The Playbook · HIRING
How to choose an SEO company without getting burned
Choose an SEO company by what they let you see: Google's own numbers in your Search Console, the pages they built, and the promises they refuse to make. Six checks below, in the order I would run them if I were hiring for my own business. None of them needs you to know what a canonical tag is.
Will they give you Search Console access?
Ask this first. Search Console is Google's free report on your own site: what people searched, where you showed up, what they clicked. A real SEO company connects it in week one and sends you the login. A company that reports from its own dashboard instead is grading its own homework.
Can they name the page that brought the call?
Pick one of their current clients and ask which page on that site brought the last real customer. A builder who does this work daily answers with a page and a search phrase. A salesperson answers with a chart. You are paying for pages, so hire the one who thinks in pages.
What do they refuse to promise?
The right answer is rankings. Google's own guidance is four months to a year before SEO work shows in results, and nobody outside Google controls the order. A company that promises page one, or a number of leads, is either guessing or planning to buy something Google will later remove. Walk. The how long SEO takes play shows what an honest month-by-month looks like instead.
The promise you should get
Deliverables and honesty. Which pages, which fixes, which report, on which date. That can be promised, and it can be checked.
What does a month actually contain?
Ask for the list. A month of real SEO has a technical check, at least one new page that answers something people type, internal links from that page to the pages that sell, and work on the Google Business Profile and reviews. Mine is written on the plans page: local SEO Growth is $1,500 a month, or $1,664 bundled with Business maintenance. Authority is $2,750 a month, or $3,149 bundled with Priority maintenance. SEO has a 3-month minimum, then month-to-month, cancel with 30 days' notice.
If the month is described as ongoing optimization with no list, the list is empty.
Who does the work?
At most agencies the person on the sales call never touches your site. The work goes to a junior or offshore, three layers below the person you talk to, and every layer costs you a detail about your business. Ask for a name. Here it is one builder, and every service I sell is on one page with its price, so you can see what the SEO line sits next to.
What should you do tonight?
Run the local SEO checklist on your own site, then ask any company you are considering which items on it they would fix first. The one whose answer matches what you found is the one who looked. If that turns out to be me, the number is below, and the person answering is the person who writes the pages.
What else do owners ask?
How much should SEO cost a small business?
Enough to pay for real pages and a technical check every month, and no more. The what SEO costs play has the real ranges and the promises that should make you walk.
Should I choose a local SEO company or a national one?
Whichever one can name your competitors on the map pack without looking them up. Local search is decided by local signals, and a company that has never driven through your town tends to miss them.
What is a red flag in an SEO proposal?
A promise about rankings, a monthly fee with no list of deliverables, or a report that comes from the vendor's tool instead of Google's. Any one of the three means ask harder questions.
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