A sales call is the agency’s best performance. Polished slides, a confident account manager, a case study with a hockey-stick graph. None of that tells you what happens in month four, when the novelty fades and your account lands on a junior’s desk.
The questions below are the ones we would ask if we were on your side of the table. Each one comes with what a strong answer sounds like and the reply that should make you walk away. Use them on every agency you shortlist, including us.
Before the Call: Do Five Minutes of Homework
Check three things before you ask anything:
- Does the agency rank for its own service keywords in its own city?
- Do its case studies name real metrics (impressions, CTR, leads) instead of vague “growth”?
- Is there a real team, with names and roles, behind the brand?
If all three are missing, you can skip the call.
How to Run the Vetting Call
Do not hand over the list in advance. Prepared answers sound good on paper and tell you nothing about how the team thinks on its feet.
Bring two people from your side if you can: the owner or decision maker, and whoever will work with the agency day to day. The second person often spots problems the first misses, because they imagine the weekly emails and approval loops.
Ask for the strategist who would run your account to join, not just the salesperson. A sales lead can promise anything. The strategist has to deliver it, and you will hear the difference within ten minutes.
Take notes against the scorecard further down this page. Score right after the call, while answers are fresh. If you interview three agencies across two weeks, the scores keep your memory honest.
One more tip. Ask at least one question you already know the answer to. If you know your site has slow mobile load times, ask “How is our site speed?” and see whether they checked or simply guessed.
Strategy Questions
1. What would you do in the first 90 days, specifically?
Good answer: A sequence. Audit and technical fixes in month one, keyword-to-page mapping and content in month two, links and local signals in month three.
Red flag: “We will optimize your website and build backlinks.” That is a category, not a plan.
Push further. Ask what they would fix first on your site specifically. An agency that has spent ten minutes on your homepage will mention something concrete: a missing service page, a slow mobile load, duplicate title tags, or a Google Business Profile in the wrong category. Specifics before the contract usually mean specifics after it.
2. Which of my competitors are winning, and why?
A competent agency checks your SERP before the call. They should name the type of pages ranking (service pages, directories, blog guides) and what those pages do better. If they have not looked, ask how they would run an SEO competitor analysis from scratch. Their method tells you a lot.
3. Which keywords will you target, and why those?
Good answer: Keywords grouped by intent, with commercial terms tied to your service pages and informational terms tied to content.
Red flag: A list of 50 high-volume keywords with no mapping to pages or revenue.
Here is a quick test. Pick one keyword from their list and ask which page on your site should rank for it. If the answer is “the homepage” for everything, they have not done keyword-to-page mapping. One page should own one primary search intent. When three pages chase the same term, they compete with each other and none of them wins.
4. How will AI search and AI Overviews change your approach?
In 2026, a share of clicks never leave Google. A modern agency should talk about entity coverage, structured data, brand mentions and content that gets cited in AI answers. Read our take on Google AI Mode and your SEO strategy to benchmark their answer.
5. What results should I expect, and when?
Good answer: Ranges with conditions. “Low-competition terms may move in 3 to 4 months. Competitive terms usually take 6 to 12.”
Red flag: Any guarantee of a specific ranking position. Google itself warns against agencies that guarantee rankings.
A better agency also explains what could slow things down: a site migration, a Google core update, a competitor launching a large content push, or delays on your side approving content. Honest timelines include your responsibilities too.
Execution Questions
6. Who will actually work on my account?
Ask for names and roles. Ask whether any part of the work is outsourced or white-labelled. White-label delivery is not automatically bad, but you should know about it. Our guide on what agencies should know about white-label SEO explains how it works behind the scenes.
7. How many clients does my account manager handle?
Fifteen is manageable. Forty means your account gets an hour a month.
Also ask how often your account manager changes. High staff turnover is common in Pakistani agencies, and every handover costs you weeks of lost context. An agency with a stable team will tell you how long its strategists have been there. One with churn will change the subject.
8. What does your technical audit cover?
Good answer: Crawlability, indexation, canonicals, redirects, internal linking, page speed, Core Web Vitals, schema and mobile rendering.
Red flag: A 90-page auto-generated PDF from a tool, with no prioritization. Compare their scope with our step-by-step technical SEO audit process.
9. Will you make the changes or just recommend them?
Many agencies deliver a to-do list and leave implementation to your developer. That is fine if priced accordingly. It is not fine if you assumed they would do the work.
Clarify access too. To implement fixes, the agency needs a WordPress or Shopify login with the right role, not your owner account. Ask how they handle staging, backups and plugin updates. One careless plugin update on a live site can break checkout for hours.
10. How do you handle page speed and Core Web Vitals?
Pakistani audiences browse mostly on mobile data. A slow site loses visitors before rankings even matter. The agency should name specific metrics like LCP, INP and CLS. If they cannot, point them to Core Web Vitals explained and see how they respond.
11. How do you approach local SEO?
If you serve customers in a city, ask about Google Business Profile, citations, reviews and location pages. A vague answer means local SEO is an afterthought. Our practical guide to local SEO for small businesses in Lahore shows what a real local plan includes.
Content and Link Questions
12. Who writes the content, and how is it researched?
Good answer: Writers with subject briefs, keyword and entity research, and an editor who checks facts.
Red flag: “Our AI tool writes everything.” AI can assist, but unedited output rarely ranks for long. Ask whether they follow a documented framework such as these semantic SEO content writing rules.
13. Can I approve content before it goes live?
You should. Your brand voice and factual accuracy are your responsibility, not theirs.
14. How do you build links, and can I see examples?
Ask for three live links built for a current client. If they refuse or show only directory submissions and blog comments, that is your answer.
Look at those links yourself. Is the linking site real, with its own traffic and audience? Is the link placed inside relevant content, or buried in a footer list of 200 other links? Is the site about something related to the client? A single link from a respected Pakistani business publication is worth more than 500 links from sites nobody reads.
15. Do you buy links or use private blog networks?
Good answer: A clear “no,” followed by what they do instead: digital PR, resource outreach, partnerships, local sponsorships.
Red flag: Hesitation, or “everyone does it.”
Reporting Questions
16. What metrics will I see every month?
Rankings alone are not enough. You should see organic clicks, impressions, conversions and revenue or leads from organic search.
Ask how they define a conversion for your business. For a clinic, it could be a booked appointment or a WhatsApp click. For an e-commerce store, it is a completed order. For a B2B company, it is a qualified form fill. If the agency cannot define a conversion, it cannot prove it produced one.
17. Will I have direct access to Search Console and GA4?
Always yes. Your data lives in your accounts, not theirs. An agency that wants to “manage access” to your own analytics is hiding something.
18. Can you show a real report from a current client?
Anonymized is fine. You want to see whether reports explain what changed and why, or just dump screenshots.
Contract and Ownership Questions
19. What is the minimum term and the exit clause?
Three to six months is a reasonable minimum for SEO. Twelve months with no exit clause is a trap.
Read the notice period carefully as well. Thirty days is standard. Ninety days of notice on a monthly retainer effectively adds three months to any contract. Also check whether early termination triggers a penalty fee, and whether unused deliverables carry over or vanish.
20. Who owns the content, links and accounts if we part ways?
You should own everything you paid for: content, Google Business Profile, analytics, and any domain or hosting. Get it in writing.
21. Will you sign an NDA?
If your industry is sensitive, ask for one. A professional agency will have a standard non-disclosure agreement ready, and will not treat the request as an inconvenience.
Agency Vetting Scorecard
Score each agency from 0 to 2 per category after the call.
| Category | 0 Points | 1 Point | 2 Points |
| 90-day plan | Generic | Partial timeline | Specific monthly sequence |
| Team transparency | No names | Account manager only | Named specialists and roles |
| Technical depth | Tool PDF | Some prioritization | Prioritized, with implementation |
| Content process | AI-only | Writers, no editor | Research, writers, editors, approval |
| Link building | Directories or PBNs | Mixed | Outreach, PR, real examples |
| Reporting | Rankings only | Traffic and rankings | Leads, revenue, explanations |
| Data access | Agency-owned | Shared on request | Client-owned from day one |
| Contract terms | 12 months, no exit | 6 months, strict exit | 3 to 6 months, fair exit, full ownership |
A score of 13 or more out of 16 is a strong candidate. Below 9, keep looking.
The Pakistani Market Angle
A few questions matter more here than in global guides.
- Do you target Roman Urdu and Urdu queries? Many local searches mix scripts.
- Do you know local directories and platforms? Citations on Pakistani business directories carry local relevance that global directories do not.
- Do you issue tax-compliant invoices? Registered businesses need proper paperwork.
- Can we meet in person? For businesses in Lahore, a face-to-face meeting builds accountability quickly.
Red Flags That End the Conversation
Some answers do not need scoring:
- Guaranteed first-page rankings within weeks
- Refusal to explain link building methods
- Insistence on owning your Google Business Profile
- No case studies with real numbers
- Pressure to sign today for a discount
Frequently Asked Questions
How many SEO agencies should I interview?
Three is the practical number. Fewer gives no comparison. More wastes time.
Should I hire an SEO consultant instead of an agency?
If you have an in-house team that can execute, an SEO consultant gives you strategy without paying for production. Our SEO consultancy service is built for that setup.
Is it a bad sign if an agency does not rank for its own keywords?
Not always, since some agencies grow purely on referrals. That said, an agency that ranks for its own competitive terms has proven its method in public.
Put Us Through the Same Test
We wrote these questions knowing you will use them on us. Read about who we are, meet our team, check how a Pakistani watch e-commerce store reached 180k impressions, then contact us and ask all 21.
