Questions to Ask When Hiring an SEO Company
For business owners and marketing leads choosing who to pay for search work, whether that is an SEO company, a larger agency or a solo SEO expert. These are the SEO questions to ask before a contract is on the table: 56 questions in the order the decision goes, from proof that they have done this for a business like yours, through the people, the method and the reporting, to the price and what you keep if you leave.
Want questions from the whole vault instead? Try the random question generator.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Fit and proof
Which of your current clients look most like us in size, industry, and market?
Why ask it
The answer tells you whether you would be an ordinary client here or the account where they learn something new. An agency that mostly serves national ecommerce brands will bring the wrong playbook to a three location dental practice.
What results did you get for a client like us, and can you show me the analytics behind the case study?
Why ask it
Slide deck percentages are easy to write and hard to verify, so ask to see a screen share of the actual traffic, conversion, or revenue chart. Note whether the growth started after they arrived or was already underway.
What did you find when you looked at our site before this call that you think is holding us back?
Why ask it
This is the closest thing to a live work sample, and prepared agencies separate themselves within a minute. Specific findings about your site structure, thin pages, or a competitor beating you show they did the homework unpaid.
Tell me about an engagement that did not work out. What happened, and what did you change afterward?
Why ask it
Every agency has lost a client, so a claim that all of them succeeded means they are either new or not being straight with you. The signal is whether they can name their own contribution instead of blaming the client.
Can I talk to two current clients and one who left you in the past year?
Why ask it
Put the same three things to each of them: who really did the work, how a bad month was reported, and whether the invoices matched the proposal. An agency that parts with clients on decent terms will have a former one willing to take your call.
Have any sites you worked on lost significant traffic to an algorithm update or a manual action?
Why ask it
Anyone with real tenure has lived through a bad update, and the recovery story reveals their judgment under pressure. Listen for whether they diagnosed a cause and changed course, or simply waited and hoped.
How many of the clients you had two years ago are still with you?
Why ask it
Search work pays back slowly, so a firm whose clients mostly leave inside a year is either choosing poor fits or not delivering. A plain number with ordinary reasons attached, such as a client that was bought or a team hired in house, is easier to believe than a claim that nobody ever leaves.
What kind of business would you tell not to spend money on SEO right now?
Why ask it
A new site with no budget for content, a product nobody searches for yet, or a company that needs leads this month may be better served by ads or outreach first. Someone who can describe a client they turned away is selling judgment as well as a service.
Do you work with any of our direct competitors, and how do you handle the overlap?
Why ask it
Overlap is not automatically disqualifying, but you need to know whether your strategy gets pitched down the street next month. Ask about exclusivity by geography or category, then get whatever they promise into the agreement.
How long have you been doing SEO, and which kind of site do you know best: local, ecommerce, publisher or software?
Why ask it
Years matter less than what they were spent on, because the craft differs a great deal between a plumber's service area pages and a store with thousands of product URLs. This is the first thing to ask a solo SEO expert, whose whole offer is their own experience.
Looking at the search results for our main product or service, who would be hardest to outrank, and why?
Why ask it
It tests whether they have studied your market or only your site. You are hoping to hear real competitors named, what their pages do well, and an admission that some terms are out of reach for now.
The team
Who will actually do the work day to day, and how much of it is subcontracted?
Why ask it
Many agencies sell with a senior strategist and deliver with a junior coordinator plus outsourced writers. Get names, get the split between strategy and execution, and ask how many other accounts that person carries.
Can we meet the person who would manage our account before we sign?
Why ask it
The call takes twenty minutes and shows whether you can work with the person you will be emailing every week. Hesitation here often means the account has not been assigned yet, or that it will go to whoever has room.
What happens to our account if the person running it leaves your company?
Why ask it
Agency staff move on, and the reasons behind each decision tend to leave with them. Look for written strategy notes, a second person who already knows your site, and a promise to tell you before the change happens.
If you work alone, who covers when you are ill or away, and which tasks do you pass to other freelancers?
Why ask it
A solo consultant can be the best value on a shortlist, since the person you vet is the person doing the thinking. The trade is capacity, so find out how many clients they keep and who writes, codes or does outreach when they cannot.
Who is our main contact, how often will we talk, and how quickly should we expect a reply?
Why ask it
Agree the rhythm now: a monthly call at the least, a named person, and a reply time for ordinary questions. Slow answers during the sales process rarely speed up once the contract is signed.
What do you need from us each month, and how many internal hours should we budget?
Why ask it
When an engagement stalls, the hold up is often on the client side: approvals, expert interviews, developer tickets, product data. An agency that cannot state its asks plainly has not thought about how the work actually ships.
How would you work with our writers and with whoever runs our ads?
Why ask it
Your ad account already shows which search phrases turn into customers, and an SEO team that never sees it ends up guessing at what the ads have proved. With writers, settle who briefs them and who has the last word on a headline before the first article is commissioned.
Who approves a change before it goes live on our site, and where is it logged?
Why ask it
Rewritten titles, redirects and deleted pages can move traffic in either direction, so you want a record of what changed and on which day. A shared change log also lets the next person, in house or outside, see why the site looks the way it does.
Would you train our own team as you go, so we depend on you less over time?
Why ask it
Some businesses want a partner for years and others plan to bring the work in house once it is running. Both are fine, but the reply shows whether this firm treats its methods as something to teach or something to keep behind a curtain.
The work
What do the first 90 days look like, deliverable by deliverable?
Why ask it
A credible answer names concrete artifacts with dates: technical audit, keyword and page map, prioritized fix list, first content batch. Vague talk about strategy and optimization in month one usually means there is no repeatable onboarding.
What does your audit cover, and do we get the full findings or only a summary?
Why ask it
An audit worth paying for lists the problems in order of their effect on the business, with the pages affected and who should fix each one. A tool export of hundreds of unranked warnings is a printout, and the full document should be yours to keep whatever happens next.
If we have paid for SEO before, how would you find out what was done and whether any of it is hurting us now?
Why ask it
Earlier work leaves things behind: bought links, pages written only to catch a keyword, redirects nobody wrote down. A careful firm asks for the old reports and logins before it proposes anything, and says which leftovers it would remove and which it would leave alone.
How do you decide which keywords and pages to prioritize for us?
Why ask it
You want to hear about buyer intent, business value, and how hard the current results are to beat, not just search volume. A keyword tool export with no mention of your margins or sales cycle means the targeting will drift toward easy wins.
Will you improve the pages we already have before you publish new ones?
Why ask it
Pages sitting just off the first page of results are often the cheapest gains on a site, and updating one usually takes less work than writing a new article. A plan made only of new blog posts tends to mean the retainer is built around a word count.
Do you implement technical fixes yourselves, or do you hand our developers a list?
Why ask it
This determines whether you need internal engineering hours you have not budgeted for. If the fixes go to your developers, find out who writes the tickets, who chases them, and whether the agency will join a call with the developer instead of sending a spreadsheet.
How do you build links, and can you show me five links you built for a client last quarter?
Why ask it
Live examples are the fastest way to tell genuine placements and digital PR from paid guest posts on sites nobody reads. If they cannot name one example or get evasive about paying for placements, treat that as the answer.
Is there any tactic you refuse to use, even when a client asks for it?
Why ask it
Search engines publish spam policies, and buying links, hiding text and mass producing pages for keywords all sit on the wrong side of them. You are checking that a line exists and that it does not move when a client gets impatient, because the penalty lands on your domain, not theirs.
How much of the content you deliver is written by a human, and who checks it for accuracy?
Why ask it
Generated content at volume is an easy way for an agency to hit a deliverable count while adding nothing. Ask about editing and subject matter review, then read two published pieces start to finish before you sign.
How will your writers learn enough about our business to say something a competitor could not?
Why ask it
The usual failure is an article assembled from the pages that already rank, which gives a reader nothing new. Good answers involve interviewing your staff, drawing on your own data and customer questions, and having someone at your company read every draft.
How are you handling AI answers in search results and people asking chatbots what to buy?
Why ask it
Nobody has this fully worked out, so be wary of a shrug and equally wary of a newly branded service with a confident price. A sensible reply covers which of your searches now show an AI summary, whether clicks from them have changed, and what the firm is testing.
Do you look at Bing and other search engines, or only Google?
Why ask it
Google sends most sites the bulk of their search visits, but the split varies by audience, and the default browser on work computers can make Bing matter more than you expect. Have them check the mix in your own analytics, and ask if they have ever set up Bing Webmaster Tools for a client.
If our customers are local, do you manage the business profile and reviews, or only the website?
Why ask it
For a business that serves one town, the map listing can bring in more calls than the site does. If that describes you, ask who would hold the login to your Google Business Profile, and insist on staying its primary owner.
We may redesign or move platforms in the next year. How would you protect our traffic through it?
Why ask it
A migration can undo years of search visibility in a weekend, usually through missing redirects or pages quietly dropped from the new design. Listen for a redirect map, a crawl before and after launch, and a request to be involved before the layouts are approved.
Will you also work on what happens after the click: page layout, forms and calls to action?
Why ask it
More visitors to a page that does not convert is a bigger number on a report and nothing else. Some SEO firms treat conversion as part of the job and others see it as another department, so find out which before you assume.
Which of your methods have you dropped or changed in the last two years, and why?
Why ask it
Search changes quickly enough that a playbook from a few years back can now do harm. A practitioner who is paying attention can name one specific thing they stopped doing and what they saw that made them stop.
Reporting
Before any work starts, how will you set up tracking for calls, forms and sales so we have a baseline?
Why ask it
Without a starting line, every later chart is an argument. Expect them to check that your analytics counts enquiries correctly today, and to record where traffic and leads stood in the month before they began.
What will the monthly report contain, and can I see a real one with the client name removed?
Why ask it
A sample report shows you what they consider proof of value. Rankings and impressions with no leads, calls, or revenue anywhere in it means you will be shown motion rather than results.
Which numbers should I judge you on at month three versus month nine?
Why ask it
Strong agencies separate early leading indicators, such as crawl fixes, indexed pages, and impression growth, from the lagging revenue numbers that take longer to move. Anyone promising revenue by month two is guessing.
How will you separate what SEO brought in from our ads and from people who were already searching for our name?
Why ask it
Agencies that also run your paid search have an incentive to blur the lines, and branded search often gets counted as an SEO win it did not earn. Establish exactly which conversions they will claim before the first report.
Which keywords will you track, and who picks them?
Why ask it
A ranking report is easy to flatter by tracking phrases nobody types, or your own brand name. Agree the list together, weight it toward searches that lead to a sale, and ask that it not be edited later without telling you.
Can we log in to your rank tracker and reporting dashboard ourselves, or do we only see the monthly report?
Why ask it
Your analytics and Search Console should be yours already, so this is about the tools the agency pays for. With a login you can check a figure yourself in two minutes, and a view only seat is a small thing to grant, so reluctance deserves a clear explanation.
How long before we should expect more leads or sales, and what is that estimate based on?
Why ask it
The honest reply is a range with conditions attached: how competitive your market is, how fast your side can approve and build, where the site starts from. Ask which past client the estimate is modelled on, then treat it as a forecast and not a promise.
Do you guarantee rankings or traffic, and if so, what exactly is promised?
Why ask it
No outside firm controls where a search engine places a page, and Google's own advice on hiring an SEO warns against anyone who claims to. When a guarantee is offered, read which keywords it covers, because ranking first for a phrase nobody searches is easy to deliver.
How and when will you tell us if traffic or leads drop?
Why ask it
You should hear it from them within days, with a first guess at the cause, and not find it in a report three weeks later. Check whether they set alerts on your key pages and who is responsible for picking up the phone.
Price and contract
What is your pricing model, what is included at that price, and what would we be billed extra for?
Why ask it
Retainer, project, and hourly models fail in different ways, and vague scopes are where change orders hide. Ask specifically whether content production, developer time, tools, and paid placements sit inside or outside the fee.
About how many hours a month does our fee pay for, and how are they divided between senior and junior people?
Why ask it
Dividing the fee by the hours gives you a rate you can compare across proposals that otherwise look nothing alike. It also shows whether the strategist from the sales call gets two hours on your account or twenty.
If our budget were half this, what would you keep and what would you cut?
Why ask it
What survives the cut is their real ranking of what matters, stripped of everything added to fill out the proposal. You also learn whether a smaller start is possible, or whether they think the work is not worth doing below a certain level, which is a fair thing to say.
Would you start with a paid audit or a three month trial before a longer commitment?
Why ask it
A fixed price first project lets both sides see how the other works before anyone is tied in. Agencies sometimes decline because the early months are mostly setup, which is reasonable, so ask what they would offer in its place, such as a break clause at month four.
Do you offer pricing tied to results, and what exactly would trigger a payment?
Why ask it
Pay on performance sounds safe and often is not: the easiest result to hit is usually the one that matters least to you, and it can reward shortcuts that hurt the site later. If any fee depends on results, define the result as leads or revenue, in writing, with the tracking agreed first.
What access will you need, and which accounts stay registered in our name?
Why ask it
Your domain, analytics, Search Console, Google Business Profile, and CMS should be yours with the agency added as a user. Agencies that insist on registering these under their own accounts can hold your history hostage later.
What is the contract length and notice period, and what happens if we want out in month three?
Why ask it
Long lock ins with heavy early termination fees move all the risk to you before you have seen a single deliverable. Before you sign, ask for a shorter first term or an exit that opens if agreed deliverables are missed, and work out what the notice period would cost you in fees.
Does the agreement renew automatically, and can the price change when it does?
Why ask it
Find the renewal date, the deadline for giving notice before it, and whether the fee can rise without a new signature. Rules on automatic renewal differ between countries and states, so check how they apply where your business is based.
Can we pause the retainer during a site rebuild or a slow season without ending the contract?
Why ask it
Businesses with seasons, funding gaps or a relaunch on the calendar often need a month or two off. A pause clause agreed at the start is far easier to get than one negotiated in the week you need it.
If we stop working together, what do we keep: the content, the research, the dashboards, the links?
Why ask it
Some agencies host content on their own subdomains, keep research locked in proprietary tools, or rent links that disappear when payment stops. Settle ownership in writing before you sign, not on the way out.
How will you store our logins and customer data, and who on your side can see them?
Why ask it
Whoever you hire will hold admin access to your site and may see customer records in your analytics or CRM. Ask for individual user accounts in place of shared passwords, a list of who has them, and removal on the day anyone leaves your account. Privacy rules vary by country, so ask which ones they follow for yours.
How to Vet an SEO Agency
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Best Practices
Give Every Finalist the Same Written Brief
Send all three or four candidates one page: your site, how you make money, your top two competitors, your budget range, and what you would call success in twelve months. Identical inputs make the proposals comparable, and the questions they ask you back are usually more informative than the proposals themselves.
Make One Question a Live Work Sample
Asking what they already found on your site turns a sales call into a short audition. Strong candidates will have run a crawl, checked which competitor outranks you on your money pages, or requested Search Console access. Weak ones offer a free audit once you sign.
Ask for a Former Client, Not Just a Current One
Current references are hand picked and often still in the honeymoon. Ask for one client who left in the past year and actually call them. Ask why they left, whether the handoff was clean, and whether the traffic held up for the six months after.
Confirm Account Ownership Before Any Work Starts
Domain registrar, analytics property, Search Console, Google Business Profile, and CMS admin all belong in accounts you control, with the agency added as a user. Removing a user takes a minute. Recovering a property registered under somebody else's email address can take months.
Read the Contract Before the Proposal
The proposal is marketing and the contract is the deal. Check the initial term, notice period, auto renewal, what the contract counts as a deliverable, who owns the work product, and whether you can pause if your site goes into a rebuild. Negotiate the term down before you negotiate the price.
Spread the Five Groups Across the Process
The groups follow a normal selection. Fit and proof belongs on the first call, The team and The work on a second call with the people who would run your account, Reporting once a proposal exists, and Price and contract when the agreement is in front of you. Send that last group by email so the replies arrive in writing.
Question Sequences by Situation
A 20 Minute First Call
- 1Which of your current clients look most like us?
- 2What did you find on our site before this call?
- 3Who would do the work day to day?
- 4What does month one produce, specifically?
- 5What is the initial contract term?
Local Service Business
- 1How much of the work is Google Business Profile and map pack versus the website?
- 2How do you handle review generation, and do you ever write or filter reviews?
- 3How do you build pages for multiple locations without producing near duplicate content?
- 4Is your citation and directory work a one time cleanup or an ongoing line item?
Ecommerce or Software
- 1How do you handle faceted navigation, pagination, and thin category or variant pages?
- 2How will you split effort between category pages, product pages, and the blog?
- 3How will you set up tracking so we see organic revenue and not just sessions?
- 4What is your approach to comparison and alternative pages against competitors outranking us?
Freelancer or Solo SEO Expert
- 1How many clients do you have now, and how many is your limit?
- 2Which parts of the work do you do yourself, and which go to other freelancers?
- 3Who can reach our accounts if you are ill or away for a month?
- 4Would you teach our own staff enough to carry on without you?
Recovering From a Traffic Drop
- 1Looking at our Search Console data, what is your first hypothesis for the drop?
- 2How would you tell an algorithmic change apart from a technical or migration problem?
- 3Have you recovered a site from something similar, and how long did it take?
- 4What would you tell us to stop doing immediately?
- 5At what point would you tell us recovery is unrealistic and we should rebuild instead?
How to Read the Answers
- A guarantee of a number one ranking means either they are selling terms nobody searches or they do not grasp that nobody controls the ranking. That one is a walk away, not a negotiation.
- Watch how they discuss the last algorithm update. Detailed observations about which pages moved and why is expertise. Blaming Google with no diagnosis is not.
- "We have a proprietary process we cannot disclose" deserves a follow up: ask them to describe one month of work on a real account. Tactics that would survive daylight can be described without giving away a secret.
- Notice whether they ask about your margins, capacity, sales cycle, or what a lead is worth. An agency that never asks what a customer is worth will optimize for traffic you cannot bank.
- If deliverables are counted in units, ten posts and twenty links a month, ask what the units are for. Volume commitments usually mean the plan is quantity standing in for strategy.
- Discomfort at the question about who does the work is real signal. Confident agencies introduce the account lead during the sales process, not after the invoice.
- Discounts that expire this week, and reluctance to shorten the initial term, both point the same direction: their retention depends on the contract rather than the results.
- A candid story about a client that failed, including their own share of it, is one of the strongest positive signals available in a sales call.
Common Pitfalls
Choosing on Monthly Price
SEO retainers span an enormous range, and the cheap end is usually a fixed content quota with no strategy or technical work attached. Compare what the money buys: who does the work, at what seniority, for how many hours. A cheap retainer that produces nothing for a year is the most expensive option on the table.
Skipping the Technical Conversation
If your site cannot be crawled properly, loads slowly, or renders content only through JavaScript, content spend leaks away. Ask what needs fixing before anything new gets published, and be wary of any plan that opens with a content calendar and never mentions site structure.
Accepting Rankings as the Headline Metric
Rankings vary by location, device, and personalization, and results pages keep pushing organic links further down. Set the reporting expectation up front around qualified organic sessions, conversions, and revenue, with rankings and impressions as supporting detail rather than the story.
Letting Them Own the Content
Content hosted on an agency subdomain, published through their platform, or handed over without source files is leverage against you. Require everything to live on your domain and in your CMS, with drafts and keyword research delivered in a format you keep.
Expecting Results Without Internal Capacity
Approvals, expert interviews, product data, and developer tickets all sit on your side of the line. Assign owners and turnaround times before signing. Plenty of engagements that looked like agency failure were four months of unanswered approval requests.
Judging Them Only by Their Own Rankings
An agency that ranks for nothing is worth a question, but busy agencies legitimately deprioritize their own marketing while referrals keep coming. The stronger check is asking which client sites you may look at, then evaluating those in the search results yourself.