How to evaluate an SEO proposal

It should. A proposal worth reading opens with findings about your company: your Google Business Profile, your website, your reviews against the companies you lose jobs to, and the towns and services you want more work in. If it opens with what SEO is, or a package price with no findings, it was written before anyone looked.

A quick test: cover your company name and read the first page. If it could describe any contractor in any city, it's a template.

For a home-service business, the findings should cover at least:

• Your Business Profile: missing services or areas, wrong categories or hours, unanswered reviews.
• Your website: whether each main service and town has its own page, and whether visitors can call or request an estimate from a phone.
• Your reviews: how many you get and how recent they are, compared with the companies that show above you.
• Tracking: whether calls and form requests are counted at all.

If the agency offers an audit before you sign, Google has advice on access: "only grant read access to Search Console (at this stage, don't grant them write access)."

The work section should list what will be done, in words you could check next month. "A new page for each service in each town you cover" is checkable. "Ongoing optimization" is not. If you can't picture what you'd see after the first month, ask the agency to describe it until you can.

Google suggests asking any SEO: "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?" A proposal that says yes in writing gives you something to hold them to.

Pay attention to how the proposal talks about links from other websites. Google's spam policies list "Buying or selling links for ranking purposes" as link spam, and "Sites that violate our policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all." Ask how any links will be earned, and whether any are paid. Google also says, "You should never have to link to an SEO."

A fair proposal forecasts with conditions; it doesn't guarantee positions. "We expect more calls from Maps once your profile and service pages are fixed, usually over several months, depending on your competition" is fair. "Guaranteed first page in 30 days" isn't, because Google says, "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google."

Then check that the forecast is measured in calls and booked jobs, not only in rankings or traffic.

If the proposal does offer a guarantee, read exactly what it covers. Our guide on why no one can guarantee rankings has a checklist for that fine print.

The reporting section should promise a monthly report that leads with calls and booked jobs by source, lists the work done, and draws its numbers from accounts in your name. Ask for a sample report now. An agency that can't show you one before you sign won't be clearer after you do.

Check three things in the sample. Does it count calls and form requests, not just visits? Does it say where each number comes from, such as your Google Business Profile or Search Console? And does it list what was actually changed that month? What a monthly SEO report should show explains each line and how to check it against your own records.

If the proposal mentions call tracking, ask whose phone numbers are used and what happens to them if you leave. Our call tracking entry explains how it works.

Read the price section for anything that isn't in the headline fee. Look for costs that appear later: a separate charge for reports or software, a fee per page, or a price that rises after an introductory period. If any of these apply, ask for each in writing, with the date it starts.

Whether the price itself is reasonable is a separate question. Our SEO cost guide covers published price ranges, what each price level usually buys, and the six questions to ask when you compare two quotes.

The proposal should name each account and say it stays in your name: your Google Business Profile, Search Console, Google Analytics, ad accounts, website, domain and any tracking numbers. It should also state the minimum term, the notice period and any fee to leave. If those aren't in the proposal, ask for them before the contract.

Access levels are worth writing down too, because they decide who controls each account:

In each of these, only the owner or administrator role can add or remove other people, which is why it should be yours. The choosing guide quotes Google's rule for each account.

The full detail on contract terms is in contracts, terms and exit clauses in SEO deals, and on accounts in who owns your website and Google profile.

Some proposal wording sounds reassuring but tells you very little. Each phrase below isn't wrong by itself; it just needs a follow-up question before you sign. If the agency answers clearly and puts the answer in writing, the phrase is fine. If it can't, you've learned something important about the proposal.

Mark each of the six sections in the first table as specific, vague or missing. Stop if the findings or the monthly work are vague, because everything else depends on them. A proposal with clear work and a few gaps in reporting or terms is worth a follow-up email; one with no findings is worth a polite no.

When you have two or three proposals, send each the same follow-up questions from the table, in writing, and compare the answers side by side. The agency that answers most specifically, and agrees to put the answers in the contract, is often the safer choice. If you're still choosing between agencies, how to choose a home services marketing agency covers the questions for the company itself.

Here's how Mindflow does it. After a free review and a 20-minute walkthrough, if we're a fit, you get your exact price in writing before any work starts. Every plan gets the same work: SEO with AI search optimization included, your Google Business Profile, reviews and conversion improvement. Plans differ by how much ground you cover.

Price depends on how competitive your trade is in your market and how many service lines you want to grow. When paid ads fit your market and goals, we scope Google Ads, Local Services Ads or ChatGPT ads in your proposal; ad spend is paid to the platform and isn't part of our fee. The first 90 days are committed and billed monthly, then it's month to month with 30 days' notice. No setup fee. You own every account. See pricing and how we work.

Should I give an agency my logins to get a proposal? Not full access. An agency can find a lot from your public profile, website and reviews. If it wants to look inside your accounts for an audit, Google advises granting read access to Search Console only at that stage, not write access. Add people as users from your own owner account rather than sharing your password.

How many SEO proposals should I get? Two or three is usually enough to see the differences. More than that makes the comparison harder without adding much. Send each the same questions and the same information about your services, towns and goals, so the proposals answer the same brief and you can compare them fairly.

Is a free audit in a proposal worth anything? It can be, if it's about your business. Findings about your Business Profile, your service pages and your reviews against named local competitors show the agency did real work. A generic list of "issues" from an automated tool, with no explanation of which ones matter for calls, tells you much less.

What if the proposal is just a package price? Ask what the package includes for your business specifically. A package can be fine when the work is clearly described and suits your market. It's a problem when the price arrives with no findings, because the agency can't know what you need before it has looked. Ask for the findings first.

Can I ask for changes to a proposal? Yes. A proposal is an offer, not a contract. You can ask for clearer monthly work, a sample report, account ownership in writing or different notice terms. How the agency responds tells you how it will handle requests after you sign. Put any agreed changes in the contract itself.

• Google Search Central, Do you need an SEO?, read November 1, 2026
• Google Search Central, Spam policies for Google web search, read November 1, 2026
• Google Business Profile Help, Manage your Business Profile owners & managers, read November 1, 2026
• Search Console Help, Managing owners, users, and permissions, read November 1, 2026
• Analytics Help, Access and data-restriction management, read November 1, 2026
• Google Ads Help, About access levels in your Google Ads account, read November 1, 2026

Want to see where your business stands before you sign anything? Get a free AI Visibility Review.