Choosing an agency
Questions to ask an SEO agency
Published 6 August 2026 · Updated 26 August 2026 · 8 min read
You do not need to understand SEO to interview an agency well. You need the right questions and a sense of what a straight answer sounds like.
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Take these into your shortlist calls. You are not testing technical knowledge, you are testing whether the agency is thinking about your business or reciting a service list. Use them alongside how to choose an SEO agency.
About your site, before any pitch
- What are the two biggest problems with our website right now?
- Which of our pages is closest to ranking well, and what is holding it back?
- Who do you think our real search competitors are, and are they the same as our business competitors?
- What would you do in the first thirty days, and why that rather than something else?
- What would you not do, and why?
An agency that answers these without having looked at your site is guessing. An agency that has looked and can point at a specific page is already doing the job. If the answers involve technical language you cannot follow, technical SEO explained covers enough to keep up.
About the people
- Who will work on this account, by name, and what is their role?
- How many hours a month does our retainer represent?
- Will the person in this meeting be the person doing the work?
- Is any part of this outsourced, and if so, which part?
- How many other clients does our account manager handle?
About the work itself
- Who writes the content, and do they have experience in our sector?
- Where do links come from? Name three sites you have earned links from recently.
- How do you decide which keywords to target, and how do you value them?
- What technical changes will you need our developer to make?
- How do you handle a Google update that damages our rankings?
On links in particular, a specific answer matters. "Digital PR and outreach to sector publications" with named examples is a real answer. "We have a network of high authority sites" is not, and link building explained covers why that distinction matters so much.
About measurement
- What will you report on, and how often?
- Will we have direct access to our own Search Console and analytics?
- How do you separate branded from non branded search in reporting?
- How do you track phone calls, not just form submissions?
- What does failure look like, and at what point would you tell us to stop?
That last question is the most revealing one on this page. An agency willing to describe the conditions under which you should stop paying them is an agency confident enough to be honest with you later. Compare what you are told against what SEO reports should contain and the SEO KPIs that actually matter.
About money and terms
- What is the notice period, and what happens to the work if we leave?
- What is included in the fee and what is billed separately?
- Realistically, when should we expect to break even?
Benchmark the answers against typical UK SEO costs and the pricing models so you can tell a fair quote from a padded one. Then compare quotes from Bristol SEO agencies and put the same questions to each.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
What is the single best question to ask?
"What would make you tell us to stop spending?" It tests honesty, commercial judgement and confidence in one sentence, and very few sales driven agencies answer it well.
Should I ask for a free audit?
Ask for observations, not a full audit. A serious agency will happily spend twenty minutes telling you what they can see. A free full audit is usually an automated report and tells you little about how the team thinks.
Is it fair to ask for client references?
Entirely fair, and the answer to expect is yes. Ask for a current client in a comparable sector rather than a testimonial from someone who left three years ago.
What if I do not understand the answers?
That is useful information in itself. A good agency explains SEO in terms of your customers and your enquiries. If everything comes back as jargon, either they cannot translate it or they would rather you did not follow.
Written by the CompareSEO Bristol editorial team. We are an independent directory and we do not sell SEO services, so nothing here is written to win your business. Read our methodology for how we compile and check what we publish.
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