How to choose an SEO company

How to choose an SEO company: ask who will do the work, what they'll do each month, how they'll report real calls and enquiries, and whether you'll own everything if you leave. Then check their contract for lock-ins and their methods for bought links. ADEL SEO helps local businesses get more enquiries from Google, Google Maps and AI search, with websites, SEO and Google Ads. Founded in Adelaide in 2014 by Wilson Tiong, who has been doing SEO since 2007.

Key takeaways

• Ask what will be done each month, by whom, and how results are reported.
• Make sure your website, domain, Google Business Profile and ad accounts stay in your name.
• Avoid lock-in contracts, guaranteed rankings and cheap link packages.
• Judge results by calls and enquiries, not rankings or traffic alone.
• Google itself publishes advice on hiring an SEO: see Google's guide.

Why this matters

Owners who've been burned say it plainly: "there was no evidence of anything done", "8 months later with no website or refund", "will not give me the password". Most of the bad outcomes we see come from choosing on price alone, without asking the questions below.

10 questions to ask an SEO company

1. Who will actually do the work, and can I talk to them directly?
2. What exactly will you do in the first three months? Get it in writing.
3. How will you report results? Rankings only, or the calls and enquiries the work brought?
4. How do you track calls and forms? Conversion tracking means measuring the calls and enquiries that come from ads and the website, not just clicks.
5. Will I own my website, domain, Google Analytics, Google Ads account and Google Business Profile? If not, walk away.
6. Is there a lock-in contract? If so, how long, and what happens if I want to leave?
7. How do you get links? Backlinks are links from other websites to yours, which Google treats as votes of trust. Ask where they come from.
8. Will you give me access to Google Search Console? It's Google's free tool that shows which searches a website appears for and any problems Google finds. You should have your own access.
9. What will you do with my Google Business Profile and reviews?
10. What happens to the pages and links you build if I leave?

Red flags and SEO scams

• Guaranteed first place on Google. Nobody controls Google's results.
• Cheap link packages or "500 backlinks for $99". In my experience they cause more harm than good; I avoid taking on sites built on them and clean them up when I find them.
• The agency owns your accounts or website. You can't leave without losing everything.
• Reports full of rankings and traffic, but no calls.
• Long lock-in contracts with nothing specific promised each month.
• Copied pages. Location pages copied from one template with only the headings changed, the old suburb still in the titles. We find this on a lot of trade websites.
• Pages hidden from Google by mistake. On one plumbing website we took over, a whole group of pages had been set to "noindex" by the previous provider.

What should an SEO contract include?

An SEO contract should say what work is done each month, who does it, how and when it's reported, who owns the accounts and content, the notice period to leave, and the monthly fee. No lock-in contracts is the safest version.

How to compare quotes

Put two or three quotes side by side and ask each provider the 10 questions. The cheapest quote often leaves out tracking, content or links; the most expensive isn't always doing more. More on prices: how much does SEO cost?

How ADEL SEO answers these questions

• You work directly with Wilson, not a junior account manager.
• Plain-English reports showing what was done and the calls and enquiries it brought.
• You own everything: your website, domain, Google Analytics, Google Ads account and Google Business Profile.
• No lock-in contracts. Stay because it works.
• No bought links. Real links from local and industry sites.

How to choose an SEO agency FAQs