How to Choose an SEO Agency: 12 Questions to Ask (and the Red Flags)

Every SEO agency pitch sounds much the same. More visibility, more enquiries, a tailored strategy, monthly reporting. If you have hired one before, you may also know how it can go wrong: a contract you couldn’t get out of, reports full of numbers nobody explained, or months of fees with no clear idea what was actually done to your website.

So how do you tell a good agency from a bad one before you sign, when you aren’t a marketer yourself? Below are 12 questions to put to any agency or freelancer, with what a good answer and a worrying answer sound like for each, followed by the red flags Google itself warns about and a checklist for ownership and contract terms. Wherever possible, the referee is Google’s own published guidance rather than any agency’s opinion.

A note on interest: Get Found is an SEO agency, so we have a stake in this topic. These are questions we would expect to be asked ourselves, and they work just as well on anyone else on your shortlist.

Google’s guide Do you need an SEO? (updated 5 June 2026) warns that hiring the wrong SEO risks damage to your site and reputation, and it is blunt about where the risk lands: “you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire.” If an agency breaks Google’s rules on your behalf, it’s your website that pays for it, not theirs.

First: do you need an agency at all?

Google answers this more candidly than most agencies do. In the same guide, it says that if you run a small local business, you can probably do much of the work yourself, and points owners to its free SEO Starter Guide. Its generative AI guidance goes further, noting that plenty of content does well in Google Search without any overt SEO at all.

If you’re not sure what the term covers, our explainer on what SEO stands for and what it involves is a quick primer. For the basics you can handle yourself, such as getting your Google Business Profile right, making sure your site says clearly what you do and where, and asking happy customers for reviews, see our guide to getting more customers for your local business.

Outside help starts to make sense when you don’t have the time, when you have tried the basics and they haven’t moved things, when competitors are clearly ahead, or when there’s a technical problem you can’t diagnose. Google also says a good time to hire is when you’re planning a new website or a redesign, and the earlier the better, so that search-friendliness is built in from the start rather than patched on later.

Know what you want before you shortlist

Agencies will happily sell you “rankings for keywords”. What you actually want is almost certainly something more concrete: more phone calls, more enquiry forms, more bookings, more people through the door, usually from a particular area and for particular services.

Write that down in a sentence before you talk to anyone. For example: “More enquiries for boiler installations from within 20 miles of our office.” It gives every agency the same brief, makes their answers comparable, and gives you something to measure them against later. If an agency can’t connect its plan to that sentence, you’ve learned something useful.

If budget is the first thing on your mind, our guide to how much SEO costs in the UK covers pricing, which this article leaves out on purpose.

The 12 questions to ask an SEO agency

You don’t need to read these out word for word; the point is to hear how an agency explains itself. Several build directly on the questions Google’s guide suggests.

1. Can you show me work for businesses like mine?

Google suggests asking for examples of previous work and whether the agency has experience in your industry and your country or city. A firm that has helped local trades or clinics is more likely to understand how your customers search than one used to national online retailers.

A good answer: specific examples from comparable businesses, with a plain explanation of what the agency did and what changed as a result. They should be able to say why that work is relevant to you.

A worrying answer: a wall of logos or awards with no detail, or “every business is basically the same”.

2. Can I speak to a few of your clients?

Google recommends checking references and asking past clients whether the service was useful, whether the agency was easy to work with, and whether it produced positive results. A conversation tells you things a polished testimonial won’t.

A good answer: an offer to put you in touch with two or three current or past clients, without fuss.

A worrying answer: a refusal, or a stack of written testimonials instead of anyone you can actually ring.

3. What results do you expect, by when, and how will you measure them?

Google lists this question almost exactly: what results do you expect to see, in what timeframe, and how do you measure success? It also says an SEO audit should give realistic estimates of the likely improvement and the work involved.

Timing is genuinely hard to predict. Google’s own SEO Starter Guide says changes can take effect in anything from a few hours to several months, and suggests waiting a few weeks before judging whether a change worked. Be sceptical of anyone who sounds more certain than Google does.

A good answer: realistic ranges tied to your goal, honest caveats, and a clear account of what’s outside their control, such as competitors, Google’s updates and how quickly you can supply information.

A worrying answer: a promise of a specific position, or of page one by a specific date. Google’s advice is to find someone else if an SEO guarantees first place, because no one can guarantee a number one ranking on Google.

4. Do you follow Google Search Essentials, and can you show me the guidance behind your advice?

Google Search Essentials are the rules Google sets for websites that want to appear in its results, including its spam policies. Breaking them can get a site ranked lower or removed altogether. Google suggests asking whether an agency follows them, and whether its recommendations cite official Google documentation.

A good answer: yes, and they can point you to the relevant Google page when they recommend something.

A worrying answer: “Google’s rules don’t really matter”, talk of loopholes or tricks, or a claim that they have a special relationship with Google. Google says it never accepts money to include or rank sites in its organic results, and that advertising with Google has no effect on them.

5. What will you do first, who will do it, and will you tell me about every change?

Google suggests asking whether the agency will share all the changes it makes to your site and explain its recommendations and reasoning. It also warns against companies that are secretive or won’t clearly say what they intend to do, noting that deceptive work could get your site removed from Google’s index. Its Starter Guide adds that there are no secrets that will automatically rank a site first.

It’s also fair to ask who will actually do the work. Some agencies pass parts of it to freelancers or other firms. That isn’t wrong in itself, but you should know who is working on your site and who is accountable if something goes wrong.

A good answer: a written plan for the first few months, a named contact, a log of changes, and explanations you can follow without a marketing degree.

A worrying answer: “our methods are proprietary”, vague answers about who does the work, or changes made to your site without telling you.

6. How will you get other websites to link to us?

Link building means getting other websites to link to yours, and it’s an area Google polices closely. Google’s spam policies (updated 28 August 2026) treat buying or selling links to manipulate rankings as link spam, along with excessive link swaps, automated link building, low-quality directory links, and articles or press releases containing links that pass ranking value. Paid links are fine only when they’re marked with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow", which tells Google not to count them.

The same policies cover expired domain abuse: buying old domains and filling them with low-value content to manipulate rankings. Networks of sites set up to pass links, often called private blog networks or PBNs in the industry, fall under these rules even though Google’s policy doesn’t use that term.

A good answer: links earned through real connections to your business, such as local partnerships, suppliers, community sponsorships, press coverage and useful content. Any paid placements are clearly marked as sponsored.

A worrying answer: “link packages”, a set number of links per month from sites they control, mass directory submissions, or a request that you link to their website. Google says you should never have to link to an SEO.

7. How do you create content, and where does AI come in?

Google’s spam policies define scaled content abuse as producing many pages mainly to manipulate rankings, “no matter how it’s created”. That explicitly includes using generative AI to churn out pages that add no value. Google’s July 2026 AI guidance adds that creating lots of pages for slight variations of a query, to try to influence AI answers, breaks the same policy.

Using AI isn’t the issue. Volume without value is.

A good answer: content built on what you know about your trade and your customers, reviewed by a person, and focused on pages people will actually find useful. They can explain how AI fits into that process, if at all.

A worrying answer: hundreds of pages in a few weeks, or a near-identical page for every town and keyword variation with nothing new on each one.

8. What will you do with our Google Business Profile and reviews?

Your Google Business Profile is the free listing that shows your business on Google Maps and in local results, with your hours, photos and reviews. Google’s AI guidance also names Business Profiles as one of the ways local business information can appear in its AI responses as well as in Search.

Two things in this area can do real damage. Google’s guidelines for representing your business say that adding extra information such as taglines, locations or service keywords to your business name isn’t permitted and could get your profile suspended. And in the UK, fake reviews are now illegal: the CMA confirmed in April 2025 that the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act includes an explicit ban on posting and commissioning fake reviews, and that it can now fine businesses up to 10% of global turnover for breaking consumer law.

A good answer: keeping your profile accurate and complete, using your real business name, adding genuine photos and updates, and helping you ask real customers for reviews.

A worrying answer: “we’ll add your main keywords to your business name”, or any offer to write, buy or arrange reviews for you.

9. How do you approach AI search?

Google now shows AI-generated answers in search results through AI Overviews (the summary at the top of some results) and AI Mode (a separate conversational search), and people also search through tools such as ChatGPT. You’ll hear work in this area sold as “AEO” or “GEO” (answer engine or generative engine optimisation). Google’s hiring guide now suggests asking whether that advice is aligned with Google’s official guidance on its AI features.

That guidance, updated 10 July 2026, is refreshingly direct. Google says normal SEO best practice still applies because its AI features are built on its core ranking and quality systems, and that many suggested AI “hacks” aren’t effective. For Google Search, it says you can ignore llms.txt and other special AI files, “chunking” content into small pieces, rewriting content just for AI, chasing inauthentic mentions, and special AI schema. For a fuller explanation, see our guide to what AI SEO actually involves.

A good answer: strong SEO fundamentals plus an accurate Google Business Profile; a check that your site isn’t blocking the crawlers AI tools rely on (for example, OpenAI says sites that block its OAI-SearchBot crawler won’t appear in ChatGPT’s search answers); and measurement through Google Search Console (Google’s free tool showing how your site appears in search), which now includes a report on performance in Google’s generative AI features.

A worrying answer: a secret AI formula, or llms.txt files, content “chunking” or fake mentions sold as essential.

10. What will your reports show, and how do they connect to calls, enquiries and sales?

Google suggests asking how an agency measures success and how it will communicate with you. A report should help you decide whether the money is well spent. Rankings for obscure phrases and traffic totals on their own don’t tell you that.

A good answer: a regular report that shows what work was done, what changed, what’s planned next, and how it connects to the goal you wrote down: calls, form enquiries, bookings or sales. Much of this data will come from Search Console, which also shows which searches bring visitors, and Google Analytics (which shows what visitors do once they arrive).

A worrying answer: reports that only show rankings for terms nobody searches for, graphs with no explanation, or an agency that wants you to supply the keywords and never questions whether anyone actually uses them.

11. Who will own our website, domain and Google accounts, and what access do you need?

This question decides how easily you can leave an agency later. The accounts that hold your online presence should be in your name, with the agency given access, not the other way round. Google’s permission systems make this straightforward. In Search Console, owners have full control and can add or remove users, while users can only view data and take limited actions. On a Google Business Profile, there is one primary owner, and managers can do most day-to-day tasks but can’t add or remove people or delete the profile. Each person uses their own Google Account, so there’s no need to share passwords.

Google also advises that for an audit you should give an SEO read-only access to Search Console, not the ability to make changes.

A good answer: “You’ll stay the owner of everything. Add us as a manager or user, and read-only access is fine for the audit.”

A worrying answer: registering your domain, profile or accounts in the agency’s name, asking for your passwords, or insisting on full control before they’ve even audited your site.

12. What’s the minimum term and notice period, and what happens if we leave?

We know of no official UK standard for SEO contract length, so the only terms that count are the ones in your contract. A contract you can’t leave takes away your main leverage when the work isn’t delivering.

A good answer: a clearly stated minimum term and notice period, no automatic renewal you might miss, and a written confirmation that you keep the content, the website and your accounts if you leave.

A worrying answer: a long lock-in, auto-renewal with a long notice period, exit fees, or vagueness about who owns the work you’ve paid for.

Red flags at a glance

If you only have a minute before a sales call, this is the list to keep in front of you.

Red flag	Why it matters	Based on
Guaranteed number one or page-one rankings	Google says no one can guarantee a top ranking and advises finding someone else	Google, Do you need an SEO?
Claims of a “special relationship” with Google or “priority submit”	Google doesn’t accept money to rank sites organically	Google, Do you need an SEO?
Cold emails promising rankings	Google says to be wary of SEO firms that email you out of the blue	Google, Do you need an SEO?
Secret or “proprietary” methods they won’t explain	Deceptive work can get your site removed from Google, and you’re responsible for it	Google, Do you need an SEO?; SEO Starter Guide
Asking you to link to their website	Google says you should never have to link to an SEO	Google, Do you need an SEO?
Buying links, link packages, networks of sites, mass directory submissions	Link spam can lower your rankings or remove your site from results	Google spam policies
Hundreds of pages fast, or one thin page per town or keyword	Counts as scaled content abuse, however it’s produced	Google spam policies; AI guidance
llms.txt, “chunking” or fake mentions sold as essential for AI search	Google says you can ignore these for its search	Google generative AI guidance
Keywords added to your business name	Can get your Business Profile suspended	Google Business Profile guidelines
Writing, buying or arranging reviews	Posting and commissioning fake reviews is banned under UK law	CMA, April 2025
Agency owns your domain or accounts, or wants your passwords	Makes leaving hard and puts your assets out of your control	Google Search Console and Business Profile help; our advice
Long lock-ins, auto-renewal, exit fees	Removes your ability to walk away if the work isn’t delivering	Our advice
Reports with only rankings or traffic, no link to enquiries	You can’t judge whether the spend is worthwhile	Our advice
Unclear who actually does the work	Nobody is clearly accountable for what happens to your site	Our advice

Before you sign: the ownership and contract checklist

Run through this before you put your name to anything.

Ownership and access

• Domain name: check who is listed as the registrant (the person or business the domain is registered to) with your domain registrar. It should be your business, not the agency.
• Website and hosting: you should have your own admin login to the website and the hosting account, not just a login the agency can switch off.
• Google Business Profile: you should be the primary owner. The agency should be added as a manager.
• Google Search Console: you should be a verified owner. The agency should be added as a user, with read-only access during an audit. If a previous agency was a verified owner, Google notes you also need to remove their verification token, or they can simply re-verify.
• Google Analytics: the account should be yours, with the agency added as a user.

Contract terms

• The minimum term and the notice period, in writing.
• Whether the contract renews automatically, and how much notice you need to give to stop it.
• Any exit or cancellation fees.
• Who owns the content, pages and other work produced, and confirmation you keep it all if you leave.
• What the agency will hand back or remove when you part ways, including its access to your accounts.
• What you’ll receive each month, including the report and the change log.

Making the decision

Once you’ve spoken to two or three agencies, put their answers side by side against the goal you wrote down at the start.

Pay attention to what they asked you, too. Google suggests a good SEO should be interested in your business: what makes you different, who your competitors are, and how customers find you now. An agency that spends the whole call talking about itself hasn’t started thinking about your problem.

The boldest promise rarely belongs to the strongest choice. Look for the agency that explained its plan in words you understood, showed you comparable work and let you speak to its clients, gave realistic answers about results, and left you owning your accounts with a contract you can walk away from. If two agencies are close, go with the one that was more open with you. How open they are before you sign is the best early clue you’ll get to how they’ll behave afterwards.

And if none of them passes, that’s a useful result too. You can go back to doing the basics yourself and try again later with sharper questions.

Put these questions to us

Everything above applies to Get Found as much as to anyone else, so if we’re on your shortlist, ask us all 12.

We’re an SEO agency in Worcester, based at 39 Foregate Street, with a second office in Stockport, and we’ve been doing this for 22 years. We work with businesses across the UK on local SEO, AI SEO and web design, and we don’t tie clients into long contracts.

If you’d like a starting point for that conversation, request a free visibility audit.