Ask for an audit before a proposal
A proposal written without looking at your business is a template. Ask to see what they found in your site, your search position and your competitors before any price is named. Ours is the free audit.
Ask who actually does the work
The person who sells is often not the person who builds. Ask who will do the work, who you will speak to, and what happens if that person leaves. You can see who does what on our about page.
Ask what is not included
A scope is as much about what is left out. Ask what costs extra, what the monthly fee does not cover, and where ad spend is paid. Our pricing page shows how we separate them.
Look at what the report measures
Traffic, impressions and rankings are activity. Enquiries, calls and booked jobs are results. A report should lead with results and show the work behind them. If it only shows activity, you are paying for a story.
Be wary of guarantees
Nobody outside Google controls rankings, and nobody outside a platform controls ad performance. Anyone who guarantees a position or a number of leads is guessing or selling, and buying links to push a rank can break Google's spam policies. A fair agency tells you what it controls, what it does not and how it will report. Advertising claims also have to be truthful: the FTC's truth in advertising guidance is a useful yardstick.
Check the package
Three tiers and a price for each is a tidy way to sell. It is built around what the agency sells. Ask whether the plan was written for your business or picked from a menu. For a related decision, read SEO or Google Ads first.
Check how they behave
Notice how they answer a direct question, whether they will say no to work that does not suit you, and whether they ask about your business before they talk about theirs. We turn down clients who want a service they do not need, and we say so up front.
