How to Hire an SEO Agency That Does the Work Instead of Selling a Deck

An SEO agency worth hiring can show experience with a business like yours, connect reporting to leads and revenue, work within your compliance limits, and carry out the work instead of handing you a deck and disappearing.

I rewrote this guide because the buying question has changed. People now ask AI tools about products and services before they visit a website, and plenty of agency pitches still treat that like a future problem. The general-market version of my cannabis hiring guide needed its own home.

Why hiring got harder to get right

Most agency websites use the same words: results, transparent, data-driven. Those words tell you very little about what happens after you sign.

I’ve worked in SEO since 2013, learning through hands-on client work. I’ve seen how quickly a polished pitch can turn into a monthly report full of charts that never answer the owner’s actual question: “Why are the calls thin?”

Ask an agency to explain its process in plain steps. What will it review first? Who will make the changes? How will you know if the work is bringing in qualified leads? Specific answers give you something real to evaluate.

Search volume alone also doesn’t tell the whole story. Terms like “seo agency” and “seo agency near me” have substantial reported demand, but they’re competitive. The long-tail query “how to hire an seo agency” has lower volume and clear buying intent. This post earns its place by answering that specific decision well, not by pretending one article can win every broad term.

What to look for in an SEO agency

Use this checklist in your conversations. A good fit should be able to explain each point with examples and clear next steps.

• Experience with businesses like yours. Ask how the agency approaches your business model, customers, and sales cycle. A local service business in Grand Rapids has different search needs from a national online store. A business serving Kentwood, Wyoming, Hudsonville, Holland, or Muskegon needs its service area reflected accurately in its site and local listings.
• A process for sensitive claims. Health and wellness brands need careful review of product and service language. Ask who checks claims, how your legal team can review content, and how the agency handles edits. I cover SEO content strategy and on-page SEO as part of the work that helps pages serve both readers and search engines.
• Reporting connected to leads. Reports should explain what work shipped, what changed, and how organic visibility relates to calls, form fills, bookings, or sales. Tracking rankings helps show search movement, while analytics and call data help put that movement in business context.
• A named person who answers. Ask who owns your account and how to reach them when a site issue needs attention. You should know who is doing the work and who will reply when you have a question.
• Execution, including content and publishing. Find out if the agency handles research, writing, imagery, upload, and publishing, or provides recommendations for your team to implement. A useful SEO services plan should make those responsibilities clear.
• Local search knowledge. For location-based businesses, ask how the agency handles your Google Business Profile, location pages, and local visibility. My notes on local SEO explain the foundations I look at.
• AI search visibility. Ask if the agency tracks how your brand appears in AI answers and how it builds clear, useful information that can be cited. Local AEO and AI search optimization are part of the wider search picture.
• Technical fundamentals. Site structure and internal links help people and search engines find important pages. Ask what the agency checks in a technical SEO review.

Red flags worth taking seriously

Guaranteed rankings and fixed timelines should give you pause. Search results change, competitors make moves, and platforms update their systems. An agency can set priorities and report progress. It cannot responsibly promise a specific ranking by a certain date.

Ask how the agency handles content production. A high page count looks impressive in a proposal, but content needs a real purpose, review, and useful information. Google describes large-scale production of low-value pages as scaled content abuse in its spam policies.

Look closely at the reports. Green arrows without an explanation of what changed or what the business gained are decoration.

For health and wellness brands, an agency should have a thoughtful claim-review process. Your team knows the boundaries your legal counsel has set. The agency should be able to work within them and raise questions when copy needs review.

I also ask plainly about link building. Google’s policy covers buying and selling links that pass ranking signals, large-scale guest posting with keyword-rich anchors, and excessive link exchanges. An agency should be able to tell you where links come from and why the work makes sense.

Finally, ask who edits AI-assisted content. Google evaluates AI-assisted pages by the same standards as other content, with helpfulness and clear authorship among the important considerations. I expect a human review before content goes live.

Questions to ask before signing

I’d bring these questions to the call and write down the answers.

1. Who writes and reviews the content? Ask who researches, drafts, checks facts, and approves the final version.
2. How do you handle claim-sensitive language? Ask how your compliance or legal reviewer fits into the workflow.
3. What will my report show? Ask how the report connects completed work and search visibility to qualified calls, form fills, bookings, or sales.
4. Which tools will I have access to? Google Search Console and Google Analytics are a sensible baseline. You should have direct access to your own accounts.
5. How do you approach AI answers and citations? Ask which systems the agency tracks, how it checks for mentions, and what it reports over time.
6. Who do I contact when I need help? Ask who responds, how to reach them, and how urgent website problems are handled.
7. What happens when a platform policy or algorithm update lands mid-engagement? Listen for a clear plan to assess the change, explain its impact, and adjust priorities.

I would also send one real question before signing. Ask something a client would actually ask, like what changed in the last month on a project like yours. How fast a real answer arrives tells you more than any pitch. You are choosing a working relationship, so the first few conversations are useful evidence.

The AI answer layer changes the hiring calculus

Buyers ask ChatGPT and Gemini about services and products, then use the answers to narrow their options. Ask a prospective agency how it works to make your business understandable and citable, and how it tracks visibility across AI answers.

No agency can promise a citation. Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet to qualify for links in its AI features, with no special markup required. Its AI features guidance lays out those requirements. Google’s AI optimization guide also emphasizes useful, distinctive content over any single technical suggestion.

I look at how the site is organized, confirm the important information is accessible, and check that the content answers real questions clearly. I also use an AI visibility checker to investigate where a brand appears in AI answers. For more on the wider search shift, I’ve written about AEO and GEO and building topical authority.

What I do on client projects

I build SEO strategy and content for client projects, from keyword research through writing, imagery, and publishing. I track rankings, AI citations, and traffic together so the work has context beyond a single metric.

My agency client work is through Evergreen Digital, a Michigan digital marketing agency. Founder Brady Madden sets strategic direction on most accounts, and I build strategy myself on some of them. The work belongs to Evergreen Digital, and I describe it that way. You can see case studies with real performance data on my site.

I turn down work that asks me to guarantee rankings or approve claims a client’s legal team won’t approve. Google’s guidance on creating helpful content is a useful reference for why a page needs a clear purpose, reliable information, and a person accountable for it. I’ve also written about editing AI drafts, because a draft still needs a human who knows what belongs on the page.

A practical next step

Before choosing an agency, write down what a good lead means for your business, what your team can implement, and who needs to review sensitive content. Bring that list to your first call. It will make the conversation more useful and the proposal easier to judge.

If you want a starting point for your own site, request a free SEO audit. If your questions sit in a regulated category, the cannabis version of this guide covers how the hiring calculus changes when advertising is restricted and compliance rules shape the content.

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