- Ask about the diagnosis
- Ask about execution
- Ask about accountability
| Question area | Strong evidence | Unresolved issue to record |
|---|---|---|
| Business understanding | Accurate problem summary | Missing service or customer facts |
| Diagnosis | Observed finding with reasoning | Cause or impact still uncertain |
| Implementation | Named owner and check | Dependency on client or developer |
| Content | Distinct purpose and factual review | Unsupported capability or proof |
| Tools and AI | Named system and documented limits | Unexplained score or promise |
| Reporting | Clear stages and next decision | Attribution or sample limitation |
Original analysis; answers require project-specific verification, not automatic scoring.
Use questions to reveal the proposed work
The most useful questions for an SEO company connect a claim to evidence, responsibility, and a decision. A candidate can answer a checklist fluently without understanding your website. Follow up with a representative example and ask how the answer changes the work it would perform for your business.
This guide is written by Dappr, an interested SEO provider, and is not an independent rating of agencies. It offers an interview framework rather than a script that guarantees a good hire. The business should record answers, supporting material, and unresolved questions so candidates can be compared fairly.
A fictional industrial-pump service company is used throughout. Its website explains repair and maintenance work, but staff receive requests outside its actual scope. The interview needs to uncover whether a provider can diagnose that mismatch and implement useful changes without inventing technical claims or customer results.
What do you need to understand about our business first?
A useful answer asks about real services, intended customers, geography, capacity, and how inquiries become accepted work. The company should be interested in what distinguishes the business and what customers need to decide. Google's hiring guidance explicitly encourages evaluating whether a candidate shows that interest.
For the pump service company, the provider should clarify which equipment and service categories are supported. It should not infer those details from a generic industry description. The business needs to identify the person who can approve technical wording before content work begins.
Follow up by asking the candidate to summarize the problem in its own words. If it immediately recommends a fixed article quota without understanding the inquiry mismatch, ask how those articles would address the stated issue. The reasoning should be visible before the proposal becomes a monthly commitment.
Which observations support your initial diagnosis?
Ask the company to separate what it has actually seen from what it suspects. A page may be unclear, a form may fail, or a search report may show a change, but the cause and importance still require interpretation. A confident conclusion should have identifiable evidence behind it.
The fictional company may have recently changed its service offering. A traffic change during the same period should not automatically be blamed on a technical issue or an algorithm update. The provider should ask about known business and website changes before attributing causation.
Request one example of a finding, why it matters, and the next check. A tool warning should not end the explanation. The business needs to understand whether the issue affects an important customer task and whether the proposed correction is proportionate to the evidence.
What access do you need at this stage?
Google recommends read access to Search Console for an SEO audit stage. Ask the candidate which reports or site information it needs and why. Diagnosis and implementation are different activities, and the account permissions should reflect the agreed task rather than default to broad control.
For the pump service company, an initial review may use public pages and appropriate read-only reports. If later implementation needs additional access, define the changes, approval owner, and validation process. Preserve business ownership of relevant accounts and a record of who can act.
Ask how access is removed when a person leaves the team or the engagement ends. The provider should have a practical answer that does not depend on sharing personal passwords. This question tests operational discipline as well as the company's understanding of the immediate SEO assignment.
Who implements recommendations and verifies them?
A useful answer identifies the people who change content, templates, redirects, and other settings, along with whoever checks the result. Some SEO companies advise while a separate developer implements. That can work, but the business should not discover the distinction after paying for several reports.
For the fictional company, revising a service page requires technical approval, writing, implementation, and a check that the inquiry route still works. Ask the provider to walk through that sequence. If a step belongs to your team, estimate whether your team has the time and skills to perform it.
Follow up with an exception: what happens when the recommended change conflicts with the current site architecture or another business requirement? The company should explain how it documents tradeoffs and chooses an alternative. Automatically applying every tool suggestion is not a substitute for judgment.
How will you decide which content deserves a page?
Ask how the provider identifies a distinct customer need and verifies the business can support the content. A page plan should not be based only on a list of keywords or nearby cities. The company should explain what each page helps the reader understand and why the information belongs separately.
The pump service business may need a clear distinction between inspection and repair, with approved conditions for each. It should not create pages implying unsupported equipment expertise or local branches. A provider should be comfortable leaving a topic unpublished when the necessary evidence or capability is missing.
Ask who supplies and reviews factual material, and how unsupported claims are handled. A hypothetical example can explain a process if clearly labeled, but it is not a client case study. The business should retain authority over claims about certifications, warranties, experience, and results.
What do your tools measure, and what do they not know?
Google states that third-party SEO tools do not access its internal ranking data and are not endorsed by Google Search. Ask the candidate to explain the meaning and limits of any score it uses. A useful tool observation should connect to a verifiable page or technical condition.
For the fictional company, a tool might flag similar service descriptions. The next step is to inspect whether they serve distinct tasks and contain accurate information. A score alone does not justify deleting useful content or forcing every page into an identical format.
If a provider claims a special Google-approved tool or guaranteed ranking method, ask for the primary evidence. The answer should distinguish a product integration or advertising credential from organic-search authority. Do not allow an unfamiliar technical term to replace an explanation you can assess.
How do you handle AI-search recommendations?
Ask which systems are being discussed and which deliverables are additional to ordinary SEO work. Google's current generative-AI guide is a relevant primary source for Google Search, but it should not be generalized to every answer service. The company needs to name the system behind a technical recommendation.
For the pump service business, clearer descriptions of supported work may be useful for visitors and search systems alike. A separate observation program could sample how questions are answered, but it should disclose wording, dates, and limitations. A selected citation is not proof that the provider controls future answers.
Ask whether a proposed GEO or AEO fee duplicates content or technical tasks already included. Require a concrete scope and an appropriate review point. Avoid guaranteed recommendations or claims that an undocumented file or markup format creates an entitlement to appear.
How will you report business relevance and uncertainty?
Ask for definitions of impressions, visits, inquiries, suitable opportunities, and sales where those measures are used. They represent different stages. The provider should not call every tracked form event a qualified lead or present traffic growth as a direct revenue result without supporting records.
The fictional company needs to know whether requests concern its actual pump-service scope. Staff feedback about unsuitable inquiries can inform wording and page decisions. It should be combined with available search and website evidence while preserving privacy and acknowledging incomplete attribution.
Request an example of reporting an unsuccessful test or a small sample. A responsible company can state that the evidence is insufficient for a strong conclusion. The report should explain the next action and its owner rather than choose only favorable charts to defend the retainer.
Ask how reporting changes when the business discovers a measurement error. The provider should preserve the distinction between corrected data and an actual change in customer behavior, explain which earlier conclusions are affected, and update the next decision accordingly. Quietly replacing a chart without context leaves the owner unable to evaluate the work fairly.
What are the scope, cost, and handoff boundaries?
Ask what is included in diagnosis, content, implementation, meetings, and reporting, and what costs extra. Identify external tools or production expenses and the inputs expected from the business. Compare candidates against the same brief instead of assuming their monthly fees purchase equivalent work.
Keep delivery commitments separate from search outcomes. The provider can commit to reviewing pages or checking an implemented correction, but Google's guidance rejects guaranteed number-one rankings. A schedule should explain dependencies and uncertainty rather than promise a result on a date the agency cannot control.
Finally, ask what you receive if the engagement ends: approved content, change history, access information, findings, and unresolved recommendations. The pump service company should be able to understand its website and continue the work. A useful interview leaves these responsibilities clear enough to put into the agreed scope.
Questions before you begin
How many SEO companies should I interview?
Use a manageable shortlist of candidates with evidence relevant to the assignment rather than pursuing a fixed number for its own sake. Give them the same brief and compare reasoning, implementation, and scope. The quality of the evidence matters more than collecting many proposals that describe different services.
What is a useful follow-up to a confident claim?
Ask what was observed, what evidence supports the conclusion, what remains uncertain, and what action follows. Request a representative example. This helps distinguish a reasoned recommendation from a sales statement without requiring the provider to perform an entire unpaid audit during the interview.
Should I reject an SEO company that cannot guarantee results?
No. Honest limits are appropriate because independent search systems and customer behavior are outside the provider's control. Evaluate commitments to useful work, validation, and transparent reporting. Google warns against guaranteed number-one rankings, so certainty can be a reason for scrutiny rather than confidence.
What if the company only provides recommendations?
That can be a valid service if the scope is explicit and someone has capacity to implement. Identify the implementation owner, approvals, and validation process before hiring. Otherwise, a useful diagnosis may remain an unaddressed backlog while the business assumes progress is occurring.
How should I record the answers?
Keep a simple comparison with the question, supporting evidence, assigned responsibility, and unresolved issue. Avoid precise scores unsupported by the information. The record should help your team explain why a candidate fits and what needs to be clarified before work begins.