Guide Search visibility
How to choose an SEO company: what to ask and what to be wary of
By Studio Swing
A useful SEO provider can tell you what they will change on your site, why, how they will report progress, and what they cannot promise. A weak one sells a result: a ranking, a number of visitors, a date. Google publishes its own advice on hiring an SEO, and most of this guide rests on it. The short version: ask for examples and explanations, give read-only access first, and walk away from anyone who guarantees first place. We sell SEO foundations and content strategy ourselves, so you should weigh what follows with that in mind. Every test below applies to us too.
On this page
Three proposals on one desk
Say you run a furniture workshop that builds to order. Over a fortnight you collect three SEO proposals.
The first arrives by cold email and says your site “is not listed in the major search engines.” It offers a fixed monthly fee and a guarantee that you will be first on Google for “custom furniture”. It does not say what will be changed.
The second is a PDF with an impressive dashboard screenshot and a list of tools. The words “AI-optimized” appear four times. It never says which pages will change or what you will see in a month.
The third is a plain document. It says what they will review first, which pages they would write or restructure and why, how they will report, what they will need access to, and what they cannot control. It names no guaranteed position.
None of them mentions price in a way you can compare. The skill is not to find the cheapest. It is to find the one that tells you what you are buying.
First, do you need to hire anyone?
Google's own page on hiring an SEO starts with this question. It says that if you run a small local business, you can probably do much of the work yourself, and recommends starting with its SEO Starter Guide, which "describes much of what your SEO will do for you." Reading it also helps you notice if a provider suggests something Google discourages.
It also says when hiring tends to pay off: "a great time to hire is when you're considering a site redesign (the earlier, the better), or planning to launch a new site," so the site can be search-friendly "from the bottom up". A good SEO can help an existing site too.
If your site is a small brochure for a business that gets most of its work by recommendation, the Starter Guide and Search Console may be enough to start. Our guide to what SEO does for a business website explains the work in plain terms so you can judge how much of it you need. And it costs nothing to appear in Google's organic results: Google says it "never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results."
What a provider can legitimately do for you
Google lists services that SEOs and agencies commonly provide: a review of your site's content or structure, technical advice on development (hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript), content development, keyword research, SEO training, expertise in specific markets and geographies, and advice on optimizing for generative AI. Use that list as a measure of a proposal. If a quote does not map to any of it, ask what you are paying for.
Questions to ask
Google's page gives a list of questions to put to a prospective SEO. Here they are, with what a good answer sounds like.
“Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?”
A good provider can show work and explain what was changed. Be sensible about what examples prove: a screenshot of a ranking does not show that the ranking brought customers. Ask what changed on the site and what the business saw.
“Do you follow the Google Search Essentials?”
The right answer is yes, followed by a specific example. Google's spam policies, covered in its Search Essentials, describe practices that can lower a site's presence or remove it from results.
“What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?”
A good answer explains what the timing depends on and how progress is shown. A date or a position stated as a certainty is a bad one. Our guide on how long SEO takes to work explains why.
“What's your experience in my industry? In my country or city? With international sites?”
Relevant experience matters because search habits differ by market and language. It is not a reason to accept a provider who cannot explain the work.
“How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share all the changes you make to my site, and give detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning?”
You should be able to see what changed and why. Google adds that if an SEO has access to your server, “they should be willing to explain all the changes they are making to your site.”
“How long have you been in business?”
Treat the answer as one input, not a verdict. A newer provider with clear explanations can beat an older one who hides behind jargon.
Google adds two checks that go beyond questions. First, see whether the SEO is interested in you: they should ask what makes your business unique, who your competitors are, and how your customers find you. If they do not ask, “find someone who is” interested. Second, ask for references and talk to past clients about whether the provider was easy to work with and produced useful results.
Warning signs, from Google's own list
• A guarantee of first place. Google says no one can guarantee a top ranking on Google, and says to beware of anyone who claims to guarantee rankings, alleges a "special relationship" with Google, or advertises a "priority submit." Search results are Google's decision, and they move.
• An email out of the blue. Google says to be wary of firms that email you unprompted, and that it gets these spam emails too.
• Secrecy. "Be careful if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do." Google warns that if an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content for you, your site could be removed from its index, and that "you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire."
• Link schemes and mass submission. "You should never have to link to an SEO." Google says to avoid anyone talking about link popularity schemes or submitting your site to thousands of search engines, which it calls typically useless.
• Tools presented as approved by Google. Google does not evaluate or endorse third-party SEO tools, and those tools do not have access to its internal ranking data. Be wary of any tool that claims to be "acceptable" or "approved" by Google Search.
• Advice that cannot be traced to Google's documentation. Google suggests asking whether the provider cites official Google documentation for their recommendations, and, for anyone selling "AEO" or "GEO" services, whether their advice matches Google's own guidance on its AI features. Our guide to ranking in ChatGPT and AI search explains what that guidance says.
Access: what to give, and when
Providers often start with an audit. Google's advice is specific: consider carefully what an audit involves, and "only grant read access to Search Console (at this stage, don't grant them write access)." An audit should give you realistic estimates of improvement and of the work involved. If someone promises first place from their changes, Google says to find someone else.
Beyond that, a few ownership points are your call. The accounts for Search Console, analytics and your domain should be registered in your business's name, with the provider added as a user, so you keep control if you part ways. Ask for a written list of what will be changed on your site, and for the changes to be documented as they are made.
What we do and do not sell
We plan, design and build websites, and we offer standalone SEO and content strategy and analytics and measurement. Here is what that means in practice.
What we do. We research what your customers search for, and plan where each search is answered, so every important search has exactly one page and pages do not compete with each other. Each page gets a written brief before design. We list the technical problems that stop Google reading your pages, and your scope states which fixes we make. Before launch, we check titles, descriptions, the sitemap and redirects. You receive the search research, a page plan with a brief for each page, and a list of technical fixes in order of importance. Any recurring work is agreed in writing before it starts.
What we do not sell. We do not promise rankings, traffic or sales, and no one honestly can.
When you do not need us. If a website builder is enough for what you need, we will say so. And if you are comfortable with the Starter Guide and Search Console, you may not need a provider at all.
You can see what we do in practice on our SEO service page.
What these questions will not tell you
They will not tell you whether a provider is good at the work. Someone can answer every question well and still deliver poorly, which is why references and a small first step matter. They will not make a price comparable: proposals differ in what they include, so compare the written list of what each will do. And they will not tell you whether SEO is the right channel for your business. That depends on how your customers actually find businesses like yours.
A checklist you can use without us
- Read Google's SEO Starter Guide first, so you can recognize good and bad advice.
- Ask each provider what they will change, why, and how they will report. Get it in writing.
- Ask for examples of previous work and for two references you can call.
- Ask what timeframe they expect and how they measure success. Walk away from any promised date, position or traffic figure.
- Check that they ask about your business, your competitors and how customers find you.
- Give read-only access to Search Console first. Keep your accounts and domain in your own name.
- Ask whether their advice cites Google's own documentation, especially anything sold as AI search optimization.
- Walk away from guarantees, claimed special relationships with Google, unsolicited emails and secrecy.
Where to go next
If you would like to see what a planned approach looks like, read our SEO service page. For the timing question every provider will be asked, read how long SEO takes to work. Tell us about your project, and we reply with next steps. No cost, no obligation. Discuss your project
When you want to talk about your own site, you can discuss your project. No technical brief is needed to start. More guides are in the Learn library.