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An SEO proposal should explain what prevents suitable customers from finding and using your website. If it begins and ends with a promise of first-place rankings, it is missing the work you need to evaluate.
Choose a provider by the quality of the diagnosis, proposed changes, transparency and fit with your business. Rankings are useful observations, not a substitute for qualified demand.
Ask what the audit will examine
A useful review can include crawlability, indexing, page structure, customer questions, existing performance and technical obstacles. Ask how the provider distinguishes a real problem from a low-priority tool warning.
Google’s SEO hiring guidance recommends realistic assessments and cautions against ranking guarantees. It also notes that third-party tools do not have access to Google’s internal ranking data.
Connect the work with real services and locations
Confirm which customers and areas the business actually serves. A Canadian business may need strong local information, a national product catalogue or specialised B2B explanations. Those are different scopes.
Avoid plans built around near-identical city pages with no meaningful local content. Ask what each page contributes and how it helps the intended visitor.
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Make deliverables visible
| Work area | Evidence to request |
|---|---|
| Technical changes | The issue, proposed fix and verification. |
| Content | Question, sources, editorial review and page purpose. |
| Internal links | Relevant routes between useful pages. |
| External promotion | Methods, quality criteria and policy compliance. |
| Reporting | Completed work, suitable traffic and business outcomes. |
Agree on ownership of accounts, content and working records. Start with appropriate access for the task and retain control of your domain and core business accounts.
Question guarantees about AI visibility too
AI-assisted discovery is a reasonable part of the discussion, but ask exactly what is being promised. Google’s generative-search guidance supports useful content and technical accessibility. No provider can reasonably guarantee that a named assistant will cite your business for every important question.
Clear answers, accurate references and original detail are sensible editorial work. Invented special markup or repeated “AI keywords” should not replace it.
Set expectations around the work and the buying cycle
Ask what can be measured early, what takes longer and what uncertainty remains. A technical repair can be verified before search performance changes. A new guide may need distribution and time to establish usefulness.
Do not judge the programme solely by total traffic. A hypothetical specialist manufacturer could gain many irrelevant informational visits while receiving no suitable enquiries. Agree on the queries, pages and outcomes that matter.
Review the proposal in business terms
Separate one-off work, ongoing maintenance, content production and any advertising. Google explains that paid advertising does not improve organic placement. Request examples you can verify and references the provider has permission to share.
Use our keyword guide and measurement plan to prepare. Graby’s current SEO service page explains its offering; confirm scope and expectations in a written proposal.