You can ask these questions at anytime – but they are especially great when you’re thinking about making a partnership because they remove a lot of the need for ‘seeing how it goes’.

The biggest thing, is that you’ll have a reference for seeing how your partner performs later in the partnership – on track? Did they they do what they said they would do?

Questions to ask:

  1. Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
  2. Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
  3. Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business?
  4. What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe
  5. How do you measure your success?
  6. What’s your experience in my industry?
  7. What’s your experience in my country/city?
  8. What are your most important SEO techniques?
  9. How long have you been in business?
  10. How can I expect to communicate with you?
  11. Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

Brucey Bonus Questions – do they care about you?

ASK THEM WHAT THEY KNOW ABOUT YOU

  1. What makes our business or service unique and valuable to our customers?
  2. Who are your customers – can tell me everything you know about them?
  3. How do you think we make money, and how can search results help to grow that?
  4. How will you report to show that you are contributing directly to that?
  5. What other advertising channels are you using?
  6. Who are our competitors?

Check out Google’s advice for finding the right SEO partner (article & video) >