Questions to ask before hiring an SEO agency
Twelve questions, the answers that should reassure you, and the ones that should not.
I wrote the list so an owner can hold any agency to it, including mine. The answers decide whether you get found on Google and named by Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini.
Youssef Hodaigui, Founder · Published
12
questions in this list, published so you can run it on us
$3,500
monthly starting rate, published, no annual contract
1
One company per metro in each service category.
Founded by Youssef Hodaigui, twenty-five years in search, and he runs every engagement personally.
The office is in Atlanta and every engagement is served from there. We will not open a mailbox elsewhere to look local.
Every rate is on the pricing page. No quote call needed to learn the cost.
One company per metro in each service category. Your competitor cannot buy the same seat.
What is AI visibility, and how is it different from SEO?
AI visibility, also called answer engine optimization or AEO, is the practice of getting a business named inside AI-generated answers. SEO earns a ranked link a buyer clicks. AEO earns a mention inside the answer itself, in Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini, where no click may ever happen.
The two run on overlapping machinery. Google states that its generative features are rooted in its core Search ranking and quality systems, so a page has to be indexed and eligible before it can be quoted. Classic SEO is the floor, not an alternative to it.
What sits above that floor is different work. An assistant is choosing which businesses to name, and it draws on how clearly your company is defined as an entity, how consistently it is described across the web, what independent sources say about it, and whether your pages answer the question in a passage it can lift whole.
Nobody can force a recommendation. Mindflow Marketing builds the entity footprint, the citable pages and the review base the assistants draw on, then scores where you land on twelve frozen buying questions across three platforms each quarter, with the screenshots archived and dated.
What should you ask, and what should the answer sound like?
Twelve questions in four groups. Each tests whether the agency can point at something that already exists.
- Ask what gets measured, against whom, and whether the set stays fixed.
- Ask to see a real report with the numbers left in.
- Ask who else in your category and market they serve.
- Ask what you own if you leave: the site, the content, the data, the profile access.
On measurement
What exactly will you measure, and against whom? Look for named metrics and a named competitor set. Vagueness here predicts vagueness everywhere.
Does that set stay fixed? A moving denominator manufactures improvement indefinitely.
Can I see a real report before I sign? With the numbers left in, not a redacted sample. Ours is published: a real monthly report and the Two client results we have written permission to show.
On method
Can I see the method before I pay? Any agency can describe results. Fewer will show how the number is produced.
What would make you tell me this is not working? A specific answer with a date is the best signal available.
Who actually does the work? Senior on the pitch and junior on the account is the oldest pattern in the industry.
On conflicts
Who else in my category and market do you work with? An agency serving two competitors in one market is selling the same positions twice.
Do you have an exclusivity policy, and is it in writing?
On terms
What is the initial term and what happens after it?
What do I own if I leave? The site, the content, the data, the profile access.
What is excluded from the scope?
What is the total cost, including anything billed separately?
The answers that should worry you
A guarantee of rankings or AI citations. A single score with no derivation. No exclusions. A discount to close this week. Reluctance to name who else they serve in your market.
None is disqualifying alone. Two or more together describe a relationship where you will not be able to tell whether the work is working.
“A guarantee of rankings or AI citations means either a loophole or a metric chosen because it is easy.”
Run it on us
This list is published so a prospect can run it against our own proposal. Our answers are on the pricing and methodology pages, and the results we can actually evidence are on a third, including the parts that cost us the sale.
| Condition | Our published answer | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Measurement scope | Share of Answer: the 12 real buying questions, scored X/12, never a percentage. The audit names five competitors. | /methodology/ and /pricing/ |
| Fixed question set | The baseline runs first, then the full protocol runs quarterly, on the same twelve questions, under the same conditions. | /methodology/ |
| A real report | A real monthly report is published in full. | /sample-report/ |
| The method | The Entity Integration Framework, five stages: Identity, Architecture, Retrieval, Measurement, Outcome. | /methodology/ |
| Failure signal | A quarter where the number falls is reported as a number that fell, with what we know about why. | /methodology/ |
| Who does the work | Youssef Hodaigui, the founder, runs every engagement personally. | /about/youssef-hodaigui/ |
| Conflicts and exclusivity | One company per metro in each service category, on the published rate card. | /pricing/ |
| Initial term | From $3,500 a month on a 90-day initial term, then month to month. | /pricing/ |
| What you own | Delivered written, and the document is yours whether or not you continue. | /pricing/ |
| Exclusions | What is committed and what is refused is written into the terms of engagement. | /pricing/ |
| Total cost | Free Visibility Check, Local Visibility Audit $3,500 to $7,500, partnerships from $3,500 a month, no setup fee. | /pricing/ |
What we read from that, and this part is our judgement rather than anything the sources state: an agency that can point at a published page for every answer is one you can check.
Sources: Mindflow’s /pricing/, /methodology/, /sample-report/, /about/youssef-hodaigui/ and /proof/ pages. Every row carries only what the named page publishes. The reading of it is ours. Checked 2026-08-04.
See where you stand, free checkWhat does Mindflow Marketing actually deliver?
Five pillars run inside one engagement, each reported with the denominator beside the number. Share of Answer is scored quarterly.
Local SEO and Google Maps
Google Business Profile work and map-grid tracking across a whole metro, not off a single pin. A grid shows whether you lose on trust or on distance.
Organic search
Technical foundations, architecture and the searches that turn into high-ticket jobs, built from the work you closed. A keyword tool ranks you where crews never drive.
AI visibility and entity work
Entity disambiguation, organisation schema, knowledge-graph alignment, passages an assistant can lift whole. This decides whether ChatGPT, Perplexity or AI Overviews name you.
Reputation and brand SERP
What a buyer and an assistant see when they search your name. Reviews, the profiles beside them, the pages that answer before anyone calls.
Conversion tracking
Calls and forms tracked through to the booked job. Visibility that never reaches one still cost you months.
Measurement you can audit
Share of Answer across twelve frozen buying questions, three platforms, three runs each, scored out of twelve, screenshots archived and dated.
Read the full methodRankings are never guaranteed. Anything we could not trace to a primary source is absent from this page, not estimated. The audit runs the same six layers described on the pricing page, and Share of Answer is scored quarterly.
How the first 90 days work
Every engagement opens with a diagnostic, not a pitch. The first 90 days set a baseline you can hold us to.
- Free Visibility Check. The twelve real buying questions for your trade, across Google Maps, Google and the assistants, with screenshots.
- Local Visibility Audit. Crawlability, indexation, entity and schema state, map-grid position, review base, competitive gap.
- Baseline measurement. Share of Answer scored before any work begins, so the starting number exists in writing.
- Foundations, weeks 1 to 6. Technical fixes, entity and organisation schema, Google Business Profile, the pages buyers search for.
- Authority and content, weeks 4 to 12. Citable pages, review systems, the off-site corroboration assistants use to judge a company real.
- First remeasurement. The same twelve questions, the same conditions, scored against the baseline. Movement or none, it goes in the report.
What has Mindflow Marketing actually produced?
Two clients have given written permission to publish their numbers, and two is the whole list. Precision Fenceworks is a fence company working four Georgia markets, verified live 2026-06-16. Fireside Antiques is an eCommerce antiques dealer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with Search Console and Ahrefs data pulled 2026-06-10.
PRECISION FENCEWORKS · GEORGIA
Second in the Athens map pack and third organic, named by three of the four major assistants with Perplexity giving them as its first pick. 87 AI mentions across 72 cited pages, and 631 Precision Fenceworks reviews at a 4.9 average.
In Alpharetta it is first organic and third in the map pack, beaten on proximity and not on trust signals. In Lawrenceville it holds page one organic with zero map presence.
In Atlanta it has no reachable map presence against 100,000-plus impressions in sixteen months. Their pin sits in Alpharetta, proximity decides the map pack, and no page moves a building.
FIRESIDE ANTIQUES · LOUISIANA
Five of eight tracked core terms ranking strong, with dining tables, armoires, mirrors and coffee tables all recovered to first position.
A national eCommerce catalogue, not a local service business, so it sits here as method evidence and not a forecast.
Precision Fenceworks works Athens, Alpharetta, Atlanta and Gwinnett, and that is a service radius, not a local address in each one. If you ask whether we have a client in your own city, we answer on where a company is. Unless you are in Georgia or Louisiana, the answer is no.
What we cannot show: revenue, lead volume and job values. Neither client’s permission covers it. So we cannot tell you whether this visibility became money, and we say that instead of letting a chart imply it. Two clients is not a large portfolio and we are not going to present it as one.
What does this cost, and what is credited back?
Mindflow Marketing publishes every rate. A Visibility Check is free. A Local Visibility Audit is $3,500 to $7,500 and credits against your first invoice if you start a monthly partnership within 30 calendar days of delivery. The monthly partnership starts at $3,500 a month on a 90-day initial term, then runs month to month. No setup fee and no annual contract.
The credit caps at that first invoice and does not carry forward. At the bottom of the range a $3,500 audit against a $3,500 first month costs you nothing if you continue. At the top, a $7,500 audit against a $3,500 first month credits $3,500 and the remainder is spent.
I would sooner you ran that sum at your own desk than found it on an invoice. That is question twelve, answered in body copy.
The full ladder, tier by tier, is on the pricing page.
Start with the free checkKeep reading on cost
Which markets and industries does Mindflow Marketing serve?
The office is in Atlanta, and from it we work Buckhead, Sandy Springs, Dunwoody, Decatur, Marietta, Alpharetta, Roswell and Lawrenceville, across Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb and Gwinnett counties. Beyond Georgia: Florida, Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina, all run from Atlanta.
We work home-services companies in roofing, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, fencing, garage door and remodeling, plus legal, specialty healthcare and considered-purchase eCommerce.
The common thread is deal value: one won job pays for months of the work.
Context: Georgia market notes, the North Carolina market notes and the every market. The office: Atlanta.
Questions owners ask
What should I ask an SEO agency before hiring?
What gets measured and against whom, whether the set stays fixed, whether you can see the method and a real report, who does the work, who else they serve in your market, and what you own if you leave. Each gets a short answer or a long dodge.
What are the warning signs?
A guarantee, a composite score with no derivation, no stated exclusions, pressure discounting, and reluctance to discuss conflicts in your market. None is disqualifying on its own. Two or more together describe a relationship where you cannot tell whether the work is working.
Should an agency work with my competitors?
Ask directly and get the policy in writing. An agency serving two competing businesses in one market is selling the same positions twice. Mindflow Marketing publishes its own. One company per metro in each service category. If your competitor signs first, we turn you down.
Where is Mindflow Marketing based, and who does the work?
The office is in Atlanta and every engagement is run from there. Youssef Hodaigui, twenty-five years in search, does the work himself across local SEO and Google Maps, organic search, AI visibility and entity work, reputation and conversion. Senior on the pitch, junior on the account is the pattern we avoid.
Do you have client results you can show me?
Two, and two is the whole published list. Precision Fenceworks, a Georgia fence company, and Fireside Antiques in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Revenue, lead volume and job values are absent because permission does not cover them. Two clients is not a large portfolio and we will not present it as one.
Established local businesses, three surfaces: Google Maps, organic search, AI answers. Youssef scores all three every quarter against a protocol anyone can read. Anything unverifiable is left out.
More about YoussefWhere does your business show up right now?
The twelve real buying questions for your trade, across Google Maps, Google and the AI assistants. Free, with screenshots, no call required.
Mindflow Marketing, founder-led and served from Atlanta · (404) 775-9995