24 questions to ask an SEO agency before you sign
The questions every credible SEO agency expects on a sales call — organised by category, with the bad answer to watch for and the good answer that signals a credible engagement. We expect you to use these on us, too.
Team and senior contact
(4 questions)Who specifically will be the senior strategist on our account, and what is their background?
If the proposal does not name the senior person responsible for your account, you will be assigned to a junior account manager. Senior-strategist time is the highest-leverage hour in SEO.
"You'll be working with our team" without naming names.
A specific person is named, with background, tenure, and other accounts they are responsible for. They are also on the sales call, not just on the org chart.
How many hours per month of senior strategist time will my account receive?
Total retainer hours matter less than senior-strategist hours. A 40-hour retainer with 4 hours of senior time is typically less valuable than a 20-hour retainer with 8 hours of senior time.
"As much as needed" or "that's not how we structure things."
A specific hourly allocation, with which deliverables senior time is allocated to (typically: strategy, audits, content review, monthly reporting).
What is the agency's account-team retention rate?
High account-team turnover means your account will hand off to a new strategist every 6–12 months — and each handoff costs 1–2 months of net-negative output.
Refusal to share, or vague "we have a great team" language.
A specific number ("our average strategist tenure is 3+ years") with a willingness to introduce you to a strategist who has been on the team for that period.
Who reports to whom inside your team, and how does my account escalate when we have an urgent issue?
Established escalation paths matter. If the answer is unclear, urgent issues will sit in inboxes.
"Just email us, we'll get to it."
Named senior, named delivery lead, named account manager, with clear escalation order and response-time SLAs.
Methodology and approach
(4 questions)Walk me through your methodology for a new engagement, week by week, for the first 90 days.
Credible agencies have a documented onboarding methodology. Vague answers indicate the agency improvises engagements rather than executing a tested system.
"Every engagement is unique, we'll build it as we go."
A specific 90-day plan with weekly milestones — typically: weeks 1–2 audit and access, weeks 3–4 strategy and prioritisation, weeks 5–8 foundation execution, weeks 9–12 content and link work begins.
What is your stance on AI-generated content?
An agency's AI-content policy is a strong signal of editorial discipline. Heavy AI-content reliance is increasingly penalised by Google's Helpful Content Update and reads as generic.
"We use AI to scale content production efficiently" with no human-edit policy described.
AI is used for outlining and research; published content is human-written or substantially human-rewritten with named author bylines.
Do you build links, and if so, how?
Link-building practice is the single largest divider between credible and risky agencies. Bought links and PBNs trigger penalties; earned links from substantive content compound safely.
Vague "we do outreach" answers, refusal to share specific tactics, or any mention of buying links or guest-post networks.
Earned-link strategy through substantive content, digital PR, statement-making research, and relationship-based outreach. Refusal to engage in link buying.
How do you handle AI Overviews, ChatGPT Search, and other AI-search surfaces?
AI search is a distinct optimization discipline in 2026. Agencies that have not adapted have lost the methodology lead.
"We focus on traditional SEO" or vague AI-search positioning with no specific tactics.
Specific methodology covering schema patterns for LLM ingestion, surface-specific optimization (ChatGPT vs Perplexity vs AI Overviews), and named measurement tools (Profound, Otterly, Peec AI).
Reporting and measurement
(4 questions)Do I own the GA4, Search Console, and ad accounts, or do you?
Agency-owned analytics accounts are a hostage situation. When the engagement ends, the data is harder to extract and the historical context is sometimes lost.
"We set everything up under our agency account for efficiency."
All client-side properties (GA4, GSC, GBP, ad accounts) are owned by the client; agency has access permissions only.
What does a monthly report contain, and can I see a redacted example?
Reports vary wildly in usefulness. Vanity-metric reports (impressions, raw keyword counts) tell you nothing about business outcomes; useful reports connect SEO work to revenue or signed contracts.
Refusal to share examples, or example reports filled with raw data and no narrative.
Reports include narrative analysis, prioritised next-month plans, business-outcome metrics (organic-attributed conversions, qualified leads), and clear progress against quarterly objectives.
How do you measure the contribution of SEO to revenue?
If the agency cannot articulate how their work connects to dollars, they cannot defend the engagement when budget pressure hits.
Generic "we'll grow your traffic" answers with no revenue-linking method.
Specific attribution methodology (GA4 conversion tracking with assigned values, multi-touch attribution where appropriate, or in B2B: pipeline contribution tracked in CRM).
What tools do you use for keyword tracking and competitive analysis, and will I get access?
Tool access is a transparency signal. Agencies that build their value on having the tools you don't have are protecting opacity.
"That's part of our proprietary stack."
Named tools (Ahrefs, Semrush, Sistrix, etc.) with read-only access provided to the client on request.
Contract and commercial
(4 questions)What is the minimum commitment, and what is the cancellation policy?
Healthy agency-client relationships continue because the work compounds, not because the contract penalises departure.
12+ month lock-ins with high termination fees.
3- to 6-month minimum with 30- to 60-day notice thereafter; no termination fees for normal cancellation.
What happens to the work product if we end the engagement?
Some agencies retain ownership of content, audits, and strategic deliverables — meaning the client loses access to work they paid for.
"Some work product remains agency property" or unclear answers.
All work product transfers to the client at engagement end. Agency may retain non-attributable methodologies but specific deliverables are client property.
Are there any conflicts of interest with our direct competitors?
Agencies that work with multiple direct competitors in the same micro-market face structural conflicts.
Refusal to share current client list at category level, or visible direct-competitor relationships with no exclusivity policy.
Clear policy on competitor exclusivity within the engagement scope (typically: same primary practice area in the same primary catchment).
What is included in the retainer versus what is billed separately?
Hidden line-items inflate the effective monthly cost. Common surprise charges: paid-tool subscriptions billed back, content production over an undocumented limit, technical engineering hours.
Vague answers with broad "as needed" language.
Clear inclusions list with specific deliverable counts, documented limits, and clear policy on overage billing.
Industry and compliance
(3 questions)How many engagements have you shipped in our specific industry?
Vertical experience matters. A generalist agency porting a generic playbook into a regulated vertical (legal, healthcare, financial) typically misses compliance requirements.
Vague "we work across many industries" answers without specific vertical examples.
Specific count with named (or anonymised but specific) examples and evidence of vertical-specific methodology.
How do you handle compliance for regulated industries (Law Society, College of Physicians, College of Dental Surgeons, OSC, Health Canada)?
If your industry is regulated, the agency needs an explicit compliance review workflow.
"That's not really our area" or "the client is responsible for compliance review."
Documented compliance review built into the editorial workflow, with named regulatory regimes the agency works within.
Where is your team located and where is the work performed?
Many "Canadian" agencies offshore most execution. The marketing claim and the operational reality often differ.
Evasive answers about team location or unclear delivery model.
Clear answer about team location and which specific deliverables are produced where.
Honesty signals
(5 questions)What kind of business is not a good fit for you?
Agencies that cannot describe a single bad-fit profile are signalling that they will take any engagement that pays — which is itself a signal of poor strategic discipline.
"We can help any business" or other universal-fit claims.
Specific bad-fit profiles described candidly. Honest agencies turn away misfit engagements regularly.
What's a recent engagement that didn't go well, and what did you learn?
Agencies that have never had a difficult engagement either don't know the truth or aren't sharing it.
Refusal to engage with the question, or sanitised "every engagement is a success" language.
Honest description of a difficult engagement, what went wrong, and what changed in the agency's process as a result.
Can I talk to two clients of yours — one current and one past?
References are a strong honesty signal. Agencies that cannot provide references typically have client-experience problems.
Refusal, vague "confidentiality" excuses, or only offering current cherry-picked references.
Two references provided, including at least one past client who can speak to how the engagement ended.
What is your stance on guarantees?
Google explicitly disallows ranking guarantees in its quality guidelines. Any agency offering guarantees is either uninformed or willing to risk your account.
Any specific ranking, traffic, or revenue guarantee.
Clear refusal to guarantee specific rankings or outcomes; willingness to guarantee deliverable scope and execution discipline.
If we hired you and you couldn't move the needle, when would you tell us?
Healthy agency relationships include explicit checkpoints where honest assessment can flow both ways.
"That's not really how we structure things."
Specific checkpoint cadence (typically quarterly) where the agency commits to candid assessment of program health and to recommending termination if the engagement is not working.
How to actually use this list
Don't ask all 24 questions on the first call — that becomes an interrogation rather than a conversation. Pick the 8–12 questions most relevant to your situation and concerns. The questions in the \"Honesty signals\" category at the bottom are the highest-leverage to ask any agency, because the answers reveal cultural posture as much as they reveal specific facts.
Compare answers across at least two agencies. The contrast between answers is often more informative than any single answer. An agency that gives a credible answer to one question while another gives an evasive answer to the same question tells you what you need to know.
Take notes. The patterns of evasiveness, defensiveness, or candour show up in the aggregate even when individual answers seem reasonable in isolation.
Test us against this list
We expect prospective clients to ask these questions. Bring the toughest ones to the first call — we will answer them on the record.
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