How to choose an SEO agency without getting burned

We are an agency writing about how to choose an agency, so read this with the appropriate suspicion. It is still worth writing, because the questions below are the ones that would have saved most of the businesses who arrive here after a bad experience.

Ask what happens if it does not work

The most revealing question you can ask, and the one least often prepared for. A supplier who has thought about it will describe how they would tell you, at what point, and what they would do about it.

One who has not will reassure you that it will work. That reassurance is the warning: SEO does not work for every business, and anyone who has done it for a while has had engagements that failed. Someone claiming otherwise is either new or not being straight with you.

Guarantees are a warning, not a reassurance

Nobody controls the results page. A guaranteed first-page ranking is achievable only by choosing a term nobody searches for — your company name, or a phrase so specific it has no volume — and then reporting it as a win.

Ask what the guarantee covers and how it is measured. If the answer involves terms you have never heard your customers use, you have your answer.

Ask where the links come from

Link building is legitimate and bought links are against search engine guidelines. The distinction matters because the penalty lands on your site, not on the agency that sold them, and it outlasts the contract.

A straight answer sounds like digital PR, sector publications, genuine relationships, and being slow. An evasive one sounds like "a network of high authority sites" or a monthly quota of links at a fixed price. Volume promised per month is the tell — genuine editorial links do not arrive on a schedule.

Ask what the reporting measures

A monthly report listing tasks completed is a timesheet. It tells you the agency was busy, which is not the thing you are buying.

Useful reporting connects work to outcomes: which pages gained visibility, what that produced in enquiries, and what is not working. That last part matters most — a report with no bad news in it, month after month, is not a report. Our piece on what a good report contains goes into the detail.

Ask who owns the accounts

Your analytics, Search Console, and any tooling should be in your name with the agency granted access — not the reverse. Agencies holding client assets in their own accounts have created a reason for you to stay that has nothing to do with the quality of their work.

Ask directly: if we part company, what do I keep? The answer should be everything, and it should be immediate.

Ask who actually does the work

The people in the pitch are frequently not the people on the account. That is not automatically a problem — but you should know it, and know who your day to day contact will be and what their experience is.

Ask about subcontracting too. It is common and not disqualifying; being unclear about it is.

Be wary of the bundle

Many suppliers sell search alongside advertising platform management, social and design. Breadth is not the problem. The problem is when the retainer is presented as one number and nobody can tell you how much of it went on search this month — which makes it impossible to judge whether search is working.

If you buy a bundle, insist the reporting separates the channels.

Watch the contract length

Ongoing work needs a genuine commitment because it takes months to show anything — that is real, not a sales tactic, and our note on how long SEO takes explains why. What is a sales tactic is a twelve-month lock-in with a long notice period.

A supplier confident in the work does not need to trap you in it. Look for a sensible minimum term and a short notice period after it.

The uncomfortable question about your own site

Ask whether SEO is the right investment at all. A good supplier will sometimes say no — because you need customers this month, because nobody searches for what you do, or because your site cannot convert the traffic it already has.

An agency that has never turned work down is not being selective, and you are the work they did not turn down.