To choose an SEO company, verify the proposal instead of comparing the pitch: ask where every search-volume number came from, what their backlink work actually consists of, what their tools will insert into your site, who will own your Search Console and analytics accounts, and what the monthly report will measure. Then rule out anyone who guarantees a ranking. Google's own hiring guidance says no one can, and the companies that say otherwise are telling you something about how they sell.
We sell SEO services for small business, so read this with that in mind. Everything below is a check you can run on us as easily as on anyone else, and the keyword figures in it come from research pulls we made in September 2026. The failures that hurt a small business may not show up in a sales call; they show up in a tool export or a Search Console setting six months later.
Key Takeaways
- Google's hiring guidance for SEO, last updated June 5, 2026, says no one can guarantee a number one ranking, that you should never have to link to an SEO, and that an audit should only need read access to Search Console.
- Keyword tools disagree by large margins. For one Los Angeles phrase we saw 2,400, 200 and 1,900 monthly searches from three sources inside two weeks, so a proposal should name the tool, the date and the location behind every number.
- Backlink counts are not authority. Ask for the list of links a company built, then check the sites yourself in the Search Console Links report instead of trusting a referring-domain total.
- Ask in writing whether any script or tool the company installs changes your page HTML, and get a change log you can read. Links hidden from visitors to manipulate search engines count as hidden text and link abuse under Google's spam policies, and Google's hiring guidance says you answer for what your contractor does.
- Keep ownership. Your business should be the verified owner of Search Console, analytics and the Google Business Profile, with the SEO company added as a user you can remove.
Start with what nobody can promise
The shortest filter comes from Google itself. It publishes a page for business owners called Do you need an SEO?. It tells you to be wary of firms that email you out of the blue, to be careful with any company that is secretive or won't explain what it intends to do, and to avoid anyone who talks about link popularity schemes or submitting your site to thousands of search engines.
"No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a 'special relationship' with Google, or advertise a 'priority submit' to Google."
Google Search Central, "Do you need an SEO?", last updated June 5, 2026
A guarantee is not just an empty promise. It tells you the seller is optimizing for the signature, not the outcome, and fast, promised jumps are what the tactics in Google's spam policies aim for. The same page makes a point worth reading twice: you are responsible for the actions of the companies you hire. If the work gets your site demoted, the demotion is yours.
The better answer to "what results should I expect?" sounds like a range with conditions attached. Which pages, which queries, measured in which report, over what period, and what the company will do if the first three months show nothing. Google's own list of interview questions includes exactly that one: what results do you expect to see, in what timeframe, and how do you measure success.
Ask where every number in the proposal came from
Some SEO proposals we have reviewed open with a keyword table: these phrases, this many searches a month, this much opportunity. The table looks like data. It is an estimate from a third-party tool, and Google's hiring page says plainly that it does not evaluate or endorse third-party SEO tools, which have no access to its internal ranking data.
That matters because the tools disagree, sometimes wildly. These are pulls we made for our own site and our clients in September 2026, for the same phrases:
| Search phrase | Source and location | Monthly searches | Pulled |
|---|---|---|---|
| seo agencies los angeles | A keyword tool we have since stopped using, location not recorded | 2,400 | Used September 1, 2026 |
| seo agencies los angeles | Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, US | 200 | September 8, 2026 |
| seo agencies los angeles | Google Keyword Planner, US | 1,900 | September 14, 2026 |
| google ads management | Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, US | 8,400 | September 8, 2026 |
| google ads management | Google Keyword Planner, US | 1,000 | September 9, 2026 |
| retaining wall installation | Google Keyword Planner, whole US | 2,400 | September 11, 2026 |
| retaining wall installation | Google Keyword Planner, North Carolina only | 70 | September 11, 2026 |
Two things account for part of that spread, alongside the plain fact that each tool models volume its own way. First, Keyword Planner groups close variants: on September 14 it returned the identical twelve-month series for "seo agencies los angeles" and "los angeles seo company", so its 1,900 describes a family of phrasings, not the plural on its own. Second, location. The retaining wall rows are the same tool on the same day, and the national figure is roughly thirty times the state figure. A contractor in Mooresville does not care how many people search for retaining walls in Arizona, but a proposal built on national numbers will make every phrase look worth chasing.
The gap between 2,400 and 200 for one phrase is wide enough to change which page a business decides to build, which headline it writes, and how long it waits before judging the result. So the question to put to any SEO company is short: for each keyword in this table, which tool, which location setting, and which date? A company that can answer in one line per row has done the research. A company that can't has pasted an export.
Read the backlink section as a risk, not a feature
Links are easy to fake. Google's spam policies define link spam as creating links primarily to manipulate rankings, and the examples include buying or selling links, excessive link exchanges, using automated programs or services to create links, and widely distributed links in the footers or templates of various sites.
That is why a raw count of "referring domains" in a proposal or a monthly report tells you very little on its own. A total goes up just as easily from a network of throwaway sites as from a local newspaper, a trade association or a supplier that actually knows your business, and a count cannot tell you which is which.
You can check the work without buying a tool. Search Console's Links report shows the top linking sites and your most linked pages. Google notes that the report is a sample rather than a complete list, that it includes links found over time that may since have been removed, and that it does not say whether a link is nofollow. It is still enough to spot-check a vendor: if the sites a company says it earned never appear, or the sites that do appear are ones you would not want your name on, ask about it before the next invoice.
So when a company pitches link building, ask for the list. Which sites, how the links are obtained, whether any money or content changes hands, and whether the links carry a nofollow or sponsored attribute where they should. Google's hiring page adds one rule worth quoting back to anyone who proposes it: you should never have to link to an SEO. That includes a sitewide "website by" credit in your own footer that points at the agency.
Find out what their software will put on your site
Some SEO companies sell automation: a script or an edge worker that rewrites titles, adds structured data and inserts internal links without anyone editing the site. Some of that is fine. The problem is that often nobody on your side reads the result.
Because that kind of software changes what search engines receive, the page you see in a content editor may not match the HTML actually served. Put three requests in writing before anything is installed. First, a plain statement of whether any script, plugin or edge worker the company adds will change your page HTML, and if so, which elements: titles, headings, links, structured data. Second, a change log you can read, updated whenever the software changes something. Third, a clear removal path, including what happens to the changes if you pause the subscription or end the contract, and confirmation that removing the tool removes everything it added.
Links hidden from visitors to influence search engines fall under Google's hidden text and link abuse policy. The spam policies describe it as placing content on a page solely to manipulate search engines and not to be easily viewable by visitors, with examples that include using CSS to position text off-screen and setting the font size or opacity to 0. Google's hiring page asks the question you should ask in the proposal meeting: will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, with the reasoning behind them? If the honest answer is "the software handles that", ask for a way to see the raw HTML the software serves, and check it yourself or have someone independent check it.
Keep the keys to Search Console, analytics and your profile
The accounts that hold your search history should belong to your business, not to the company you hire. That means Search Console, Google Analytics, the Google Business Profile, the domain registrar and the website host. The SEO company gets added as a user, and you can remove it.
Search Console makes the distinction clear. Google's help page on managing owners, users and permissions describes owners, who have full control and can add and remove users, full users, who can view all data and take some actions, and restricted users, who have view rights on most data. A property must have at least one verified owner, and if all verified owners are removed, everyone else loses access after a grace period.
For the proposal stage, Google's hiring advice is specific: if an SEO offers to audit your site, grant read access to Search Console only, not write access. A restricted user can see enough to write a real audit. If a company asks to be made an owner before you have signed anything, say no.
Ownership also decides who can see the data when a relationship ends. If a former SEO company verified the property under its own login and you were never added, the search history is held by someone you no longer pay. Google's permissions page notes that when every verified owner is removed, data for the property keeps being collected, but nobody can see it until someone verifies ownership again. Before you sign, open Settings, then Users and permissions, in each Search Console property and confirm that a Google account your business controls is listed as an owner.
Make them report the market you actually sell to
A monthly SEO report can be accurate and still misleading. Search Console reports clicks and impressions from every country, and unless someone filters the report, traffic that will never become a customer sits in the totals.
Two things can inflate an unfiltered report. One is geography: a business that serves one state can collect impressions from countries where it has no customers. The other is your own activity: owners and staff who search for the business to check where it ranks add clicks and impressions that no customer made. Neither is a sign of bad faith, but a report that does not separate them can describe a page as performing when the market you sell to barely sees it. Search Console's performance report can be filtered by country, and a report built for you should say which filter it uses.
So agree on the report before you agree on the retainer. Which country or state the numbers are filtered to, whether brand searches are separated from non-brand, which pages count toward the goal, and whether leads are counted from form submissions and tracked calls rather than from sessions. If the report is going to be a traffic chart, ask what it will show when traffic rises and calls do not.
A scorecard for comparing SEO proposals
Put each proposal through the same questions and write the answers down. The table below is the version we would want a buyer to use on us.
| Question to ask | A good answer sounds like | Walk away if you hear |
|---|---|---|
| What results do you expect, and by when? | Named pages and queries, a measured baseline, a review point at month three | A guaranteed position or a guaranteed number of leads |
| Where did these keyword volumes come from? | Tool, location setting and date for each row | "Industry data" or no answer |
| How will you get links? | A list of target sites and the reason each would link | A package of links by quantity or domain rating |
| What will your software change on my site? | A change log and access to see the served HTML | "It's automated, you don't need to worry about it" |
| Who owns Search Console, analytics and the profile? | You do; we are added as users | Accounts created under the agency's own login |
| What does the monthly report measure? | Leads and calls by page, filtered to your market | Unfiltered traffic totals and a rankings screenshot |
| How is the work billed, and what ends the contract? | Deliverables written into the agreement and a clear notice period | A long minimum term with no written deliverables |
For the commercial side, including how flat monthly fees, percentage-of-ad-spend and performance-based pricing compare, our guide on choosing a digital marketing agency covers the models in more detail. This article is deliberately the narrower SEO layer that sits on top of it.
When you may not need an SEO company yet
Google's hiring page says something worth hearing before you hire: if you run a small local business, you can probably do much of the work yourself, starting with its SEO starter guide. That is true. A single-location business with a clean website, a complete Google Business Profile and a steady flow of reviews can get a long way before paying anyone.
Hiring makes more sense when the work stops fitting in an owner's week: several locations or service towns, a site redesign or migration, a category where competitors are actively investing, or a lead-tracking setup nobody in-house can maintain. Google's own page suggests a site redesign or a new launch is a good time to hire, and the earlier the better. If local visibility is the whole need, our breakdown of what local SEO services for small business include month to month will tell you which parts you can keep in-house.
How ByteZero answers these questions
We work from offices in Van Nuys, California and Huntersville, North Carolina. If you are comparing a Los Angeles SEO company shortlist, hold us to the scorecard above: we will name the tool and date behind every keyword figure, show you the change log for anything we touch, leave ownership of your accounts with you, and report leads by page for the market you sell in. Our own Google Business Profile carries a 5.0 rating from 9 reviews, which is a small number and we say so. The work we can show is in our digital marketing portfolio, and a free SEO audit and consultation is the fastest way to see what we would propose and whether our answers hold up.
Frequently asked questions
What should I look for when choosing an SEO company?
Look for a company that can explain its methods, show the source behind every number in its proposal, and leave you as the owner of your accounts. Google's hiring guidance adds interview questions about past work, whether the company follows Google Search Essentials, what results it expects and in what timeframe, and whether it will share every change it makes to your site.
Can an SEO company guarantee first-page rankings?
No. Google's own guidance says no one can guarantee a number one ranking and tells business owners to beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings or a special relationship with Google. A credible company commits to work, measurement and a review point, not to a position.
What access should I give an SEO company?
Give the least access the task needs and keep ownership yourself. For an audit, Google recommends read access to Search Console only, not write access. Once you hire, add the company as a user on Search Console, analytics and your Google Business Profile, so you can remove that access if the relationship ends.
How can I tell if an SEO company's keyword numbers are real?
Ask which tool produced each figure, which location it was set to, and the date of the pull. Different tools can report very different volumes for the same phrase, and a national figure can be many times the local one, so a number without a source and a location is not something to plan around.
Is it a red flag if an SEO company sells backlinks?
Buying or selling links for ranking purposes is listed as link spam in Google's spam policies, so a package of links sold by quantity is a warning sign. Legitimate link work can be described site by site, with a reason each site would link to you and the right attributes on anything paid or sponsored.
Do I need an SEO company for a small local business?
Not always. Google says a small local business can probably do much of the work itself using its SEO starter guide. Hiring tends to pay off when there are several locations or service areas, a redesign or migration is planned, or nobody in-house has time to run the profile, the pages, the reviews and the tracking every month.
