implementation stages, and clearly describes the termination notice. The conditions must be the same in the discussion and in the contract.

The answer to avoid is a long contract, with heavy penalties on termination and no clear reporting obligations for the agency. A minimum period makes sense only if you receive proof of the work every month.

Warning signs before the meeting

Some problems show up before the first conversation. If several of them appear, it is worth looking for another provider without wasting more time on the offer.

• The offer came through an unsolicited email saying the site has "serious errors".
• The provider guarantees positions or a fixed number of visitors.
• The agency's site has no named person and no verifiable contact address.
• The price is set before anyone has looked at the site.
• You are asked to put a link to the agency in the site's footer as part of the package.

The last point appears directly in the Google documentation, which says you should never be required to put a link to the SEO provider. A discreet credit can exist, but not as a condition of the service.

How to prepare for the meeting

A useful meeting takes a few minutes of preparation on your side. The agency can answer concretely only if it has concrete data.

1. Give read access to Search Console, so the provider can see the real situation before making an offer.
2. Write in two lines which services or products bring the company the most money.
3. Note where customers come from today: search, referrals, social media, paid ads.
4. Prepare the history: migrations, domain changes, previous SEO providers and what they did.
5. Set a maximum monthly budget internally and a person who will approve changes.

Before the meeting you can also run a free check of the site with GOAI Site Analyzer. That way you will have your own picture of the technical problems and can compare what each agency notices.

How to compare two or three offers

Offers usually arrive in different formats, with different names for the same work. For a fair comparison, rewrite them on the same lines.

• The work in the first three months, listed separately from the recurring work.
• The number of pages optimized and new texts per month.
• How links are obtained and whether you see the list of domains.
• The report format and the frequency of meetings.
• Ownership of the accounts and the content, and the termination conditions.
• The monthly price, measured against the list above, not separate from it.

The cheapest offer often becomes the most expensive when the audit or the reporting is missing. The most expensive offer guarantees nothing if it can't show you, month after month, what you received.

The right questions lead to the right collaboration

A good agency answers all 12 questions without dodging the subject and without promises that don't depend on it. You can ask our team the same questions, and you will find projects described stage by stage in the portfolio.

If you want to talk about your site, you will find details about how we work on the about us page and on the main page of our SEO agency. For a first assessment you can write to us through the contact page.

Source references

• Google Search Central: Do you need an SEO?
• Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search