If you are working out how to choose an SEO agency, judge each one by how clearly it connects work on your website to the customers you want to win. Give every shortlisted agency the same brief, ask for a sample of real work, read the scope line by line and keep ownership of your accounts. A ranking screenshot or a confident sales call cannot tell you whether an agency can solve your specific problem, so this checklist focuses on evidence you can inspect before signing a monthly contract.
What should you decide before contacting SEO agencies?
List the services you want to sell, the locations you can serve and the enquiries you turn away. Add your website, any marketing already running and the person who will approve and implement changes. Include one example of a good enquiry and one unsuitable enquiry, without sharing private customer details.
This one-page brief gives agencies a concrete problem to diagnose instead of inviting interchangeable sales decks. It also lets you compare answers fairly, because every supplier responds to the same facts. If you have not yet decided which pages should bring in work, our guide to service page SEO explains what those pages need to do.
How do you compare SEO proposals fairly?
Ask each agency for its first three priorities and the evidence behind them. One may point to weak service pages, another to technical access problems and another to a mismatch between your offer and the visitors arriving. Different answers are not automatically wrong.
Follow up with two questions: what observation would confirm this diagnosis, and which assumption needs testing before a long programme starts? A supplier that explains its uncertainty is easier to evaluate than one that presents every recommendation as certain. Google’s guidance on hiring an SEO suggests similar questions, including examples of previous work, experience in your industry and location, and whether every change to your site will be shared with you.
What evidence should an SEO agency show you?
Request a sample deliverable: an annotated review of one page, a prioritised technical issue or a content brief. Check whether it names the affected URLs, explains the problem, states the expected benefit and shows how the fix will be verified. Confidentiality may limit what a supplier can share, but it should still be able to explain its method. If the sample is an audit, compare it with our list of what an SEO audit should include.
For a case study, ask about the starting position, the work completed, the timeframe and any other marketing running at the same time. Results from a national online shop do not automatically transfer to a local contractor. A traffic chart may also include branded searches or visitors who were never potential customers.
Which promises should make you ask a second question?
Some claims deserve closer examination before you sign:
- A guaranteed first position or a guaranteed number of leads.
- A traffic forecast with no explanation of the assumptions behind it.
- A fixed quantity of links or articles each month, regardless of what your site needs.
- Reports that show rankings and visits but never enquiries.
- Contracts where the agency owns your analytics, Search Console or Google Business Profile.
Ask which factors the agency controls, which it does not and what its measurement actually includes. Nobody can guarantee an organic position, and Google says so plainly. A good agency will be comfortable discussing what it cannot promise.
How should an SEO contract handle delivery and access?
Separate research, recommendations, writing, development and verification. A proposal that includes monthly content may still exclude interviews, photography, translation and publishing. A technical SEO audit may identify problems while leaving your developer to fix them. The apparent price gap between two agencies often reflects different amounts of implementation rather than different expertise.
Clarify who approves copy, what happens when development is delayed and how work is prioritised when the budget cannot cover every opportunity. Keep admin ownership of your domain, website, analytics, Search Console and Business Profile, and give the agency user access. If you cannot yet see which enquiries come from search, make analytics and reporting setup part of the first phase. Agree a review point based on completed work, relevant search visibility and qualified enquiries, plus a notice period and a handover of documents if you part ways.
How should you judge the agency once work starts?
Agree what the first report will show before any work begins. A useful monthly update lists what was completed, what is waiting on your team, what changed on the site and what the agency plans next. Rankings and traffic can sit alongside that, but read them against the pages you actually care about.
Early progress is usually visible as work done rather than revenue. Repaired pages, published content and corrected tracking can be checked within weeks. Changes in search visibility and enquiries take longer and are influenced by competitors, seasonality and your own sales follow-up. Review qualified enquiries from search together, and ask the agency to explain any change rather than simply reporting it.
An example to apply
Illustrative scenario, not a client case study.
Imagine two proposals. One offers a low monthly fee for a technical report and a ranking dashboard. The other costs more and includes rewriting and publishing two priority service pages. They are not equivalent, so ask both suppliers to price the same first task: diagnose one priority service page, implement the agreed changes and verify the result.
Then compare the work delivered, the time your own team had to contribute and the quality of the handover. The comparison becomes a test of delivery rather than presentation, and you will know what evidence should decide the next phase.
Discuss your project
Send your website, priority services and target locations. Ask Devimus for an SEO proposal that separates diagnosis, implementation and ongoing work, so you can compare it line by line with any other quote.
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