Every SEO sales call sounds impressive. A confident voice, a few big client logos, a slide about growth. The way to cut through it is not to learn SEO yourself; it is to ask questions that force specific answers, then listen carefully for hedging.
Here are the twelve we would want answered before signing anything, grouped into four areas: the people, the work, the reporting and the terms. For each one you will find why it matters and what a good answer sounds like next to an evasive one. Bring the list to any sales call, including one with us.
The people
You are not buying a brand. You are buying the hours and judgement of specific humans, so start there.
1. Who exactly will work on my account?
A good answer gives names, roles and experience without hesitation. An evasive answer offers “our team of experts” with no names attached. If an agency cannot say who does the work, expect juniors learning on your budget, or outsourcing they would rather not mention.
2. Is any of the work outsourced?
Outsourcing is not automatically bad, but hiding it is. A good answer names what is done in-house, what is not, and who checks the quality. An evasive answer bristles at the question or hides behind words like “partners” and “network”.
3. Who will I actually deal with month to month?
Plenty of owners meet a brilliant salesperson once and never again. A good answer introduces the person who will run your account, ideally someone close to the work itself. An evasive one keeps that conveniently vague until the contract is signed.
The work
Two agencies can charge the same fee and deliver wildly different work. These three show you what your money would actually buy.
4. What would you do in the first ninety days?
A good answer starts with an audit, because nobody honest can prescribe in detail before diagnosing. What you want is the shape of the work: fix, build, publish, in a sensible order. An evasive answer is a plan that would fit any business, or worse, a promised position. If you hear a ranking guarantee, end the call; can you guarantee SEO rankings explains why.
5. Why is that the right work for my business?
This question separates thinkers from template-sellers. A good answer refers to your market, your customers and the state of your current site. An evasive one lists deliverables, such as ten keywords and four blog posts a month, with no reasoning that connects them to revenue.
6. Can you show me examples from businesses like mine?
A good answer offers real businesses with enough context to judge: what was done, over what period, from what starting point. An evasive answer offers vague percentage claims with no names, no timeframe and no way to check any of it.
The reporting
Reporting is where good agencies shine and bad ones hide. You are listening for openness, not polish.
7. How will I see what you are doing?
The good answer is live access to your own data, any day you like, plus a plain-English review each month. The evasive answer is a monthly PDF built from numbers you cannot check. If reporting only flows through the agency’s filter, you will only ever see what flatters them.
8. What results do you actually measure?
Leads, calls and sales are the point of the exercise. Rankings and traffic are only the route to them. A good agency says so without prompting. An evasive one talks about positions and sessions and hopes you never ask what any of it earned you.
9. What happens when something does not work?
SEO involves informed bets, and some of them miss. A good answer admits that and explains how misses are spotted early and corrected. An evasive answer implies nothing they do ever fails, which tells you the reporting will be built to hide problems rather than fix them.
The money and the terms
The contract tells you how confident an agency is in its own work. Fair terms and clear ownership are not perks; they are the baseline.
10. What exactly does the fee cover?
A good answer itemises the scope: the work, the hours or the deliverables behind the price. An evasive answer is a figure with nothing underneath it. Nobody honest can price work they have not scoped, so a confident quote before any audit is a warning sign in itself.
11. What are the terms if I want to leave?
Fair terms are a confidence signal. Month-to-month, or a short notice period, means the agency expects to keep you on merit. Pressure to sign for twelve months today, sweetened with a discount that expires this week, means the opposite.
12. Who owns the site, the content and the accounts?
Everything should live in your name: the website, the content written for it, Search Console, Analytics and your Google Business Profile. A good answer confirms that in writing. An evasive answer mentions “our systems”, which is how businesses end up losing assets they paid for. We cover that trap, and the others, in signs of a bad SEO agency.
Bring the list, judge the answers
Twelve questions will not make you an SEO expert, and they do not need to. They force specifics, and specifics are where the truth lives. We are happy to sit the same exam: ask us every one of these about our SEO services in Galway and judge the answers for yourself.
A natural place to start is a free SEO audit, which shows you how we think before you spend a cent. And for the bigger picture, from first call to fair contract, read our full guide to how to choose an SEO agency.
