How to choose an SEO company, and the red flags

Start with what Google itself warns about

Google publishes advice for business owners on hiring an SEO, and it's blunt. It says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. It tells owners to beware of any SEO that claims to guarantee rankings, claims a special relationship with Google, or advertises a priority submit to Google. There is no priority submit.

That alone rules out a lot of cold emails. If a pitch promises page one by a date, the #1 spot, or a set number of new leads from SEO, it's either untrue or a sign the company plans to cut corners to get there.

Google also warns owners to be careful with companies that are secretive about what they do, or that won't explain their changes. You're allowed to understand what you're paying for.

Red flags that should end the conversation

Any one of these is reason enough to walk away.

Some of these, like link schemes and fake reviews, can get your site demoted in Google's results or your Business Profile restricted or suspended. The company moves on to its next client. You're the one left cleaning up.

• A guarantee of rankings, a #1 position, page one by a deadline, or a fixed number of leads.
• Talk of insider access, a special relationship with Google, or secret methods they won't explain.
• Cold outreach that says your site has serious errors without showing you which ones and why they matter.
• Bought links, link packages, private blog networks, or bulk directory submissions for a low fee.
• Offers to post fake reviews, or to have real negative ones removed for a price.
• Pages stuffed with keywords or city names, or dozens of near-identical town pages with only the name swapped.
• A demand to own your Google Business Profile, your domain or your analytics instead of being added as a user.
• Reports full of rankings for phrases nobody searches, with nothing about calls or customers.
• A long contract with a heavy penalty for leaving early.

Questions to ask before you hire

Google suggests asking a potential SEO for examples of past work, whether they follow Google's search guidelines, what results they expect and in what timeframe, and how they measure success. Add a few questions of your own.

Pay attention to whether they ask about your business. A good SEO wants to know which services make you the most money, which towns you want more work in, who your competitors are, and what customers ask before they book. A pitch that would be identical for a dentist and a roofer is a template.

• What will you do in the first month, and what will you do every month after that?
• Who will actually do the work, and who do I talk to when I have a question?
• Will you tell me about every change you make to my site and listings?
• How will you measure results, and will that include calls, forms and bookings?
• If we stop working together, what happens to the content you wrote and the accounts you set up?
• How do I cancel, and how much notice do you need?

What a good answer sounds like

Honest answers are less exciting than the bad ones. Expect to hear that results take months, that nobody controls Google, and that the plan starts with fixing what's broken before adding anything new. Expect a clear list of monthly work: pages written or improved, technical fixes, listing cleanup, review requests, and a report.

A good company will tell you what it won't do, and why. It will turn down tricks you've read about. It will explain the work in plain language, and if you ask what something means, you'll get a straight answer rather than more jargon.

It should also be clear about price. You should know what you pay each month, what that covers, and whether anything costs extra. If the price changes depending on who you ask or how you push, keep asking until it's written down.

Check their work before you sign

You can learn a lot before you hand over any money. Ask the company to look at your site and your Business Profile and tell you, in plain words, the first three things they would fix and why. A good answer is specific to you. A vague answer about "optimizing your online presence" tells you nothing.

Ask to see a sample monthly report with the client details removed, and check whether it shows work done and calls, or only rankings. Look at their own website and Business Profile as well. A company that sells local SEO should be easy to find, easy to understand, and clear about what it charges.

Finally, read the agreement before you sign it, including what happens when you cancel.

Reporting you should expect

A monthly report should tell you what was done, what changed, and what it produced. In practice that means the items below.

If you can't connect the report to anything happening in your business, ask about it. You should never have to take progress on faith, and a good company won't expect you to.

• A list of the work completed that month, specific enough to check yourself.
• Search visibility from Google Search Console: impressions, clicks and the searches you appeared for.
• Rankings for the searches that matter to your business, checked across your service area rather than from one spot.
• Calls, form fills and bookings from organic search and your Business Profile.
• What's planned for next month, and why.

Protect yourself whoever you hire

Keep everything in your name. Your domain, your website hosting login, your Google Business Profile, your Google Analytics and your Search Console should all belong to the business, with any SEO company added as a user or manager. If you part ways, you remove their access and keep everything else.

Keep a list of logins and who has access to what. Ask for a short note of any major changes. Look at your own Business Profile and search results now and then, so a problem doesn't sit unnoticed for months.

Short agreements help too. A company confident in its work doesn't need to lock you in for a year. Northward's SEO & AI Search plan runs on a 30-day agreement at $499 a month, with ranking reports and call tracking so you can judge it on calls rather than promises.