A first call with an SEO agency is usually a presentation. You hear about their process, see some logos, and are asked about your goals. You leave with an impression rather than information.
The questions below change that. They are chosen because the answers are diagnostic — a good agency answers them readily and a weak one cannot, regardless of how polished the pitch is. If you want the broader selection criteria rather than the call itself, what to look for when choosing an SEO agency covers that.
About Your Site Specifically
1. What did you notice about our site before this call?
Start here. A good agency has spent twenty minutes looking and can name something specific — pages competing for one term, a thin service page, a technical oddity. A weak one will talk about your industry in general. This single question sorts most pitches.
2. What would you work on in the first month?
You want diagnosis: crawl, index coverage, baseline, assessment of existing content. If the answer is a content calendar and a keyword list, they are planning before they have looked.
3. What do you think is realistically achievable, and what is not?
Every market has terms that are out of reach for a given budget. An agency willing to say "not that one, it's dominated by national brands with far bigger budgets" is demonstrating judgement. One that says everything is achievable is telling you what you want to hear.
About the Work
4. What exactly will we receive each month?
Push for numbers and timescales, not categories. "Ongoing optimisation" is not a deliverable; "a full crawl with errors fixed in the same reporting period, two new pages, four updated" is. Our piece on what is included in SEO covers the difference.
5. Do you implement technical fixes, or hand them to our developers?
Critical and frequently glossed over. If they advise and you have no development capacity, nothing will ship. Establish this before you sign, not in month three.
6. Who writes the content, and who signs it off?
Some retainers include writing, others deliver briefs and expect you to write. The difference in your workload is enormous.
7. How do you build links, and can you show me three you earned recently?
The follow-up matters more than the answer. You want to see real links on real sites with genuine editorial context. If they will not show examples, or the examples are on sites that exist only to host links, you have your answer.
About the People
8. Who will actually work on our account?
The person pitching is frequently not the person delivering. Ask to meet them.
9. How much of the work is subcontracted, and where?
Not disqualifying — plenty of good agencies use specialists. But you should know, particularly for content written in your market's voice.
10. How many clients does our account manager handle?
Rarely asked and highly informative. There is a number above which nobody can give your account real attention.
About Measurement
11. What will you record as our starting position, and when?
The answer should be a specific set of figures, written down, dated, before any work begins. Without it, every future conversation about whether SEO is working becomes an argument about memory.
12. Which metrics will you report, and which will you be judged on?
Rankings and impressions are leading indicators. Enquiries, qualified leads and revenue are the point. An agency that only reports the first set has made its performance unfalsifiable. How SEO agencies measure success sets out what defensible reporting looks like.
13. What would tell us this is not working, and when?
The best question on the list. You are asking them to define their own failure condition. A confident agency will offer a review point with criteria. An evasive one will explain that SEO takes time — which is true and is not an answer.
About the Commercials
14. What is the notice period, and who owns the work?
You should own the content and the work product unambiguously. Long minimum terms deserve scrutiny in a discipline where the first ninety days are informative. Also confirm you retain ownership of your Search Console and analytics throughout — not delegated access.
15. Have you worked with a competitor of ours, and do you still?
Not automatically a problem, but you should know and decide whether it matters in your sector and patch.
Answers That Should End the Call
Four replies are reliable signals to stop.
"We guarantee page one." Nobody controls Google's results. A guarantee means either the targets are terms nobody searches, or it is a promise with no mechanism behind it.
"We have a relationship with Google." There is no such thing for ranking purposes. Google Partner status relates to advertising, not organic results.
"Our methods are proprietary." Legitimate SEO has no secrets worth hiding. Vagueness about method usually means you would object to the method.
A fixed price before any diagnosis. A monthly figure quoted before anyone has looked at your site is a packaged product, not a response to your situation.
For the longer list of behaviours worth avoiding, SEO agency red flags goes further.
Two Things to Ask For, Not About
A reference you can speak to, not a logo. Ask that client what the first ninety days were like and what went wrong — something always does, and how it was handled is the useful part.
A sample of their reporting. Anonymised is fine. You are checking whether it reports outcomes or activity, and whether you could actually understand it each month.
The Question Behind All of These
Everything above is really testing one thing: does this agency tell you inconvenient truths?
The agencies worth hiring say your site has problems, your timescales are optimistic, that term is out of reach, and here is what would have to change internally for this to work. That is uncomfortable in a sales call and it is the single best predictor of whether the engagement will succeed.
An agency that agrees with everything you say is easy to buy and expensive to keep.
If you would like that conversation without a pitch attached, our free SEO audit will tell you what state your site is in first, which makes every one of these questions easier to ask — and our SEO services pages set out how we structure the work.
Frequently Asked Questions
What questions should I ask an SEO agency on the first call?
Start with what they noticed about your site before the call, what they would do in month one, and what they think is realistically achievable. Then cover monthly deliverables in specifics, whether they implement technical fixes or only advise, how they build links with recent examples, who will actually do the work, and what they will record as your baseline.
What is the best single question to ask an SEO agency?
"What would tell us this is not working, and when?" It asks them to define their own failure condition. A confident agency offers a review point with criteria; an evasive one explains that SEO takes time, which is true and is not an answer.
What answers should make me walk away?
A guarantee of page one, a claimed relationship with Google that affects rankings, describing their methods as proprietary, and quoting a fixed monthly price before anyone has examined your site.
Should I ask for references or case studies?
Both, but insist on a reference you can actually speak to rather than a logo on a slide. Ask that client what the first ninety days were like and what went wrong, because something always does and how it was handled is the informative part.
What should I check about the contract before signing?
That you own the content and work product unambiguously, that you retain ownership rather than delegated access to Search Console and analytics, what the notice period is, and whether they work with competitors in your sector and area.