How to Choose an SEO Agency: 6 Criteria to Check Before a Quote

The first thing to check when choosing an SEO agency is that it does not guarantee rankings. The second is that its proposal is based on your site's real data. The third is that it agrees to explain every change it makes to your site, with the reason. All three appear in Google's own guidance on hiring an SEO. The six criteria below turn that guidance, plus the problems we often find on sites we take over, into questions you can ask in the proposal meeting.

What does an SEO agency actually do?

Google lists the useful services SEO specialists and agencies offer: reviewing your site's content and structure, giving technical advice on topics such as hosting, redirects, error pages and the use of JavaScript, developing content, doing keyword research, offering expertise in specific markets and regions, and optimizing for generative AI features. The same guide reminds you that advertising with Google does not affect organic rankings and that appearing in organic results is free.

According to Google, the best time to bring in SEO is when you are considering a site redesign or planning to launch a new site. If you are a small local business, you can do a large part of the work yourself with Google's starter guide; if you do hire an agency, knowing these basics makes it easier to spot a wrong approach.

1. Does the agency guarantee rankings?

Google's guidance is clear: no one can guarantee a number one ranking on Google. It advises caution with SEOs that guarantee rankings, claim a "special relationship" with Google, or sell "priority submission" to Google. A guarantee usually means either a keyword nobody searches for, or methods that work in the short term and can later bring a penalty.

A good answer sounds like this: "We commit to what we will do, in what order, and how we will measure it; not to a position."

2. Is the proposal based on your site's data?

A proposal prepared without looking at your site is a package sale. A good agency diagnoses the current state first: which queries do you appear for, which pages get impressions but no clicks, and what technical blockers exist? That diagnosis is done with Search Console and analytics data. In a concrete diagnosis you should see at least: impressions and clicks by page, the reasons pages are not indexed, mobile speed issues, duplicate or competing pages, and the questions where competitors appear and you do not. This list sets the priorities of the monthly plan and shows which measure will be used to track progress.

Google makes an important recommendation here: if an agency offers an audit, give it read-only access to Search Console at that stage, not write access. Search Console has owner, full user and restricted user roles, and only an owner can grant permissions to others. Stay the owner of the property and give the agency only the access it needs. As Google also notes, the audit itself should be realistic: an audit report that says "these changes will get you to number one" is reason enough to look for another agency.

3. Will it explain every change it makes to your site?

One of the questions Google suggests asking an agency is exactly this: will you share all the changes you make to the site with us, and explain your recommendations and the reasons behind them? The guide also stresses that if the agency has access to your server, it should be able to explain every change it made, and that you are ultimately responsible for the actions of the companies you hire.

In practice, this means a change log should be kept, major changes (URL structure, redirects, templates) should be tested in a staging environment first, and your approval should be obtained before release. If you part ways, the answer to "what did you change and why?" should be in that log.

4. Does it build links and content within the rules?

Google's spam policies explicitly treat buying or selling links for money or products in order to influence rankings as link spam. The hiring guide also advises avoiding SEOs that talk about "link popularity schemes" or submitting your site to "thousands of search engines". Ask the agency how it earns links; if the answer is paid articles and link packages, walk away.

The question on the content side is the same: which pages will be written, for whom, and to answer which search intent? Keyword stuffing or producing hundreds of near-identical city pages is a shortcut, not a lasting result. We cover ethical link earning in our article on link building done right.

5. Are its AI search recommendations consistent with Google's guidance?

AI search services sold under names such as "AEO" or "GEO" have become common. Google's guide suggests a question here too: are the agency's recommendations for AI experiences consistent with Google's official guidance for its generative AI features? The guide adds that third-party tools do not have access to Google's internal ranking data, and that you should be careful with tools claimed to be "Google approved".

Ask the agency which official documentation its recommendations rest on. We explain how visibility in answer engines such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity differs from classic SEO in our guide to generative engine optimization vs SEO.

6. Are reporting, timing and exit terms in writing?

Two of the questions Google suggests are useful here: what kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success? Technical fixes can show an effect within weeks; content and authority build up over months. A good report does not stop at a rankings table; it shows which pages organic traffic comes from and whether that traffic turns into forms, calls or sales. The data should be verifiable in your own Search Console and analytics accounts.

The contract should state scope and what is out of scope (how many pages, which technical tasks, whether content is included), reporting frequency, the commitment period and what is handed over at exit. The content produced and the technical improvements made stay on your site; no work should disappear when you change agencies. A trap we see often is content and link work done on the agency's own domains or blogs; when you leave, that work does not come with you. Have the contract state where the work will be done.

Checklist before you request a quote

• Is there a ranking guarantee or a promise of a "special relationship with Google"?
• Is the proposal based on Search Console and analytics data?
• Is read-only access enough for the audit stage, and are you the owner of the property?
• Will changes be made with a change log and your approval?
• Do the link and content methods comply with Google's spam policies?
• Are the AI search recommendations based on official documentation?
• Are the expected timeframe, success metrics and exit terms in writing?

You can ask us the same questions; we explain how we work on our SEO service page.