How to choose an SEO company: what to look for and what to ask

Choose an SEO company the way you would choose a contractor for your own building: see work it has finished, ask exactly what it will do, get the price and the terms in writing, and know who will turn up. Google publishes its own advice on hiring an SEO, and much of this checklist follows it. The rest is our own list of what to look for and what to walk away from.

The checklist

• It can show finished work for businesses like yours, with dates and numbers.
• It explains what it will do in words you understand.
• It tells you the price before you start.
• It does not lock you into a long contract.
• It reports every month, on rankings and on calls, forms and sales.
• You can reach a person by phone.
• You keep ownership of your website, your Google Business Profile and your ad accounts.
• It promises work, not positions.

What an SEO company does

An SEO company makes a website easier for search engines to read and more useful to the people searching, so that it appears higher in the unpaid results. Google lists the services an SEO may provide: a review of a site’s content or structure, technical advice, content development, keyword research, training, knowledge of particular markets and, now, optimizing for generative AI.

In our own practice that is three steps: analysis of where the site stands and which searches bring customers, implementation on the site and away from it, and a monthly report. A digital marketing agency does the same and adds paid advertising, social media and web design, so the questions below serve for choosing one of those as well.

Experience: ask about past campaigns

The first thing to weigh is experience. The way to weigh it is to ask about past campaigns: what strategies were used and what the results were. Google’s guide suggests asking a firm to show examples of earlier work and share some success stories, and asking about its experience in your industry and in your city and how long it has been in business.

A firm with real experience answers in detail: the client, the starting point, what was done, the result and the date. Then take Google’s next step and check the references. Ask past clients whether the firm was useful, easy to work with and produced results.

Results: ask what will be measured

Judge a company by results, not by the length of its list of services. Many firms offer everything connected with search, and not all of it is effective or suited to your business. Ask for case studies and ask how the result was achieved. Google’s question is the right one: what results does the firm expect, in what timeframe, and how does it measure success?

A good answer names a unit you care about, such as calls, form requests or orders, and says how it will be counted. A rise in rankings for searches nobody makes is not a result. What a realistic timeframe looks like is in how long does SEO take.

Method: ask how the work is done

You do not need to learn the jargon. The company should be able to explain both halves of the work, on the page and off it, and say why each step suits your business. Be wary of a plan that is the same template for every client, or one that leans wholly on automated tools. Ask these five things.

• Do you follow Google’s rules? Google suggests asking whether a firm follows its Search Essentials. Its spam policies say that sites which break them may rank lower or not appear at all.
• Will I see every change? Google suggests asking whether the firm will share all the changes it makes to your site, with its recommendations and the reasoning behind them.
• How do you get links? Google lists buying or selling links for ranking purposes as link spam.
• How do you get reviews? Google’s rules for reviews forbid offering payment, discounts or free goods in exchange for a review, and forbid asking only satisfied customers.
• Will you ask me to link to you? Google says you should never have to link to an SEO.

Price, contract and ownership

Ask for the price before anything else is discussed, and be suspicious of a firm with no real pricing model. Read the contract. Many pages and a long minimum term protect the agency, not you. Then settle who owns what.

• The website and its content. They should be yours, with logins in your name.
• The Google Business Profile. Google’s policy for agencies says customers must keep ownership or co-ownership of their profile at all times.
• The ad account. Google requires an agency to give you the customer ID of your Google Ads account when you ask for it.
• The data. Analytics and Search Console should sit under your own Google account, with the agency added as a user.
• The way out. What notice is needed, and what you are handed when you leave.

Communication and reporting

Google’s guide suggests asking how you can expect to communicate with the firm. Ask who your contact is, whether you can phone, and how soon a message is answered. A company you cannot get hold of before you sign will not be easier to reach afterwards. Expect a report every month that covers both rankings and conversions: organic and paid traffic, calls and lead submissions, and the positions of the agreed keywords.

Good signs and warning signs

Look for	Walk away from
A company that educates you	One that does not tell you what it is doing
No contracts	Contracts with a lot of pages
Pricing upfront	No real pricing model
Monthly reporting on rankings and conversions	No reports and no analytics
Phone support	People you cannot get hold of
Plain answers	Dodged questions
Pride in the work	Talk of a special secret sauce

What Google warns about

• Promises of first place. Google’s words: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.” It also warns about firms that claim a special relationship with Google.
• Email out of the blue. Google says to be wary of SEO firms and consultants that contact you unasked.
• Secrecy. Be careful if a company will not clearly explain what it intends to do.
• Your responsibility. Google reminds owners that they answer for what the companies they hire do. Deceptive content created on your behalf can get your site removed from Google’s index.

Before you sign, ask for an audit

An audit shows how a firm thinks before you owe it anything. Google’s advice is to weigh carefully what an audit involves and, at this stage, to give the firm read access only to Search Console. It says an audit should give you realistic estimates of improvement and an estimate of the work involved. An audit that ends in a count of problems and no plan is a sales document.

Ours is free. We grade the site from 1 to 100 with a letter score, research the keywords, check the technical points and return it in one to three business days: free SEO audit.

How we answer these questions ourselves

It is fair to turn the list on its author. Advernation was started in Flushing, Queens, on New Year’s Eve 2007 by Christopher Maddaloni, a former electrician, and has worked from Manhattan since 2016. We work without contracts, give the price upfront, report every month on rankings and conversions, and answer the phone. Our case studies name the clients and the results. What we do for a business in the city is on our SEO company in NYC page, and what we charge is on the pricing page.

If you have not yet decided what kind of firm you need, a national agency, a local specialist or a consultant, read best SEO companies in NYC: a fair way to compare them first. Then bring this checklist to the firms you shortlist.

Questions people ask