Choosing the wrong SEO agency doesn’t just waste money — it can actively damage your search rankings. Dodgy link building, keyword stuffing, and black-hat techniques can result in Google penalties that take months or years to recover from.
This guide helps you evaluate agencies properly so you make an informed decision.
Guaranteed rankings. No legitimate agency can guarantee a #1 position on Google. The algorithm considers hundreds of factors and changes constantly. Any agency promising specific positions is either lying or using techniques that will eventually get you penalised.
No reporting or vague reporting. If an agency can’t show you exactly what they did last month, what changed, and what they’re doing next month — they’re hiding something. Transparency is non-negotiable.
Lock-in contracts. If the work is good, you’ll stay. If it’s not, you should be free to leave. Long-term contracts protect the agency, not you. Look for month-to-month arrangements.
Unusually cheap pricing. SEO done properly requires skilled people spending real time on your business. If someone’s offering $200/month for “full SEO”, they’re either outsourcing to a content mill or doing almost nothing. Quality SEO services have a cost floor that reflects the expertise required.
No interest in your website. SEO doesn’t exist in a vacuum. An agency that wants to run SEO without looking at your website’s performance, mobile experience, or hosting infrastructure doesn’t understand how search works in 2026.
Start with an audit. Before recommending anything, they assess where you are. Technical health, content gaps, backlink profile, competitor landscape, and local SEO positioning. A proper audit takes days, not minutes.
Explain their strategy. They should be able to tell you, in plain language, what they’re going to do and why. “We’ll do SEO” isn’t a strategy. “We’ll fix your crawl errors, optimise your 10 highest-potential pages, create 4 content pieces targeting your competitor’s keyword gaps, and build 8 quality backlinks” — that’s a strategy.
Show measurable outcomes. Rankings, organic traffic, conversions from organic search. These are the metrics that matter. Vanity metrics like “domain authority improvement” or “number of keywords tracked” are secondary.
Understand your business. The best SEO work comes from agencies that understand your industry. An agency that specialises in trades, healthcare, or finance can move faster because they already know the keyword landscape and competitor dynamics.
SEO is an investment, and like any investment, it should produce returns. A simple framework:
If your average customer is worth $2,000 and your SEO campaign generates 10 additional leads per month at a 20% close rate, that’s $4,000/month in new revenue. Against a $1,500/month retainer, the ROI is clear.
Ask potential agencies to model this for your business. If they can’t connect their work to revenue outcomes, they’re selling activity, not results.
At Proto SEO, we start every engagement with a $250 audit that maps your current position across 7 pillars. You see exactly where you stand before committing to anything. Retainers are month-to-month starting at $500/month, with transparent reporting showing what we did, what changed, and what’s next.
Want to see where you stand before talking to any agency? Run our free website audit — it takes 2 minutes and gives you a baseline to compare against.
Looking for an SEO partner? Start with a $250 audit or book a call to discuss your goals. No lock-in, no pressure.