What Questions to Ask a Local SEO Company
Twenty questions for vetting a local SEO agency before you sign, covering who owns your Google Business Profile and website accounts, what is actually delivered each month, contract exit terms, how they get reviews and links, and which numbers should appear in the reporting. Written for owners of small businesses that serve a town or a service area.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Which of your current clients could I call, ideally one in a trade like mine?
Why ask it
A live client on the phone is worth more than any case study, because you can ask what the reporting is like and whether calls actually increased. An agency that cannot produce one has either no long-term clients or no happy ones.
Can you tell me about a client where this didn't work, and why?
Why ask it
Everyone has one, and the answer separates practitioners from salespeople. Useful answers involve a market that was too competitive, a website nobody would let them fix, or a client who never answered the phone.
Who will actually do the work, and is any of it subcontracted?
Why ask it
The person selling is frequently not the person delivering. Ask who your day-to-day contact is, how many accounts they carry, and whether content or citation work is passed to a third party you will never speak to.
What exactly lands in month one, and in a normal month after that?
Why ask it
You want a list of deliverables, not a description of a discipline. If the answer stays at the level of optimization and strategy, ask what file, page or listing change you will be able to point at on the thirtieth day.
How many hours a month am I buying, and how are they tracked?
Why ask it
Retainers are often sold as outcomes and delivered as a fixed number of hours. Knowing the number tells you whether your budget buys real work or mostly a report, and it makes the price comparable between agencies.
How long is the contract, and how do I get out of it?
Why ask it
Ask for the notice period, any minimum term, and what happens to work in progress. Twelve-month lock-ins with no exit are common in this industry and are the main reason owners feel trapped with an agency they no longer trust.
Will my Google Business Profile stay under my own account, with me as the primary owner?
Why ask it
This is the question that protects your most valuable local asset. Add the agency as a manager on your own account rather than letting them create or hold the profile, or leaving can mean losing control of your listing and its reviews.
When we part ways, who owns the website, the domain, the analytics and the Search Console property?
Why ask it
Get every account created under your own email address and keep the domain registered in your name. Agencies that host, register and own everything can hold a business hostage without doing anything unlawful.
What happens to the listings and citations you build if I stop paying?
Why ask it
Some citation work is done through subscription tools that revert the moment the subscription lapses. Ask which listings are permanent and which are rented, because that distinction changes what your money is buying.
Would you put a tracking number on my listing, and how does that work alongside my real number?
Why ask it
Call tracking is genuinely useful, but replacing your main number across listings can undo years of consistency. Ask how they keep the primary number intact and what happens to the tracking number if the relationship ends.
Would you change my business name, categories or address on Google, and why?
Why ask it
Categories and service areas are legitimate levers. Adding keywords to the business name is not permitted under Google's guidelines and can get a listing suspended, so an agency that suggests it is offering you their own risk to carry.
How do you get reviews, and what exactly do you ask customers to do?
Why ask it
Asking every customer for an honest review is fine. Filtering out unhappy customers before the ask, offering incentives, or writing reviews on a client's behalf all breach platform policies and can cost you the reviews you already have.
Where do the links come from, and do you pay for any of them?
Why ask it
You are listening for local sponsorships, suppliers, trade bodies, chambers, press and directories that people actually use. Purchased links and private blog networks breach Google's spam policies, and the penalty lands on your site rather than on the agency.
Who writes the content, and will anyone who knows my trade check it?
Why ask it
Local pages fail when they are written by someone who has never done the work, because customers can tell within a sentence. Ask to see two pages written for a client in a comparable trade and judge whether you would sign your name to them.
What will the monthly report contain?
Why ask it
Calls, direction requests, form submissions and booked jobs are the numbers that matter. Reports built on keyword rankings and impressions can look excellent through a period in which the phone did not ring once.
What does a realistic timeline look like, and how should month three differ from month nine?
Why ask it
Honest answers describe listing and review improvements first and organic gains later, with caveats about competition. Anyone promising fast top rankings, or guaranteeing a position at all, is describing something nobody can guarantee.
Rankings change depending on where the searcher is standing, so how do you handle that?
Why ask it
A good answer mentions measuring from different points across your service area rather than a single city-level check. An agency reporting one ranking number per keyword is measuring the wrong thing, sometimes conveniently.
Do you work with any of my direct competitors in this area?
Why ask it
In local search you and your competitor are contesting the same map results, so the conflict is real rather than theoretical. Ask what exclusivity they offer by trade and radius, and get it in the contract if it matters.
Do you own any lead generation sites in my industry?
Why ask it
Some agencies rank their own directory or lead site in your market and sell the leads back to businesses like yours. That is a direct conflict with improving your visibility, and it will not be mentioned unless you ask.
If we stopped working together in a year, what would I still have?
Why ask it
The best closing question, because it forces them to separate durable assets, pages, reviews, listings, links, from rented ones. An answer that amounts to nothing but the reports tells you what the retainer was really for.
Vetting and managing an agency
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Do these yourself first
- 1Claim and verify your Google Business Profile under an email address you control, and check that your name, address, phone number and opening hours are correct everywhere they appear.
- 2Choose your primary category carefully and add the secondary ones that fit. This single field influences which searches you show up for more than most on-site work does.
- 3Add real photographs, current hours including holidays, and the services you actually offer with prices where you can.
- 4Reply to every review, including the bad ones, in plain language. Nobody outsources this well.
- 5Do all of it before you hire anyone. It costs nothing, it fixes a surprising share of local visibility problems, and it means you are paying an agency for the hard part rather than the obvious part.
Keep control of your accounts
- Every account should be created with your own email as owner: Google Business Profile, Analytics, Search Console, the domain registrar, the hosting, the website admin, any ad accounts.
- Add the agency as a manager or user rather than transferring ownership, and remove that access on the day the relationship ends.
- Keep the domain registration in your business name, with your own contact details and your own renewal reminders.
- Ask for content and page files in a form you can take with you, and check that the website is not built on a proprietary platform only they can host.
- Write the exit down: what gets handed over, in what format, within how many days.
Warning signs
- Guaranteed rankings, guaranteed positions, or a promise of a specific spot on the first page within a set number of weeks.
- Reporting that consists only of rankings, impressions or a page of graphs with no call or inquiry data.
- Reluctance to explain where links come from, or a link package sold by volume.
- Any suggestion of keyword-stuffing your business name, creating listings at addresses you do not occupy, or setting up profiles for locations that do not exist.
- Review schemes that filter unhappy customers, offer incentives, or produce a suspicious burst of five-star reviews in one week.
- A long contract with no exit clause, or pressure to sign at the first meeting.
Structuring the arrangement
- Start with a paid audit as a standalone piece of work. It gives you their thinking, a plan you own, and a sample of how they communicate, for a fraction of a year's retainer.
- Agree a first phase of about ninety days with named deliverables and a review date, rather than an open-ended retainer.
- Define success in your terms before work starts: calls per week, booked jobs, inquiries from the ZIP codes you can serve profitably.
- Track leads on your side too, even on paper. Ask every caller how they found you, and you will know within a month whether the reports match reality.
- Keep one thirty-minute call a month with the person doing the work, not the account manager. It is the cheapest quality control available.