- Hire for calls and booked jobs, not rankings or traffic. Ask every company how they will measure leads from day one.
- Look for experience with local service businesses. Ranking a plumber in one metro is a different job from ranking an online store.
- Ask to see real examples and talk to a current client. A company that can't show either is guessing.
- Walk away from guaranteed rankings, secret methods, long lock-in contracts and accounts held in the agency's name.
- A good first 90 days covers tracking, a technical cleanup, your Google Business Profile and a plan for new pages, with a short report every few weeks.
Start with what you're actually buying
SEO companies sell many things: rankings, traffic, content, links, audits, monthly reports. None of those pay your bills. What you want is more phone calls and form requests from people who need your service in the towns you work in, at a lower cost per job than what you pay now.
Before you talk to anyone, write down three numbers: roughly how many calls or leads you get from Google each month, which services and towns you want more work in, and what a typical job is worth. If a company doesn't ask you for those numbers in the first conversation, they're planning to sell activity, not results.
A simple test: ask each company how you'll know in month three whether SEO is working. The right answer mentions calls, forms and booked jobs, not just rankings.
Agency, freelancer or in-house?
There are three main ways to get SEO done, and each one fits a different kind of business.
- Agency: a team that covers technical SEO, content, local SEO and reporting. Best for most service businesses that want it handled. Watch for agencies that hand you to a junior account manager after the sale.
- Freelancer: one person, usually cheaper and more personal. Works well for a single location with a simple site, as long as you know what they're strong and weak at.
- In-house: hiring your own marketing person. Makes sense once you have several locations and a big enough budget to keep someone busy full-time, often alongside an outside specialist.
How to build a shortlist
Start with referrals from other business owners, suppliers or trade associations you trust. Then add companies that show up for the searches you'd expect them to win, like "SEO for contractors" or "SEO for HVAC companies". A company that can't rank itself is a warning sign.
Look at their own website. Is it fast on a phone? Does it explain clearly who they work with and how? Do they show examples from businesses like yours, or only from online stores and software companies? Read reviews on Google and other sites, and look for reviews that describe results and communication, not just "great team".
- Experience with local service businesses, ideally your trade
- Examples that show calls or leads, not just traffic charts
- Clear, plain-language explanation of what they do each month
- Reviews from real businesses on Google or other trusted sites
15 questions to ask before you sign
Narrow your list to two or three companies and ask each of them the same questions. Their answers, and how comfortable they are answering, will tell you most of what you need to know.
- How will we track calls and forms from day one?
- Which services and towns would you focus on first, and why?
- Can you show an example from a business like mine?
- Can I talk to a current client?
- What will you do in the first 30, 60 and 90 days?
- Who will actually do the work, and who do I talk to?
- How often will I get a report, and what's in it?
- How do you handle my Google Business Profile and reviews?
- What technical work do you expect my site to need?
- Who writes the content, and can I review it before it goes live?
- How do you build links, and what do you avoid?
- How do you prepare for AI answers like Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT?
- Who owns the website, content, Google profile and accounts?
- How long is the contract, and how do I cancel?
- What happens to the work if we stop?
Red flags to walk away from
Some warning signs are easy to spot once you know them. Any one of these is a reason to slow down; two or more is a reason to walk away.
- Guaranteed rankings: nobody controls Google. Promises of first place are a sales tactic.
- Secret methods: good SEO isn't secret. If they can't explain what they'll do, they may be doing something risky.
- Cheap link packages: hundreds of links for a low monthly fee usually means spammy sites that can hurt you.
- Accounts in their name: your website, Google profile, Analytics and ads accounts should belong to you.
- Long lock-in contracts: a short commitment while the base is built is normal; years with no way out isn't.
- Reports with no calls: if the sample report shows only rankings and traffic, that's what you'll get.
What a good proposal looks like
A good proposal is short, specific and about your business. It should name the services and towns to focus on, the problems they already spotted on your site and Google profile, what they'll do in the first three months, how they'll track calls and forms, and exactly what you'll pay and for how long.
Be wary of proposals that are mostly generic slides about what SEO is, or that list dozens of deliverables ("10 blog posts, 50 links, 20 citations") without saying why those will bring more calls for your business.
If two proposals look similar, pick the company that asked better questions about your business. That usually predicts better work.
Contract terms to check
Read the contract before you sign, or have someone you trust read it. A few terms matter more than the rest.
- Length: a three-month start is common for SEO, then month to month. Be careful with 12-month or longer lock-ins.
- Ownership: the site, content, Google profile and all accounts should be yours, in writing.
- Cancellation: how much notice, and what happens to the work, logins and data when you leave.
- Scope: what's included each month, and what costs extra.
- Reporting: how often, and which numbers you'll see.
What the first 90 days should look like
SEO takes time, but the first three months shouldn't be a black box. By the end of month three you should be able to see what was done and the early signs that it's working.
Month one is usually tracking, a technical cleanup and fixing the Google Business Profile. Month two is new or rewritten service and town pages and the start of review requests and listings. Month three is more pages, links and the first real read on calls and rankings. Some calls can improve within weeks from profile and site fixes; new pages usually take three to six months to rank well.
- Call and form tracking live in the first week or two
- A list of technical fixes done, checked in Search Console
- Google Business Profile updated, with a review system running
- New or improved pages for your main services and towns
- A short report every few weeks with calls, forms and what changed