SEO Consultancy

Choosing an SEO Agency: 9 Questions and 9 Red Flags

March 5, 2026·9 dk min read·Editorial Team

Why Choosing an Agency Is Like a Corporate Marriage?

Contracting with

SEO agency is a long-term marathon, where you can see the results between 4 and 8 months, unlike other digital marketing channels (e.g. Google Ads, which gives results in 3 days). Therefore, committing a budget to the wrong partner in the first place will both consume your capital and ruin your digital reputation.

9 Sharp Questions to Ask the Agency

To avoid hiding behind technical jargon during a meeting or interview, ask directly:

What metrics (Organic Conversion, Traffic) will you measure our success (KPI) with other than "Ranking"?

What are the current three biggest vulnerabilities (weaknesses) of our site? (Extract your own notes from the single page audit first)

What exactly will be your expectations from us (software team strength, content approval)?

Do you have a success story (Case Study) in the past "similar to our industry"?

What is your "crisis management plan" if traffic drops in a possible Google Core Update?

Will you transparently share with us the nature and sources of the "Backlinks" you will build?

Will our content be produced by real people (editors) or unfiltered artificial intelligence tools?

If we terminate the work, will the earnings (content, links) remain our property?

With whom will our monthly evaluation meetings take place and for how long?

9 Clear Red Flags (Run Away)

🚩 "Definite 1st Rank Guarantee": No one can control the algorithm except Google. The one who gives 100% guarantee is a scammer.
🚩 "We Have Secret Strategies": There is no confidentiality in White Hat standards. SEO is obvious.
🚩 Unnecessarily Cheap Prices: SEO Packages, which are far below the industry average, invoice for poor quality workmanship (spin articles, toxic links).
🚩 Failure to Provide Past Customer References.
🚩 Praises Only Its Own Tools: Showing your data only through its own meaningless interfaces instead of Search Console.
🚩 He underestimates your industry.
🚩 Ignoring Technical SEO: Just saying "we will write an article" and not talking about HTTP Header, Speed, Crawl budget
🚩 Lack of Communication: Not offering meeting calendar and project management (Asana/Trello etc.) tools.
🚩 Property Threat: Implying "We will delete everything we have done" in case of possible separation.

Short Agency Brief Template (Copy/Paste)

Hello [Agency Name], 

Our Industry: [Your Industry] 
Our Current Organic Traffic: [Ex: 10k Monthly] 
Our Main Goal: [Ex: Indexing of the new product page and 20% organic turnover increase] 
Software Language/Infrastructure We Use: [Ex: Next.js or WordPress] 

In light of this brief, we would like to organize an introductory meeting that will include the top 3 basic SEO problems on our site and the appropriate service packages you can offer us.

If you want to understand the price dynamics before getting external support, also take a look at our article SEO Prices Realistic Cost Model.