# Questions to Ask Before Hiring an SEO > Interview questions for comparing SEO providers on strategy, methods, access, reporting, pricing, and how you leave. Canonical: https://vassalmarketing.com/information/resources/questions-before-hiring-seo/ **Maintained by Vassal Marketing** ยท Last updated on September 26, 2026 Reviewed at least quarterly and whenever a platform or rule it cites changes. General information, not legal or professional advice. Check rules that affect your business with a qualified professional. Ask every candidate the same questions and note their answers side by side. A good provider explains tradeoffs, asks about your business, and does not promise rankings or rely on secret tactics. ## Strategy Find out whether they can connect SEO work to your customers and services. - Which services, customers, and areas would you focus on first, and what do you need to know before deciding? - How will you check how Google sees our site, our content, our listings, and our tracking? - How do you decide between fixing pages, merging pages, and writing new ones? - What would the first 90 days include, and what will you need from us? - What will you do if a tactic conflicts with our brand, legal duties, or customer promises? ## Methods and risk Ask them to explain in plain words how content, links, listings, and AI tools are used. - Who writes and fact-checks content, and what information will you need from us? - How do you earn links, and will you tell us about any paid placements or subcontractors? - How do you keep our Google profile, reviews, and content within Google's policies? - Where do you use AI tools, and who checks the output for made-up facts? - Have you ever had a site penalized or a profile suspended, and what did you do? ## Access and reporting Make sure your business keeps ownership and can see what was done. - Will our business own the domain, website, Search Console, analytics, Google profile, and content? - What access do you need, and how will you remove it if we part ways? - What will the monthly report show about completed work, leads, and next steps? - How are changes approved and checked before and after they go live? - Which numbers are goals, and which only help explain the goals? ## Contract and references Read the contract closely and check references for similar work. - What is included, what costs extra, and what depends on our developer, photographer, or staff? - What are the term, renewal, cancellation, and handoff terms, and who owns the content? - Can you share a reference with similar scope, and explain what you did versus what they did? - What would cause the timeline or price to change? - Walk away from guaranteed rankings, fake reviews, hidden link schemes, or refusal to document changes. ## Questions business owners ask ### Can an SEO guarantee first place? No. No legitimate provider controls Google's results. They can commit to the work, its quality, and clear reporting, but not to rankings. ### Should we give an agency owner access? Usually not. Your business should stay owner and give the agency the lowest access level that lets them work, with their own login. ### Is a long contract automatically a red flag? Not by itself. SEO takes sustained work. Check that the term, cancellation rights, ownership, and handoff are clear and fair. ## Primary guidance - [Google: Do you need an SEO?](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/do-i-need-seo) - [Google Search spam policies](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies) ## Related guides - [Marketing account ownership inventory](https://vassalmarketing.com/information/resources/marketing-account-ownership-inventory.md) - [Website provider exit planning](https://vassalmarketing.com/information/website-stewardship/website-provider-exit-planning.md) - [SEO timelines](https://vassalmarketing.com/information/seo-timelines.md) ## Related resources - [How to Evaluate an SEO Proposal](https://vassalmarketing.com/information/resources/evaluate-seo-proposal.md): A simple scoring sheet for comparing SEO proposals on diagnosis, deliverables, methods, reporting, ownership, cost, and risk. - [Marketing Account Ownership Inventory](https://vassalmarketing.com/information/resources/marketing-account-ownership-inventory.md): List every account your marketing depends on, who owns it, who has access, whether multi-factor authentication is on, and how to recover it. - [SEO Myths: A Practical Reality Check](https://vassalmarketing.com/information/resources/seo-myths.md): Common claims about rankings, content, links, technical scores, and AI search, compared with what Google actually says. [Browse all information topics](https://vassalmarketing.com/information.md).