How to (correctly) evaluate an SEO agency [Key questions to ask]

So you’re chatting with an SEO expert, and everything seems to check out — what will you ask them before you hire them?I’m guessing it’s one of the following questions:

• How many years they’ve been in SEO?
• Have you had any big clients?
• How much do you charge?
• Do you have case studies to share?

Be careful.

There’s nothing more expensive than hiring the wrong person for the job.

That wrong person being someone who does not fully understand SEO and ends up wasting hours of your time and thousands of dollars.

Not to mention, they could do real damage to your website’s performance if they make a mistake.In this guide I’ll share the questions you need to ask to correctly gauge and evaluate an SEO agency/freelancer before hiring them.

You can also download the free question list to save for later the next time you hire an SEO professional!

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Why you should evaluate an SEO agency before hiring

Isn’t this one obvious?

You’d think so, but I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve worked with who previously hired an SEO agency or freelancer, only to have very little to show for it.

It’s not just about evaluating for the sake of evaluating; it’s evaluating them in the RIGHT way to truly gauge their expertise.

SEO is one of those disciplines that many fall into—it’s fairly technical and misunderstood, which gives newbies a license to call themselves experts despite having little expertise.

Again, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve spoken to a founder who worked with someone who merely parroted best practice guides (which were outdated, by the way).

I designed the following questions specifically to gauge the knowledge, quality, and integrity of the person you are working with. In other words, these are the questions I WISH someone asked me when I talked to them because they’d really force me to stop, think, and answer honestly.

Questions to ask before hiring

Obviously, you should ask for the basics, things like:

• How long have you been in SEO?
• What types of companies do you work with?
• Can you send case studies?
• What do you charge?

Those questions will give you a basic understanding of the firm you are speaking with. Having been in SEO, here are the eight questions I wish someone would ask me on a call:

1. How do you go about building an SEO strategy?
2. How do you factor in algorithm changes to your SEO strategy?
3. What KPIs do you track?
4. Describe your process for finding keywords to target
5. Describe your approach to content creation and optimization
6. How do you coordinate SEO efforts with other marketing channels?
7. Who on your team will actually be doing the work?

Ask about their strategic process

One of the first questions I’d ask an SEO agency or freelancer is how they define strategy.

Many in SEO will describe their strategic process as:

1. Building a big list of keywords based on a root keyword or your competitors
2. Identifying the “low hanging fruit” high volume low difficult keywords
3. Writing blog content (and lots of it)
4. Building backlinks
5. Praying it all works

This is a serious mistake.

It’s not that these individual activities are bad (they are a bit dated, but that’s not the point).

The issue is that this approach is based on an outdated series of “best practices” that were popular when the web was less crowded.Nowadays, this is the lowest common denominator way to market — it requires zero thought or creativity and lets a keyword research tool do all the thinking for you, which rarely results in any ROI.

How I’d answer this question

Rather than blogging and hoping it works, I like to create specific content plans to reach someone.

What does this mean in practical terms?

1. Set a clear and measurable goal (ie. I want to increase sales by 250%, generate 50 signups per month, etc)
2. Identify your ICPs - the people most likely to help you reach that goal
3. Map out their queries at the bottom and middle of the funnel as they buy products like yours, and determine which topics you want to build authority in at the top of the funnel
4. Create content - bottom of the funnel first, then move up the funnel. Where possible, create original and unique types of content (tools, calculators, resource libraries, etc.)
5. Measure - pay attention to what moves you closer to your goal. If you aren't moving closer to your goal, then one of your decisions in steps 2-4 is probably incorrect and needs adjusting

The beauty of this framework is it leads you to build a content and SEO strategy that is centered around your customer, and gives you the freedom to come up with something creative and unique from your competition while being tightly aligned with ROI.

Ask about flexibility and adaptability in the face of change

Google made seven official algorithm changes in 2024. That’s more frequent than once every other month for those like me who are less mathematically inclined.

You need to ask the person you hire this question to gauge how adaptable they are and how they act in the face of the unknown. Google is mum on details for its algorithm updates, so it’s up to us SEOs to try and read between the lines and read our data to understand what the impact of each algorithm update is.

How I’d answer this questionYou need to keep your ears open to what Google is doing and balance what Google says they look for with what you know your customers are searching for and what the data tells us what works. Google will rarely give the full guidance behind any algorithm change, which means you should test and measure as much as possible to piece together your winning strategy.

Ask about KPIs and success metrics

Here’s my hot take: rankings do not matter. And traffic rarely matters. What matters to most business owners I talk to is growth, leads, and revenue. That’s it.

Far too many SEOs obsess over domain authority (which is a useless metric, by the way), keyword rankings, and traffic. Again, it’s not that these are bad things — but they are usually not actually important to the business. I’ve helped grow revenue for “low domain authority” websites without budging authority. I’ve helped grow revenue even when total traffic went down.

It’s all a matter of knowing what matters to the business and influences buyers and moving THAT instead of looking at the site as some big aggregate.

How I’d answer this question

What matters to your business? That is the only thing that matters to me.

If you need revenue, we’ll walk backward to see how to make that happen. If you need leads, we’ll build the assets to drive traffic and convert that traffic into qualified leads that can be nurtured. Traffic on its own is great, but I’m more interested in what actually drives growth for your business.

Ask about their process for keyword research

This is the first and probably most important “approach” question I’d ask.

In all my years of SEO, I’ve found that the keywords you choose to target will dictate around 80% of your chance of success. Content quality matters a great deal, as do links, but the keywords you choose to target will determine whether your strategy is advantageous or disadvantageous.

You cannot control what your competitors do and what Google does, but you can control what “game” you decide to play and why which keywords you target.If their approach starts and ends with a keyword research tool (or AI…), then run in the other direction.

How I’d answer this question

My approach to keyword research starts with your customer and ends with a full map of their buying journey.

Remember from the KPI section, we’re trying to get customers or leads. In order to do that, we need to know who we are going after and what sequence of steps they take through their buying journey that brings them to Google. To do that, I run surveys, browse forums, conduct customer interviews, and, yes, use keyword research tools to fill in gaps. A keyword research tool on its own falls short, but it can provide valuable data to confirm some assumptions.

Ask about their approach to content creation

After keywords, ask them to walk you through their approach to content creation and optimization.

If your goal is simply to get more traffic, the actual quality of the content beyond how SEO-optimized it is matters much less. But if your goal is to convert that traffic into leads, then suddenly, you need good content people actually want to read. I find many SEOs who are rankings or traffic-obsessed ignore the actual quality of their content, so really dig in here.

How I’d answer this question

First, I try to understand your unique brand voice. I then bring that into the content I write, going through a series of drafts to make sure I cover the topic as comprehensively as possible while matching it with a logical CTA. Then I send to you to review, and provide unlimited edits until it’s perfect and ready to publish.

Ask how they communicate and any SLAs

As they love to say, SEO is a long game. That means if you hire someone, you’ll probably be working with them for 6-12 months at least.

Communication is key to the success of any relationship — especially when there is money and the growth of your business on the line. So make sure to ask how they communicate and whether they have any agreed upon SLAs (service level agreements).

How I’d answer the question

I meet monthly for an hour with each client to talk strategy and make myself available during working hours EST to meet should they want extra time. I keep an open line of communication via email and Slack with each client so they can always reach me at a moments notice, and I aim to respond within 8 business hours for non-urgent communication, and within 1 hour for urgent communication.

Ask when you can expect results (a subtle trick question)

Here’s a trick question: when can you expect results?

I’ve found many SEO folks tend to fall back on “SEO is a long game, so it’s a minimum of 12 months,” which I, frankly, think is an outright lie. I can’t speak for anyone other than myself, but my suspicion is that many SEO specialists say this to give themselves job security, sound important, or make clients feel dumb for asking questions about the efficacy of their work before the 12-month window (and by that point if they churn, at least they got a year’s worth of money for the lack of effort).

How I’d answer this question

I’ve seen results in as little as 3 months.

Heck, I’ve seen movement for a website in as little as 1 week.

There are many factors that go into an SEO strategy, but I find it ludicrous that you need to wait a minimum of one year to find out if what you are doing is working or going to work. I can’t say for certain when results will come in, but I can say that if we set a very clear goal and do work intentionally to support that goal, I look for signals on “Day 1” to prove that we’re taking steps toward the goal.

Ask how SEO fits in with other marketing channels

I recommend asking this question to gauge how the SEO specialist you speak with understands marketing as a whole. SEO is a fantastic channel to drive traffic — but it’s just that, a channel. There are many other ways to drive traffic like social media and ads. And you also need to ensure you convert that traffic and nurture it to buy. If the SEO person you speak with doesn't understand this, then they don’t understand basic marketing, and that’s a concern.

How I’d answer this question

As I wrote above, SEO is one piece of a marketing strategy. It is a traffic-acquisition channel that we should test alongside others to find where your best traffic comes from. You also need to make sure you do something to convert that traffic and nurture that traffic through email and targeted outreach (which, by the way, I help my clients with).

Ask who does the work

Finally, and one of the most important if you are talking to an agency, ask who does the work.

With most agencies, you’ll mainly speak to a sales rep or account manager while they offload the work. It’s important to know who on the team is doing the work, along with their level of experience and comfort with your business. It’s also important to note whether they agency offshores their work (a common tactic to cut costs).

How I’d answer this question

I’m doing the work. I work alone (with a small team of folks to assist me), but I am the one running client calls, strategizing, doing keyword research, reviewing your site, and writing every word of content.

Trick questions to gauge experience

Here’s a little bonus: the following are three “trick” questions I recommend asking.

Why do I call them trick questions? Because they should be able to quickly show you whether you are dealing with someone who knows what they are talking about or an imposter.

Do you optimize meta descriptions, yes or no?

Google re-writes 99% of meta descriptions based on the search term your page shows up in. Optimizing meta descriptions is a complete waste of your time and money, but it’s a fantastic way for an average SEO to charge you more money just to do busy work. Believe me, there are so many important things to work on.

What is the optimal cadence to publish blog posts?

Many average SEOs will try to sell you on a certain content deliverable because it’s easy for them to sell and they can pad their retainers.

Don’t fall for it.

There is no “optimal” cadence to publish content. Just publish what needs to be published in order to answer the buying questions of your target customers. For most of my clients, I write them 1-2 pieces of content per week because it’s all they have time to review. We could publish more frequently, or less frequently, but understand your rate of content creation will impact the speed at which you get results.

How often do you run technical audits of a website?

Another billable that is often a complete waste of your time and money.

Technical audits have their place, but unless you have an international website, a large e-commerce website, or active technical issues that Google has flagged, this is a needless service that sounds like it adds value but, in reality, is just there to justify a retainer. For the clients I work with, I periodically make sure the content I write for them is indexed and their website loads reasonably fast. For 90% of websites, that is all that is required. If someone recommends quarterly or monthly audits and does not have a very good reason for them… run away.

Download the free list of questions with answers

Don’t interview your next SEO agency or freelancer without asking them these key questions. Like I said, these are the questions I WISH someone would ask me, because these are the questions that reveal the actual quality of the person you are speaking with.

SEO gets a bad rap because bad actors try to obfuscate and hide behind complexity and they rely on you not asking the important questions. These questions (and answers) will help you correctly evaluate the person you are speaking with and make the best hiring decision possible.

Fill out the form below to download the free list.