Questions to Ask Before Hiring an SEO Agency

The top results for this search offer 12 questions, 15, 22 and 25. Google offers eight. Google's list is on its own page, Do you need an SEO?, and it is the one to start from, because it was written by the people who decide the rankings. Below are Google's eight, what a good answer sounds like, the warning signs Google names, and the questions we would add.

What questions should you ask an SEO agency?

Google's eight, in its words, with what to listen for:

"Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?" A good answer is pages you can open yourself, with dates, and a client you could call. A deck of logos is not an answer.
"Do you follow the Google Search Essentials?" A good answer is yes, followed by what that rules out for your site: bought links, pages written only for search engines, content copied from elsewhere. Hesitation here ends the conversation.
"What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe?" A good answer puts a timeline in writing and names the early signs of progress (pages indexed, impressions for the searches you care about) before it names traffic. Ours is on our SEO page: month one looks like research, month three shows movement on long-tail searches, month six looks like momentum.
"What's your experience in my industry?" A good answer names what is different about searching in your industry: who the buyer is, which terms they use, which competitors own the results.
"What's your experience in my country/city?" For a business in India, that means knowing Google Business Profile, Justdial, Sulekha and IndiaMART, and which of them your customers actually use.
"What's your experience developing international sites?" Only matters if you sell across borders. If you do, ask how they handle language and country versions of pages.
"How long have you been in business?" A young agency can be a good one. The better question is how long the people doing your work have done it, and what they did before.
"How can I expect to communicate with you?" A good answer names a person, a rhythm (weekly or monthly) and what each report will show.

What are the red flags?

Google names them plainly, and they are worth reading in its own words:

Guarantees: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a 'special relationship' with Google, or advertise a 'priority submit' to Google."
Cold outreach: "Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that email you out of the blue."
Secrecy: "Be careful if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do."
Shortcuts: "Avoid SEOs that talk about link popularity schemes or submitting your site to thousands of search engines."
Access: at the audit stage, "grant read access to Search Console (at this stage, don't grant them write access)."

What would we add to the list?

Five questions of our own, from the other side of the table:

What will you change in the first 30 days, and where will I see it? The answer should be a list of fixes you can check, not "research".
Which three searches will you go after first, and why those three? You want to hear about buyers, not volume alone.
How will you report AI answers, not only rankings? Some searches now end in an AI answer that cites a few sources, so an agency should be able to show whether you are one of them. We explain the difference in AEO vs GEO vs SEO.
Who owns the content, the accounts and the data if we stop working together? You should, all of it.
What won't you do? A good agency has a list. Ours starts with guaranteed rankings.

How much should SEO cost?

It depends on the scope, and we won't quote market rates we can't source. What you can judge is the shape of the price. A fee should come with a list of what gets done each month. A monthly retainer with no deliverables attached is a subscription to hope.

When should you hire an SEO agency?

Before you rebuild your site, not after. Google says "a great time to hire is when you're considering a site redesign (the earlier, the better), or planning to launch a new site." We learned why on our own site: until August 2026 a routing bug made every URL serve search engines the homepage, so Google saw one page where there were dozens. Nobody notices a problem like that from the outside, and it is exactly what an audit is for.

Google also says: "If you run a small local business, you can probably do much of the work yourself." That is true, and a good agency will tell you so when it applies.

Questions

Should an SEO agency guarantee rankings?

No. Google says: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." An agency can guarantee the work it will do, such as fixes shipped, pages published and reports delivered. It can't guarantee where Google ranks you.

Can I do SEO myself instead of hiring an agency?

Often, yes, especially for a small local business. Google recommends starting with its SEO starter guide, which describes much of what an SEO will do. Hire when the site is complex, the market is competitive, or you are about to rebuild.

What should an SEO agency report every month?

What changed on the site, which searches you now appear for and where, clicks and leads from organic search, and what is planned next. From 2026, add whether AI answers cite you for the searches you care about.

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