How do I choose an SEO agency?

Questions worth asking on a first call:

• What would you do in the first 90 days, and why in that order?
• Which results have you achieved for businesses like ours, and can we see the evidence?
• Who will work on our account day to day, and what is their experience?
• How will you measure success, and how often will we get reports?
• How do you handle AI search visibility, and what do you actually change?
• Who owns the content, accounts and data if we part ways?
• What are the contract terms and notice period?

Red flags include guaranteed rankings, secret methods, link packages sold by volume, reports built only on third-party scores and reluctance to give you access to your own Google Search Console or Analytics data. Google's advice on hiring an SEO covers several of these.

It also helps to start small. An audit, free or paid, shows how an agency thinks and communicates before you commit to a retainer, and gives you a useful plan even if you decide to do the work yourself.