How to choose an SEO company without getting burned.
I have taken over accounts from agencies that charged for a year and changed nothing, and from a few that did real work badly. The pattern is always visible in the proposal and the first call, if you know what to look for. Here is the 15-question check I would run on any SEO company, including mine, plus the red flags, the green flags and the two questions almost nobody asks.
By Muhammad Zohaib Ameer, SEO specialist · Updated November 14, 2026 · 9 min read- Rule one: judge the deliverables list, not the pitch deck. If it is not written down, you will not get it.
- Rule two: every account stays in your name. Search Console, Analytics, Google Business Profile, hosting, domain.
- Rule three: a rankings guarantee is a sales device. Nobody controls Google.
- Start small: an audit or a short first term shows you how they work before you sign for a year.
Google Search Console
Google Analytics 4
Google Business Profile
Semrush
AhrefsFifteen questions, one score per company.
Run it on every proposal, including mine. Nothing is stored or sent.
Run this against each proposal you have. Be strict.
Before the call
In the proposal
Reporting and ownership
Tick each question the company passes. Below ten is a reason to keep looking.
Have me check it →Six things that should end the conversation.
Nobody controls Google. The usual trick is to guarantee an easy keyword nobody searches for, or to rank your own business name.
If they will not explain what they do in plain words, it is either nothing or something risky. Good SEO is not secret. It is work.
A number of links each month, but no list of where they are. Ask to see last month's placements for another client. If they refuse, walk.
If Search Console, Analytics or your Google profile are created under the agency's account, leaving means starting again. Insist on your own.
Messages that say they found problems on your site and can fix them cheaply are sent by the thousand. The problems are often made up.
Twelve months is not wrong on its own. Twelve months with no list of what you get each month is.
Six signs you have found a good one.
They say no
A good company turns down work that will not pay back, and tells you to fix your phones or your website first when that is the real problem.
They write it down
Pages, fixes, links and reports per month, in a list you can hold them to. The list is boring. That is the point.
They show their links
Every placement from last month for a real client, with the site and the page. You can click them.
You own everything
Accounts, content, links and changes stay with you. They say this before you ask.
You meet the worker
You can talk to the person who will touch your site, and they can answer a technical question without a callback.
They give ranges
Two to three months for the map, six to twelve for competitive pages, and a reason for each. No dates.
The pages to read closely, and the pages to skip.
| Section | What good looks like | What to question |
|---|---|---|
| Your situation | Specific findings from your site and your competitors, with screenshots | Generic text about the importance of SEO that could be sent to anyone |
| Goals | Calls, leads, bookings or revenue, with a baseline from your data | Traffic, rankings or a visibility score as the only goals |
| Deliverables | Numbers per month: pages, technical items, links, reports | Verbs with no numbers: optimise, improve, enhance |
| Timeline | Ranges with reasons, and what you must do on your side | A single date, or results promised in 30 days |
| Team | Named people with roles, and who you will speak to | A company history and awards page instead |
| Price and terms | What is included, what costs extra, how to leave, what you keep | Auto-renewal, exit fees, or ownership language you do not understand |
Read the deliverables and the terms first. If those two pages are vague, the rest of the document does not matter.
The two questions almost nobody asks.
The first is: what will the monthly report show me? The answer should be the numbers that run your business, calls, leads, bookings or sales from organic search, alongside the rankings that matter and a plain list of what was done. If the answer is a dashboard with a score out of 100, you will spend a year watching a number that does not pay your staff.
The second is: whose name is on the accounts? Search Console, Analytics, Google Tag Manager, your Google Business Profile, your hosting and your domain should all be registered to you, with the company added as a user. I have seen businesses lose years of review history because a profile was created under an agency login that nobody could recover. The same goes for content and links: ask, in writing, whether you keep them if you leave.
| Account | Who should own it | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | You, as primary owner | Your reviews, photos and map ranking live here |
| Search Console and Analytics | You, with the company as a user | Your history. Losing it means losing the ability to diagnose drops |
| Domain and hosting | You | Whoever controls these controls the site |
| Content and images | You, stated in the contract | Pages that rank should not vanish when the contract ends |
| Rank tracking and tool exports | Shared, with copies sent to you | So the next person can pick up where this one left off |
Cheap, fair and expensive.
Price alone tells you little. A low monthly fee can mean an efficient specialist, or it can mean automated content and links from a network that will need cleaning up later. A high fee can mean a deep team, or a tall building. The number to compare is what you get each month for the money: how many pages, how many real links, how many hours of a skilled person, and what the report shows.
My own prices are one data point: $499 for an audit you keep, $799 a month for one location or a small site, $1,999 a month for larger sites or several locations, with links and reports included and every account in your name. If you want to see how other price structures work, read my SEO pricing guide, and if you want to start small, my guide on what an SEO audit costs explains what a first month should look like.
Choosing an SEO company FAQ.
How do I choose the right SEO company for a small business?
Should I choose a local SEO company or a remote one?
Is a cheap SEO company ever a good idea?
What guarantees should an SEO company offer?
How long should I give an SEO company before judging them?
I do the work myselfOne specialist. No hand-offs.
I'm Muhammad Zohaib Ameer. I have worked in SEO since 2022 for businesses in the US, UK, Canada and the UAE. Run the fifteen questions on me too. Every account stays in your name, every link is listed with its URL, and you talk to the person doing the work, because there is only one.
“The best agencies and consultants I know all share one habit: they are happy to be checked. If a company gets defensive when you ask for last month's links, you have your answer.”
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