Good SEO Companies: 9 Questions to Ask First

Choosing between “good SEO companies” is harder in 2026 than it was a few years ago. Rankings still matter, but so do AI Overviews, answer engines, and the fact that your competitors can publish at unprecedented speed. That means you do not just need an SEO vendor, you need a partner with clear priorities, tight quality control, and reporting that ties work to business outcomes.

Below are 9 questions that quickly separate capable SEO teams from agencies that mostly sell deliverables.

What “good” means

A good SEO company is not the one that promises “#1 rankings.” It is the one that:

• Aligns SEO work to your revenue model (leads, trials, pipeline, ecommerce).

• Prioritizes changes that move the needle, not busywork.

• Works within search engine guidelines and can explain tradeoffs.

• Proves impact with clean measurement.

Google’s own guidance is blunt: no one can guarantee #1 rankings, and you should be wary of anyone who claims they can. (See Google’s “Do you need an SEO?”.)

Q1 Goals

Question: “What outcomes are we optimizing for, and how will you measure success?”

Good SEO companies force clarity early: which pages convert, what a qualified lead is, which markets matter, and what your realistic targets are for 3, 6, and 12 months.

Listen for specifics like:

• A defined primary KPI (qualified leads, trial starts, revenue), plus supporting SEO KPIs (non-branded clicks, top-10 coverage, assisted conversions).

• A plan to separate branded vs non-branded performance.

• A measurement stack built on Search Console and analytics you already trust.

Red flag: “We focus on rankings and impressions.” Those can be useful diagnostics, but they are not the end goal.

Q2 Plan

Question: “What is your first 30 days plan, and what will you not do yet?”

A strong agency can explain sequencing. For example, they might start with a technical triage and internal linking cleanup before scaling content, or they might prioritize a handful of bottom-funnel pages before investing in top-of-funnel.

What you want to hear:

• A short list of the highest-leverage fixes first.

• Clear dependencies (dev time, CMS access, design support).

• Tradeoffs (for example, “we will not chase high-volume head terms until we have topical coverage and internal link support”).

Red flag: a 60-slide audit with no prioritization, or a plan that starts with “publish 100 blog posts” before understanding your site structure.

Q3 Audits

Question: “How do you audit and prioritize technical SEO, content, and internal links?”

Good SEO companies do not treat SEO as one checklist. They should be able to explain how they:

• Find crawl and indexation blockers.

• Evaluate templates (titles, headings, schema, pagination, faceted nav).

• Build internal linking that supports topic hubs, not random cross-links.

Ask for their prioritization method. Even a simple impact/effort framework is fine as long as it is consistently applied.

Red flag: “We use a tool that gives us a score.” Tools are helpful, but experienced SEOs interpret data and make judgment calls.

Q4 Content

Question: “How do you ensure content is accurate, original, and aligned with our brand?”

In 2026, content quality is not just a writing issue, it is a risk issue. You want a process that prevents:

• Factual errors

• Thin, repetitive posts

• Cannibalization (multiple pages targeting the same intent)

• Brand voice drift

A good answer includes a workflow for briefs, editing, and verification, plus clear ownership (who approves, who fact-checks, who publishes).

If they use AI, that is not automatically bad. What matters is whether they have guardrails and human review where it counts. Google’s guidance focuses on helpfulness and quality, not whether a machine helped draft. (See Google Search guidance on AI-generated content.)

Red flag: “Our AI writes everything, no edits needed.”

Q5 Links

Question: “How do you build authority and earn links, and what do you refuse to do?”

Link building is where mediocre providers get risky fast.

What you want to hear:

• A plan centered on earned links (digital PR, content assets, partnerships) and strong internal link architecture.

• Clear avoidance of link schemes.

• Transparency about what is being built, where, and why.

Google is explicit that buying or manipulating links to pass PageRank violates policy. (See Google’s link spam policies.)

Red flag: “We have a private network,” “we guarantee X links per month,” or anything that sounds like a marketplace for PageRank.

Q6 Team

Question: “Who will actually do the work, and who owns decisions?”

Many agencies sell with seniors and deliver with juniors. That can still work, but you should know the real operating model.

Ask:

• Who is your day-to-day contact?

• Who writes, edits, and optimizes?

• Who handles technical recommendations and communicates with dev?

• What is the review and approval flow?

Red flag: vague answers, or “we have a team” with no named roles.

Q7 Reporting

Question: “Show a sample report, what would we look at every month?”

A good SEO report is not a screenshot dump. It should answer:

• What changed?

• Why did it change?

• What are we doing next?

At minimum, expect:

• Search Console performance trends (queries, pages, CTR)

• Indexation and crawl health

• Content performance by intent cluster

• Conversion tracking (direct and assisted, depending on your funnel)

Red flag: only vanity metrics, or a report that never leads to a decision.

Q8 AI search

Question: “How are you adapting to AI Overviews and answer engines without guessing?”

Whether you call it AEO, GEO, or LLMO, the practical question is the same: can they make your content easy to retrieve, trust, and cite?

A strong answer includes:

• Structuring pages with clear answer blocks and consistent entities

• Using schema where it truly fits (not schema stuffing)

• Updating and refreshing content based on query changes

• Monitoring visibility beyond classic blue links

Red flag: “SEO is dead, we only optimize for AI now,” or tactics that sound like hacks rather than durable publishing standards.

Q9 Contract

Question: “What is the exit plan if this is not working?”

Good SEO companies are not afraid of accountability. Ask about:

• Minimum term and cancellation terms

• Who owns content, accounts, and access

• What documentation you keep (keyword maps, briefs, technical backlog)

• What happens to tooling subscriptions and logins

Red flag: long lock-ins with unclear deliverables and no data portability.

Quick scorecard

Use this table to compare vendors after calls. You are looking for clarity, not perfection.

If you want to test an agency fast

If you are on the fence between two “good SEO companies,” run a small pilot that forces real work and measurable output, for example:

• One technical sprint (top 10 issues fixed or approved)

• One content cluster shipped (not just drafted)

• A reporting cadence that ties work to conversions

You learn more in 30 days of execution than in 10 sales calls.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to see results with an SEO company? Many sites see early movement (indexation, long-tail clicks, technical stability) within 4 to 8 weeks, but meaningful non-branded growth often takes 3 to 6 months, depending on authority, competition, and how fast you can ship changes.

Can good SEO companies guarantee rankings? No. Any guarantee of a specific rank is a red flag. Good providers can forecast scenarios and commit to execution quality, but they cannot control search engines.

Should I hire an agency, a consultant, or build in-house? Agencies are useful for speed and breadth, consultants are great for strategy and oversight, and in-house teams win on context and iteration. Many teams succeed with a hybrid: in-house strategy plus external execution.

Is AI content safe for SEO in 2026? It can be, if you have guardrails for accuracy, originality, and intent match. The risk usually comes from low-effort publishing, not from using AI as a drafting assistant.

What should be included in an SEO proposal? Clear goals, a prioritized plan, who does what, what gets shipped (not just delivered), how reporting works, and what access or dev time is required.

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