Choose an SEO agency by interviewing the team that will do the work and scoring its answers for specificity and evidence. These 12 questions test diagnosis, priority, implementation, measurement, ownership and judgement without asking for a free audit.
Use this article in the live interview. Our separate guide to evaluating an SEO agency before you sign owns the deeper work-specimen, contract and exit checks.
Score answers 0, 1 or 2
- 0: the answer is absent, generic or evasive.
- 1: the operating approach is explained but not supported.
- 2: the answer is specific and backed by an inspectable example, named owner or contract term.
Do not treat the total as an automatic decision. Use it to find the uncertainty that a polished pitch can hide.
1. What do you need to understand about our business before proposing priorities?
A strong answer asks about customers, valuable products or services, markets, capacity, economics, sales process, website systems and previous search work. It separates available evidence from assumptions.
Google’s hiring guidance says an SEO should be interested in what makes the business distinctive, who its customers and competitors are, and how customers find it.
2. What do you currently know, and what remains unverified?
Look for clear evidence labels and a request for appropriate access. Reject false certainty based only on a sales crawl or public tools.
3. How will you choose the first piece of work?
The answer should combine opportunity, commercial value, confidence, implementation effort, dependency and downside risk. A fixed service menu is not a priority model.
4. Who will lead strategy after the sale?
Get the name or role, expected involvement and escalation path. Ask where senior review occurs and what the delivery team is authorised to decide.
5. What will we receive?
Ask for concrete artefacts: a prioritized finding, page brief, technical ticket, change log, decision report or release check. “Strategy and content” is not specific enough.
6. Can you show a sanitised example of that work?
The example should expose the chain:
evidence → decision → change → verification → next action
Do not ask for another client’s confidential information or free analysis of your own site.
7. How does approved work reach production?
Map writing, design, development, approval, deployment and verification.
| Model | Required clarity |
|---|---|
| Agency implements | Access, repository, QA, approval and rollback |
| Client implements | Ticket quality, client workload, response time and acceptance |
| Shared | A named owner for every handoff |
Recommendations without implementation capacity are backlog, not delivery.
8. How will you report commercial progress?
Look for a measurement ladder:
- what shipped;
- what search evidence changed;
- what customers did;
- what commercial outcome is observable; and
- which data remains unavailable.
Rankings and traffic can be useful signals. They are not a substitute for qualified calls, forms, pipeline, bookings or revenue where those outcomes can be measured.
9. How does the plan change when evidence changes?
A strong provider can explain how it will pause, promote or stop work. Ask for an example where the next action changed because the data contradicted the initial assumption.
10. Which accounts and assets will we own?
Confirm owner control of the domain, website, Search Console, analytics, Business Profiles, advertising accounts, call tracking, content, code and completed research. Prefer named access over shared passwords.
11. What will you not promise?
Good answers include rankings, exact traffic, citations, revenue and algorithm control. Google explicitly warns that no one can guarantee a number-one ranking.
If the provider sells AI-search work, ask whether its advice aligns with current platform guidance. Google says ordinary SEO foundations remain relevant to its AI features and no special schema or machine-readable file is required.
12. What happens when the engagement ends?
Ask what you receive, when access changes, how open work is handed over and which ongoing dependencies remain. The answer should match the contract.
Use a compact comparison sheet
| Area | Maximum score |
|---|---|
| Business understanding and evidence | 4 |
| Priority and senior ownership | 4 |
| Work quality and production | 6 |
| Measurement and adaptation | 4 |
| Ownership, limits and exit | 6 |
| Total | 24 |
Record the evidence beside each score. A 2 supported by a named delivery owner is stronger than a 2 based on a confident verbal promise.
Ask the vertical question
After the common interview, use one question tied to your model:
- Ecommerce: how will you handle catalog, filters, product data and merchandising?
- Local services: how will profile and page work connect to booked jobs?
- SaaS: how will product changes and sales qualification affect the page plan?
- Consulting: how will partner expertise become service demand and pipeline?
- Technical SEO: how will one defect move from reproduction to production acceptance?
Our technical SEO agency guide and local-service agency guide provide the two most implementation-sensitive variants.
FAQ
How many SEO agencies should we interview?
Interview only enough providers to expose meaningful operating differences. There is no universal number; a clear shortlist is more useful than a large comparison set.
Should we ask for a free audit?
Ask for a bounded initial view and examples of work. A credible diagnosis may require paid investigation and read-only access. Google recommends carefully considering audit scope.
Should an SEO agency guarantee rankings?
No. Ask what it controls, what it will deliver and how it will respond to evidence.
How do we compare proposals with different scopes?
Score business understanding, work artefacts, implementation, measurement, ownership and exit first. Then compare price against the normalised operating model.
Who should attend the interview?
Include the person who owns the commercial outcome and anyone whose team must approve or implement the work. Require the provider’s actual delivery lead where possible.
Resolve tied scores with a paid diagnostic
If two providers remain credible, use a tightly scoped paid diagnostic instead of demanding more speculative pitch work.
Give both sides the same boundary:
- one market or product/service line;
- read-only access appropriate to the question;
- a named commercial decision;
- the same delivery deadline;
- no production changes without approval; and
- the same required artefacts.
Ask for:
- verified evidence;
- assumptions and unavailable inputs;
- one prioritized recommendation;
- implementation dependencies;
- an acceptance test;
- a measurement plan; and
- the next decision.
Compare judgement, clarity and operating fit. Do not judge by who gives away the largest audit.
The diagnostic should have an explicit end. You own the paid deliverable and access is removed or reduced afterwards. If a provider needs additional authority, it should explain why before the boundary changes.
This final test is especially useful when one agency presents stronger strategy and another presents stronger implementation. The work will show whether either can connect both sides.
Record the decision while the evidence is fresh
After each interview, capture:
- score by question;
- evidence shown;
- missing answer;
- named delivery lead;
- client workload;
- implementation model;
- ownership or exit concern;
- promise that must enter the contract; and
- reason to continue or reject.
Do not wait until all pitches blur together. A provider should not receive credit for a specimen another provider showed or a contract term it never offered.
If an answer changes in follow-up, update the record and request the final wording in the proposal. Verbal clarification is useful; the scoped agreement still needs to own delivery.
The final choice should be explainable in one paragraph: the problem, the selected operating model, the strongest proof, the main dependency and the first acceptance gate. If you cannot write that paragraph, the buying decision is not ready.
Take the scorecard into the interview
Use the 12 questions with the actual delivery lead, record the evidence while it is fresh and move only contract-worthy promises forward. Our SEO service connects strategy, implementation and measurement around valuable demand.