SEO is hard to judge from the outside, which makes it easy to oversell. These questions separate providers who do the work from those who send reports.
Ask these
- What exactly will you do each month? Look for specific deliverables: pages, fixes, citations, links, profile work.
- Which keywords and suburbs will you target, and why?
- How will you report results? Ask for calls and enquiries, not just rankings and traffic.
- How long is the contract? A short minimum, then monthly, is reasonable.
- Who owns the content and accounts? It should be you.
- Who does the work? In-house, outsourced or overseas?
- Can I see results for a similar local business?
- How do you build links? Vague answers or "packages" are a warning sign.
- What do you need from me? Good SEO needs some input from you.
- What happens if I leave? You should keep everything built for you.
Red flags
- Guaranteed first-page or number-one rankings.
- Long lock-in contracts before any work is shown.
- Prices far below the market. See SEO costs in Australia.
- Reports full of numbers that never mention leads.
- Refusing to say how links are built.
Our answers are on our local SEO page and in our pricing. See also how to read an SEO report.