SEO Questions to Ask Clients
For SEO freelancers, consultants and agencies preparing a discovery call or onboarding a new client. The five SEO questions to ask clients when time is short come first; after them the list runs from the business and the searches it wants, through the site and who holds the accounts, past SEO work and the people on the client's side, to reporting, budget and timing. The note under each question says which answers should reassure you, which should change your quote, and what to check once you have access.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Top 5
What does the business sell, and which searches should bring you customers?
Why ask it
Have them answer in the words a customer would type, since internal product names rarely match what people search. If the only answer is one trophy phrase, find out what a visitor arriving on it would actually buy. A client who cannot name any searches is not a problem: it means the keyword research starts from their sales conversations.
What should a visit from search turn into: a call, a form, a booking, an order?
Why ask it
Traffic is not the goal, and this pins down the action that is. A useful answer can be counted and has a rough value attached. When you hear 'to be number one', ask what being first would be worth in customers and plan around that figure.
Can we get access to your analytics, Search Console and the CMS, and who owns each account?
Why ask it
Ownership matters more than the login. The healthy answer is that every account sits under a company email address the client controls. If a past agency or a former employee set them up, start getting them back this week, because recovery can drag and you cannot audit what you cannot see.
What SEO work has been done on this site before, and who did it?
Why ask it
You inherit everything the last person did, good and bad. Listen for specifics: pages rewritten, links built, a migration handled. 'They did SEO every month but I am not sure what' is common, and it tells you this client will need plain explanations of what you do and why.
Six months from now, how will you decide whether this was worth paying for?
Why ask it
The answer is the real scorecard, whatever ends up in the contract. Leads, revenue and booked jobs are measures you can work toward. A single ranking or 'I will just know' is not, so settle on something countable before you start and write it into the proposal.
The business
What has changed that makes search a priority for you now?
Why ask it
Usually something happened: traffic fell, a rival appeared above them, a new site launched, the last agency was let go or a referral source dried up. A drop means the first job is a diagnosis, not a content plan. When the answer is that they have simply never done any, say that the first months go on setting a baseline, with nothing yet to beat.
Which products or services earn the most profit, and are those the ones you want search to bring in?
Why ask it
The best seller and the best earner are often different lines, and the pages you work on first should follow margin. Watch for a client who wants to rank for the thing they are proudest of while a duller service pays the bills. Check too whether the profitable line has a page of its own; quite often it is one paragraph on a general services page.
Who is the customer you want more of, and what has just happened when they start searching?
Why ask it
The trigger shapes the query: a burst pipe produces a different search from a kitchen remodel planned for next year. Clients who can describe that moment are handing you search intent. If they describe everyone, ask about the last three customers they were glad to win.
Where are the customers you can serve: one city, a region, the whole country, or several countries?
Why ask it
Local, national and international search are three different jobs, and this tells you which one you are quoting for. A business that serves a fifty-mile radius but wants national rankings needs a gentle conversation about what those visitors could buy. For several countries or languages, ask how each market is handled on the site today.
When customers call or email, what words do they use for what you sell?
Why ask it
The trade says 'residential HVAC maintenance' and the customer says 'AC tune-up'. Ask for a few recent emails or call notes if the client is able to share them. The customer's wording belongs in titles and headings, with the brochure's term kept for the body where it helps.
Which questions do your sales or support people answer over and over?
Why ask it
Each repeated question is probably a search somebody made before they picked up the phone. Get the list from whoever takes the calls, not from the owner's memory. It usually becomes the first batch of content, and the sales team can tell you later whether the pages cut down the repeats.
Which searches bring you the wrong people: job seekers, students, shoppers you cannot serve?
Why ask it
Most sites have a few: the plumber who shows up for plumbing courses, the software firm found by people hunting for a free template. Search Console will give you the list later, but the client already knows which calls waste the front desk's time. Those terms stay out of the targets, and the pages that attract them need plainer wording about who the business is for.
How do customers find you today, and what share of that do you think is search?
Why ask it
Compare the guess with analytics once you have access. A wide gap in either direction is worth showing them: a business that believes it lives on referrals may have steady search traffic on its own name. Separate searches for the brand from searches by strangers before anyone sets a target.
What comes up when someone searches the business name, and is any of it a problem?
Why ask it
Search it together on the call. An old address, a former trading name, a company elsewhere with the same name or a review page the client has never seen all turn up this way. People who type the name have often decided to get in touch already, so a mess here is worth fixing before you chase anyone new.
Is demand seasonal, and how far ahead of the busy period do people start looking?
Why ask it
Pages need to be live and indexed well before the rush, so the calendar sets your deadlines. Ask when inquiries start to climb, not when sales peak. A client who says there is no season may still have a tax deadline, a school year or a weather pattern hiding in last year's numbers.
Which competitors do you lose business to, and do you know who outranks you in search?
Why ask it
Expect two different lists. The rivals a client names are businesses, while the pages above them are often directories, marketplaces, publishers or a national chain. Put the second list in front of them early, because it resets who the site is really up against.
Is there a competitor's website you think does search well, and what do you notice about it?
Why ask it
What they point to shows how they picture good SEO: a busy blog, a page for every city, a slick design. Some of it will be worth learning from and some will be a shortcut you would not recommend. Open the site together and say which is which, with reasons.
Roughly what is one new customer from search worth, on the first sale and over the years after?
Why ask it
Without this number nobody can say whether your fee is large or small. A rough figure is enough to work backward to how many leads the work has to produce to pay for itself. A client who has never worked it out can usually give you a typical first invoice and how long customers tend to stay: multiply the two, label the result a guess and correct it when real leads arrive.
Are you adding, dropping or renaming any products, services or locations in the next year?
Why ask it
There is little point building up a page for a service that will be retired in spring. New lines need pages planned before launch, and a closed location needs its page and listings handled with care, not deleted in a hurry. Put every date they mention on the roadmap.
Site and access
Who owns the domain name, where is it registered, and who has the login?
Why ask it
It sounds like housekeeping until a domain lapses or a migration needs a DNS change on a Friday afternoon. The safe answer is the business itself, with a login more than one person can reach, and the same goes for the hosting. If either is registered to a web designer or a former partner, suggest they sort that out whatever happens with the SEO.
Which platform or CMS is the site built on, and what has it stopped you from doing?
Why ask it
The second half finds the limits before your audit does: titles that cannot be edited, URLs the system generates, templates locked by a theme. A long list of frustrations means some recommendations will need a developer or a workaround. Price that into the plan now.
Who can change the site today, and how long does a small edit take from request to live?
Why ask it
Ask about a real recent change, such as the last time a phone number or a price was updated. Same day means you can move quickly. If it took three weeks and a ticket to an outside firm, your recommendations need to be fewer, bigger and sent in batches.
If customers visit or call a local address, who controls the Google Business Profile and the other listings?
Why ask it
Skip this one for a business that sells only online. For a storefront or a service-area business the profile can matter as much as the website, and it is often claimed under an ex-employee's account or duplicated. Check that the name, address and phone number match across listings before you promise anything local.
Do you ask customers for reviews, and who replies when one comes in?
Why ask it
This is another one for businesses with a local presence. You are listening for a habit, such as a text sent after every finished job, and for a named person who answers the bad reviews as well as the good. Each review platform sets its own rules on asking for and rewarding reviews, so read the current ones before you suggest a process.
What does your tracking count as a conversion, and do you trust the numbers?
Why ask it
Have them open the report, pick one conversion and tell you what the visitor did. Tracking that counts every view of the contact page, or counts nothing at all, turns up often. Fix it before any other work, or the first six months will have no baseline to be judged against.
When a lead becomes a paying customer, is the source recorded anywhere?
Why ask it
Forms and calls are easy to count. Whether they turned into revenue usually lives in a CRM, a booking system or someone's head. Even a column in a spreadsheet is enough to start; without one you can report the number of leads but not their quality, so say that up front.
Which pages bring in the most inquiries today, and do you know why they work?
Why ask it
These are the pages to protect before you change anything. Clients often guess the home page and are surprised to find an old blog post or a single service page doing the heavy lifting. Whatever that page gets right is a pattern you can repeat elsewhere.
Do you run paid search ads, and could we see which search terms have led to sales?
Why ask it
A paid account is quick keyword research, because it shows which phrases produced customers and not only clicks. Request read access in place of a screenshot. If a separate agency runs the ads, ask for an introduction, since findings are worth sharing in both directions.
Is a redesign, a platform move, a rebrand or a domain change planned or being discussed?
Why ask it
Any of these can undo a year of work if SEO is brought in after the decisions are made. The worrying answer is 'the new site launches next month, we will send you the link'. Ask to join the planning now, with redirects and content mapping on the project list.
Does the business own other domains, subdomains or old sites that are still live?
Why ask it
Forgotten microsites, a blog on a separate domain and a staging site left open to search engines all surface this way. Some can be folded into the main site and some should simply be closed off. Get the full list, including domains bought only to keep them from competitors.
Are there pages or wording we must not change without someone's approval?
Why ask it
Regulated industries, franchises and firms with a legal team often have copy that cannot move. What is restricted varies by industry and by country or state, so find out who signs off and how long they take. Better to learn this before you rewrite a service page than after.
Past SEO
Why did you stop working with your last SEO agency or freelancer?
Why ask it
'We never knew what they were doing' asks for clearer reporting, and 'nothing happened' calls for a talk about what was realistic. Find out how long the arrangement ran, too, since three months and three years are different stories. Do not run the last provider down: you have heard one side, and the client chose them.
Can you share what they left behind: audits, keyword research, reports, content plans?
Why ask it
Old documents save you repeating work and show which recommendations were made and never carried out. That second pile matters most, because whatever blocked those fixes then will block yours too. If nothing was handed over, note it and plan a full audit.
Does the old agency, or anyone who has left the business, still have a login to the site or the accounts?
Why ask it
Forgotten logins explain a good many mystery edits, and they are a security gap. The client should remove them, not you: the accounts are theirs, and you do not want to be the one who locked a former supplier out. Find out as well whether the last provider installed anything that is still running, such as a plugin, a tracking script or a set of redirects.
Has anyone built, bought or exchanged links for the site, and is there a record of where?
Why ask it
Keep your tone neutral, since many owners paid for links without knowing what they were buying. A spreadsheet of placements is the best case. 'They got us hundreds of links a month' with no list is the worrying one, and it puts a review of the backlink profile ahead of any outreach of your own.
Has the site ever received a manual action notice in Search Console, or had a sudden drop in traffic?
Why ask it
You will check for yourself once you have access, but the client's memory adds the dates and the story. Line any drop up against what changed on the site at the time: a redesign, a hosting move, a batch of new pages. An unexplained fall that nobody investigated becomes one of your first jobs.
When was the site last rebuilt or moved, and what happened to traffic afterward?
Why ask it
A long decline in traffic often turns out to start on a launch day. Find out whether old URLs were redirected and whether anyone compared before and after. Pages dropped in a rebuild can sometimes be restored or redirected, which makes for an early win.
Has content ever been published in bulk: location pages from a template, outsourced articles, text from an AI tool?
Why ask it
No judgment is needed in the asking; you only have to know what is on the site. Large batches of near-identical pages deserve a read, one at a time, for whether a visitor would find them useful. Find out who wrote them and whether anyone at the business read them before they went up.
What have you been told about SEO, by a past agency or on a sales call, that you are not sure is true?
Why ask it
It gives the client permission to voice the doubts and the myths: first-page promises, secret techniques, a set number of blog posts per week. Answer plainly and without scorn. Whatever they bring up is what your proposal has to address, because the next salesperson to call them will raise it again.
Resources
Who will write the content, and who checks it for accuracy before it goes live?
Why ask it
There are three workable setups: they write and you edit, you write and they review, or you interview their experts and draft from that. Each has a different cost and pace. 'You just handle it' from a technical or regulated business is a warning, because someone who knows the subject has to read every page.
Is there someone in the business who knows the subject deeply and would give us an hour a month?
Why ask it
An hour with an engineer, a nurse or the owner produces details no outside writer could invent. Get the person's name and book the first session before the call ends, or it will keep slipping. If nobody can be spared, plan for less content, produced more slowly, and say why.
Do you have a developer, in-house or on contract, and how does work get into their queue?
Why ask it
Technical recommendations are only worth something once they ship. Learn how requests are submitted, who ranks them and how long the backlog is. If SEO tickets will compete with product features and lose, agree on a fixed share of developer time now or scope the technical work down.
Who approves changes before they go live, and how many people is that?
Why ask it
Count the steps for a title tag change and again for a new page, since they are rarely the same. One approver who answers in two days is workable. A chain through marketing, legal and a regional manager means sending work in batches and building the wait into every date you give.
What do you have that no competitor does: your own data, photos, case studies, customer stories?
Why ask it
Original material is what lets a page say something the other results do not. Job photos on a phone, a spreadsheet of past projects and a folder of customer emails all count. A client who says 'nothing really' usually has plenty and has never been asked, so offer examples.
Who handles your ads, email, social media and PR, and can we be put in touch?
Why ask it
Other teams hold things you need: the PR person wins coverage that could carry a link, the email list can launch new content, the ads team knows which copy converts. You are hoping for names and an introduction. Two suppliers editing the same pages without talking is a risk to flag on the spot.
Who is our day-to-day contact, and can they get an answer out of the business without calling a meeting?
Why ask it
An owner with no time and a junior with no authority slow the work in the same way. What you need is someone who can reach the developer, the approver and the person who knows the product inside a day or two. If nobody fits, propose a plan that needs fewer decisions from their side, and say that it will move more slowly.
Results and budget
When a monthly SEO report arrives, what do you look at first: rankings, traffic, leads or sales?
Why ask it
Whatever they look at first is what they will judge you by, so it belongs on page one even when you would have chosen differently. If that is rankings, put leads beside them so the two get read together. A report from the last provider that they liked, or never opened, is worth asking to see.
How often do you want to hear from us, and would you prefer a call, a written update or a dashboard?
Why ask it
Some clients read every line; others want ten minutes a month and a phone call if something breaks. A mismatch here can sour the relationship even when the numbers are good. Agree on the rhythm, put the first three dates in the calendar and keep them.
What do you expect to have changed by month three, month six and month twelve?
Why ask it
Let them answer before you give your own view. Hopes of big gains in the first few weeks need correcting now, kindly, with reasons specific to their site: its age, its competition, how fast changes can ship. Then describe what the early months do produce, such as fixes live and pages indexed, so the quiet stretch has milestones.
What is the monthly budget, and does it have to cover content, developer time and tools as well as our fee?
Why ask it
Recommendations cost money to carry out: someone has to write the pages and someone has to make the fixes. When that comes from the same budget as your fee, the plan shrinks to fit, and it is better to show the trade-off than to absorb it. If they will not name a figure, ask what they paid the last provider and whether it felt like too much for what they got.
Who else has a say in whether we work together, and what will they want to see in the proposal?
Why ask it
A marketing manager who likes the plan may still need an owner or a finance lead to sign it. Learn whether that person cares most about leads, cost or risk, and put the answer to it on the first page. Twenty minutes with them before the proposal goes out is worth asking for.
Has anyone above you been promised a result or a date already?
Why ask it
Your contact may have told the owner that leads will double by summer. You would much rather hear that now than at the first review. If a promise has been made, find out exactly what was said and help them reset it with a forecast you can stand behind.
Is there a keyword you or the owner checks personally?
Why ask it
There nearly always is one, and it is rarely the most valuable term. Knowing it lets you report on it openly, explain why results differ by location and device, and keep it from becoming the only measure. Leaving it out of the report does not stop anyone from checking it.
If traffic goes up but leads stay flat, what would you want us to do next?
Why ask it
It shows whether the client sees SEO as rankings or as a route to customers, before the situation arises. A good answer opens the door to work on the pages themselves: offers, forms, calls to action. If they say that could not happen, walk them through how it can, using a page from their own site.
Do you expect us to cover AI answers and chat assistants, or only the regular search results?
Why ask it
Settle this before the proposal, because some clients now assume it is included and others have not thought about it. What can be tracked differs from one assistant and one tool to the next, so say plainly which parts you can report and which you can only spot-check. A client who has heard that AI has made SEO pointless needs a look at where their own leads come from, not a debate.
What would you most like to see fixed or shipped in the first month?
Why ask it
An early, visible piece of work buys patience for the slower parts. Choose from what they name here, such as a broken page, a missing service page or a wrong listing, and finish it. It doubles as a test of how quickly their side can approve and publish.
Is there anything in this site's history that you would rather we heard from you than found in the data?
Why ask it
Ask it last, once the client has seen that nothing they said earlier was held against them. The domain bought from a competitor, the redirect that lapsed, the dispute with the old developer or the second website tends to come out here. Thank them for whatever it is, because a client who is punished for candor on the first call stops offering it.
How to run an SEO discovery call
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the call
Look at the site and the results first
Spend twenty minutes before you speak. Search the business name, two or three of its services and its main city, and click through the site as a customer would. Write down what you see so your questions can be specific: 'your pricing page does not appear for its own title' gets a better conversation going than 'tell me about your site'. Do not present an audit on the call. The meeting is for what a crawler cannot tell you: margins, history, people and patience.
Send the access request ahead
List what you would like to see and at what level: analytics, Search Console, the CMS, the business listings and any ad account. Ask to be added as a user on the client's own accounts, with the least access the work needs, and never ask for a shared password. Each tool grants access in its own way and the steps change, so link to the tool's current instructions. A client who cannot find a login before the call has already answered one of the questions under Site and access.
Choose questions by the kind of client
The whole list will not fit into an hour, so mark fifteen or so. For a local service business, lean on where customers are, the business listings, reviews and how calls are counted. For an online store, lean on platform limits, profit by product line and anything planned for the catalog. For a company with a long sales process, the question about whether a lead's source is recorded matters more than any other, because the sale may close months after the search.
Get the person who edits the site on the call
An owner can talk about margin and budget and may know nothing about the CMS. A marketing manager knows the tools and may not be able to approve spending. If the developer or the person who edits the site can join for ten minutes, the questions under Site and access and under Resources get real answers in place of guesses. Otherwise, mark those questions for a follow-up and say who you would like to put them to.
On the call
Start with the business, not the website
Open with what they sell and who buys it. Clients relax when the first ten minutes are about their business in their own terms, and everything technical you ask later makes more sense to them once you have shown you care how the money is made. It also stops the call from turning into a tour of keyword tools before you know which customers are worth winning.
When there is only time for five
A short intro call, or a prospect who has given you fifteen minutes, calls for the group marked Top 5: what they sell and the searches that should bring customers, what a visit should turn into, who owns the accounts, what SEO has been done before, and how they will judge the work. Those five answers are enough to decide whether to send a proposal and what it should contain. Save the rest for onboarding.
Ask to be shown
Where you can, have the client share a screen: the analytics home page, the CMS editor, the report the last agency sent. What people say about their tracking and what the screen shows are often different, and nobody is being dishonest; they simply have not looked in a while. Seeing how long it takes them to find a number tells you how much reporting help they will need.
Say why you are asking about the past
Questions about bought links, old agencies and traffic drops can sound like an accusation. Put a sentence in front of them: you ask every client, the answers change what you check first, and nothing they say will be held against them. Clients who feel judged leave things out, and the things they leave out are the ones you find three months later.
Leave money until the goal is clear
Budget is easier to discuss once the client has said what a customer is worth and what they hope to gain. Asked first, it gets a low number or a refusal. Asked after the goal, it becomes a question about whether the budget fits the ambition, and you can offer a smaller scope or a longer timeline with a straight face.
Reading the answers
Worrying answers change the scope, not always the decision
Accounts held by someone who has left, a site nobody can edit, a result already promised upstairs, an expectation of first-page rankings within weeks: each is common, and none is a reason to walk away by itself. Each one does change what you quote. Lost accounts add recovery time, a locked site adds developer cost, and an inflated promise needs a conversation with whoever heard it before any work starts.
Check what you were told against the data
Treat the call as the client's account and the tools as the record. Once access arrives, compare the two: the share of traffic from search, the pages that bring inquiries, the date of the drop. Where they differ, bring it back as a finding and not a correction. The gap between what a business believes about its search traffic and what the numbers say is often the most useful slide in the first report.
Know when to say no
Some combinations do not work: a goal that depends on content with nobody to write or review it, a three-month window for a brand new site in a crowded market, a budget that covers your fee and none of the work your recommendations would create. Say what would have to change for you to take it on. A prospect who hears a clear, reasoned no sometimes comes back with the missing piece.
After the call
Put the open items in writing
Within a day or two, email what is still outstanding: each account you have not been added to, each document that was promised, each question that needed someone who was not on the call, with a name and a date beside it. Add the goal as the client phrased it and the measure you settled on, and invite them to fix anything you misheard. When memories differ six months in, this is the email both sides go back to.
Record a baseline before you touch anything
On the day access arrives, save the starting figures: search traffic, leads or sales from search, the positions of the terms they care about, and the state of the tracking itself. Date it. Every later report is a comparison with this page, and if tracking was broken at the start, write that down too so an apparent jump after you fix it is not mistaken for growth.
Bring their answers back in the first report
Open the first report with the figure they said they look at first and the first-month fix they asked for. Quote their own definition of success at the top. It shows that the discovery call was listened to, and it keeps the reporting tied to what the business wanted and not to whatever happened to go up that month.