Choose an SEO or GEO agency by checking client work close to your own case and by agreeing who will implement its recommendations. Ask who will work on your project and how results will be measured. Turn down any promise of first place: Google says "no one can guarantee a #1 ranking".
The advice below draws on Google's guide to hiring an SEO, updated on 5 June 2026, on our survey of 34 agency sites and on our own view of what makes proposals comparable. Facts checked on 6 November 2026.
Do you need an agency at all?
Google says that if you run a small local business, "you can probably do much of the work yourself". It points to its SEO Starter Guide as a first step. It also says that the best time to hire is before a redesign or a new site, "the earlier, the better". An outside provider makes most sense for a migration, several countries, or when nobody in-house has the time.
What should you prepare?
Send every candidate the same written brief, so that you can compare answers to the same requirements. Include:
- The result you want in business terms: more enquiries, sales in a region, recovery after a traffic drop
- Your site's platform, and who can change it
- Your budget range. Our price guide gives references
- The countries and languages concerned
- Any redesign you are planning
If a candidate offers an audit, Google advises granting read access to Search Console only.
Which type of provider fits your project?
| Provider | Often suits | Check |
|---|---|---|
| Specialist SEO or GEO agency | Technical work, content and links at the same time | Who is assigned to your account, and their experience |
| Digital agency with an SEO practice | SEO alongside paid search or a redesign | How many people work on SEO |
| Independent consultant | An audit, or advice to an in-house team | Experience, availability, and who implements |
| Trainer | A team that will do the work itself | Whether the training uses your own site |
You can filter the directory by these types, and by SEO audit, technical SEO or site migration.
Which questions should you ask?
The first list comes from Google. The second is ours.
For any SEO provider
- Can you show examples of previous work and share success stories?
- Do you follow Google Search Essentials?
- What results do you expect, and in what timeframe?
- How do you measure success?
- What is your experience in my industry, and in my country or city?
- Will you share every change you make, with the reasoning behind it?
- How will we communicate?
For GEO work
- Which assistants and which questions will you track, and how often?
- Which tasks differ from your SEO work?
- Where will mentions of our brand come from, and is any of it paid?
- Which tool do you use, and how does it collect answers?
Note the questions you receive in return. Google says a good SEO asks what makes your business unique, who your competitors are and how your customers find you. Call one or two past clients as well, and ask whether the provider gave a useful service, was easy to work with and produced positive results.
How do you verify a client case?
A before-and-after chart shows a change and does not show who caused it. Ask for:
- The platform the figures come from, and how each metric is defined
- The dates, with a baseline period comparable to the result period
- The work done, and what else changed at the time: redesign, advertising, seasonality
- Permission to speak to the client
Figures from Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools say nothing about ChatGPT. For GEO cases, ask for the dated test questions and answers.
What are the warning signs?
- A guaranteed position. Google: "If they guarantee you that their changes will give you first place in search results, find someone else"
- A claimed link with Google, such as a "special relationship" or a "priority submit"
- A promised ChatGPT citation. OpenAI's documentation explains how to be eligible for search, and offers no way to secure a citation
- Secrecy. Google warns against companies that will not clearly explain what they intend to do
- Your accounts in their name. Keep your domain, Search Console, analytics and content in accounts you own
- Manipulative page production or link buying. Pages made in volume to manipulate rankings or AI responses break Google's scaled content abuse policy, and link spam breaks its spam policies. The consequences fall on your site
- Reports with no link to your business. Rankings on words nobody searches, or impressions with no connection to enquiries or sales
For Google Search work, ask a provider to justify any paid llms.txt or "chunking" service. Google says llms.txt files have no effect on visibility in Search and that chunking is not required.
What evidence should a GEO agency provide?
In our survey of 34 Belgian and French agency sites, 27 mention GEO, 14 mention citations and 12 mention an audit of AI visibility. Those counts include blog titles, so look for a page that describes the method, the deliverables and a client case.
In the meeting, pick three questions your buyers ask and have the agency show the answers from ChatGPT and Perplexity, then explain what it would change. Use the demonstration to assess its reasoning. Past results require separate evidence.
SeoGeoMap checks the first point when writing a listing: a GEO speciality appears only when the expert's own site has a service page or a client case about it. That shows the service exists, and says nothing about its quality.
How do you compare proposals?
Ask each provider to fill in the same table.
| Point | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Diagnosis | Specific to your site, with figures from your data |
| First actions | A list of tasks in order of priority |
| Implementation | Who publishes, who develops, who approves, and at what cost |
| Deliverables | Numbers of pages, fixes and reports |
| Named team | Who does what |
| Measures and review dates | Enquiries or sales first, then rankings and citations |
| Contract | Length, notice, ownership of accounts and content |
| Price | Twelve-month total, with what is excluded |
In Google's words, an audit should give "realistic estimates of improvement, and an estimate of the work involved". Its guide sets no standard timeline, so ask each provider for its own and write it into the review dates.
What happens when the contract ends?
Settle this before signing. We suggest listing what the provider hands over: reports and exports, keyword and test-question lists, content written, access to any tool accounts paid by you. Access for the provider ends on the last day.
To start, compare listings in the directories, read how we rank them, or describe your project. If you are still deciding what you need, read GEO vs SEO and how to get cited by AI search.
Sources
- Google Search Central, Do you need an SEO?, updated 5 June 2026
- Google Search Central, Guidance on third-party SEO tools, services and advice, updated 5 June 2026
- Google Search Central, Optimizing your website for generative AI features, updated 10 July 2026
- Google Search Central, Spam policies
- OpenAI, Overview of OpenAI crawlers
- SeoGeoMap survey of 34 Belgian and French agency and consultant sites, 5 November 2026. A script read each home page and up to five service pages. A term in a blog title counts as much as a service page, so these counts are a signal and not a measure
