25 Questions to Ask an SEO or GEO Agency Before You Hire One

Ask an SEO agency who owns your accounts before you ask its price. That one question separates agencies that build an asset for you from agencies that rent it back to you. This page gives you 25 questions in four stages (before the first call, during the proposal, in the contract and after month 1), plus a set on AI search. Each question comes with the reason to ask it, what a good answer sounds like, and the answer that should end the conversation.

Most checklists are written for US buyers. They skip what decides results in Arab markets: dialect keyword research, Arabic written rather than translated, the /ar/ structure, Business Profile rules for Arabic names, real Saudi and UAE presence, and Arabic AI answers. Those questions are here. So is a printable checklist.

What should you ask an SEO agency before the first call?

Before the first call, test two things: whether the agency’s proof matches your market, and whether it has looked at your business at all. Six questions cover it. An agency that fails two of them has not earned a proposal meeting.

1. Can you show me results for a business like mine, in my country, and let me call that client?

Why it matters: A clinic in Cairo and a law firm in Riyadh compete on different results pages, in different dialects, against different portals. Proof from another market proves little.

Good answer: Named case studies with dates and scope, and one reference you can phone.

Red flag: Traffic graphs with no client name, no dates and no way to check them.

2. Who will do the work, and do you subcontract any of it?

Why it matters: The person on the sales call is rarely the person writing your Arabic pages, and subcontracted writers and link vendors are where quality and safety slip first.

Good answer: Named roles, how many accounts each strategist runs, and a written list of anything done outside the agency.

Red flag: “Our team handles everything”, with no names, followed by Arabic copy that reads like three different writers.

3. Do you work with my direct competitors?

Why it matters: An agency pushing two clinics in the same district for the same queries has a conflict it must manage openly.

Good answer: A straight yes or no, and if yes, how teams and keyword targets are kept apart.

Red flag: Silence. Or offense at being asked.

4. What did you notice about my site and my market before this call?

Why it matters: Google’s own hiring advice says a good SEO asks what makes your business unique, who your competitors are and how your customers find you (Google Search Central, updated 5 June 2026). Curiosity before the proposal predicts effort after it.

Good answer: Two or three specific observations, such as Arabic pages missing from the index or a competitor’s map listing that outranks yours.

Red flag: A generic audit PDF with your domain pasted on page one.

5. Can you guarantee a first-page ranking, or a mention in ChatGPT?

Why it matters: Google states plainly that no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Arabic freelance listings still promise “تصدر نتائج جوجل الأولى” (top of Google’s first results) in the listing title (Khamsat). AI answers are less stable still. When we asked ChatGPT the same 100 Egyptian local questions on 13 and 14 October 2026, only 58.7% of the businesses it recommended on day one came back on day two (VOCTOS research).

Good answer: Targets built from your baseline, with the reasoning shown, and no promised positions.

Red flag: Any guarantee at all. Walk away.

6. How exactly do you build links, and can I see examples?

Why it matters: Google’s spam policies treat buying links for ranking as link spam, and the damage lands on your domain, not the agency’s.

Good answer: Named methods such as digital PR, research other sites cite, and real placements you can open.

Red flag: A fixed monthly quota of backlinks, private blog networks, or a refusal to show where links come from.

What should you ask during the proposal?

The proposal is where Arabic-market skill shows or fails. Ask how keyword research handles dialects, whether Arabic content is written or translated, how the /ar/ version is built, what goes in your Business Profile, how Saudi and UAE presence is earned, and what the first 90 days and the fee cover. Vague answers here become rework.

7. How will you research Arabic keywords, by dialect and by country?

Why it matters: An Egyptian buyer types “ازاي” and “عايز”, a Saudi buyer types “كيف” and “ابغى”, and both mix in English words and Latin script inside one query (Freezil, April 2026). Formal Arabic alone misses that.

Good answer: Separate keyword sets per target country, pulled from that country’s data, with dialect variants grouped to one page each.

Red flag: One translated English list reused for every Arab country.

8. Will our Arabic content be written in Arabic, or translated from English?

Why it matters: Google’s spam policies list automated translation that adds little value among its examples of scaled content abuse. Readers spot it in a paragraph.

Good answer: Native Arabic writers, a stated register (Modern Standard Arabic with dialect phrasing where buyers use it), and a subject expert reviewing medical, legal or financial pages.

Red flag: “We run your English pages through a translation tool, then a proofreader polishes them.”

9. How will you structure the Arabic version: /ar/, hreflang and Arabic URLs?

Why it matters: Google ignores hreflang tags unless both pages point to each other (Google Search Central). A broken setup leaves your Arabic page competing with the English one, or missing from Arabic results entirely.

Good answer: A subfolder such as /ar/, reciprocal hreflang on every paired page, a self-referencing canonical, and a Search Console check after launch.

Red flag: Automatic redirects by browser language, which stop crawlers and visitors reaching the other version, or “hreflang is optional”.

10. What will you put in our Google Business Profile name, in Arabic and English?

Why it matters: Google’s Business Profile guidelines do not allow repeating the same name in two languages or scripts, even when your shop sign shows both (Google Business Profile Help). Stuffing that field puts the listing at risk.

Good answer: Your real-world name as customers know it, with categories, services, Arabic descriptions and review replies handled in the other fields.

Red flag: “We’ll add your Arabic name and ‘best dentist Riyadh’ to the title for more keywords.”

11. How will you build our presence in Saudi Arabia or the UAE if our office is elsewhere?

Why it matters: Google states that a virtual office is not eligible for a Business Profile, so map presence in Riyadh or Dubai needs a real, staffed location. The rest comes from local pages, Arabic reviews and regional press.

Good answer: An honest split between what map listings do (only where you operate) and what content, reviews and local mentions do.

Red flag: An offer to rent a virtual office address, or to create listings in cities where you have no staff.

12. What exactly will you deliver in the first 90 days, and against which KPIs?

Why it matters: The first quarter shows whether a plan exists. Rankings for keywords the agency picked are easy to inflate, while qualified leads and non-brand clicks in Search Console are harder to fake.

Good answer: Dated deliverables (audit, keyword map, fixes shipped, pages published), each tied to a KPI measured from your own Search Console and GA4 baseline.

Red flag: Targets quoted before they have seen your data, or “ongoing optimization” as the whole plan.

13. What does the monthly fee include, and what costs extra?

Why it matters: Content, links, tools and developer time are the usual hidden extras. Google also warns that third-party tools have no access to its internal ranking data (Google Search Central), so a tool subscription is not a deliverable.

Good answer: A written scope with quantities: pages a month, technical tickets, reports, meetings, and the currency you are billed in.

Red flag: A package price ending in “and more”.

Which AI search questions should you ask a GEO agency?

Ask a GEO agency how it measures before you ask what it does. AI answers shift between runs, languages and engines, so “visibility” means nothing without a fixed question set, named engines, a definition of a citation, a schedule and access to raw answers. Google treats this work as SEO, so the same honesty tests apply (Google, July 2026).

If your shortlist is GEO agencies in Egypt or the Gulf, read this with our guide on how to choose a GEO agency in Egypt and the Gulf, and compare any proposal against our own answers to common GEO RFP questions.

14. Which questions will you track, and in which language and dialect?

Why it matters: In our September 2026 study, we asked Google AI Mode 40 Saudi health questions in Gulf Arabic and again in English. Mean source overlap between each pair was 0.149, and 14 of the 40 pairs shared no source at all (VOCTOS research). English tracking says little about Arabic.

Good answer: A fixed set of real buyer questions, written in your customers’ dialect and frozen before the baseline run.

Red flag: English questions only, or a question set that changes every month.

15. Which engines will you track, and how?

Why it matters: Engines draw on different sources. In our October 2026 Egypt study, Google AI Mode cited Facebook or Instagram in 29 answers, while ChatGPT cited neither in 200.

Good answer: A named list (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode) matched to your market, logged-out runs, and a check that your robots.txt lets search crawlers in. OpenAI says sites that block OAI-SearchBot are not shown in ChatGPT search answers (OpenAI).

Red flag: “We track all AI”, with no list.

16. What counts as a citation, and what counts as a mention?

Why it matters: A mention names your brand in the answer text, while a citation links to your page as a source, and the two drive different outcomes. Blend them and half the picture disappears.

Good answer: Written definitions, with mention rate, citation rate and share against named competitors reported separately.

Red flag: One blended “AI visibility score” with no formula behind it.

17. How often will you run the questions, and how do you handle run-to-run noise?

Why it matters: Only 58.7% of ChatGPT’s picks returned the next day in our Egypt test. One snapshot is an anecdote.

Good answer: A fixed schedule, monthly at minimum, with repeat runs on a sample so real change can be told apart from noise, which is the method our guide on how to measure AI visibility sets out.

Red flag: One screenshot offered as proof.

18. Can I see the raw answers?

Why it matters: Raw answers let you audit the counting and read what engines actually say about you, including facts they get wrong.

Good answer: An export of every answer with date, engine, question, language and cited URLs.

Red flag: Summary charts only, or “we guarantee AI visibility”.

Put these questions to us and compare our answers

What should the contract answer?

The contract has to settle three things you cannot fix later: who owns the accounts and data, what access the agency holds, and how you leave. Get each in writing. An agency confident in its work has no reason to keep your Search Console, Business Profile or content on its own account.

19. Who owns the accounts, the content and the data?

Why it matters: Search Console, GA4, Google Business Profile, Google Ads, the domain, the CMS, the content and the AI question history all carry value. If the agency created them under its own login, leaving means starting again.

Good answer: Every account sits under your company, you hold the owner role, and the agency is added as a user. A Business Profile has only one primary owner (Google), and that should be you.

Red flag: “We’ll set it up on our account to save time.”

20. What access do you need, and when?

Why it matters: Google advises granting only read access to Search Console during an audit, not write access.

Good answer: Read-only access for the audit, wider access after signing, and every permission listed in the contract.

Red flag: Requests for owner access, hosting passwords and admin rights before anything is signed.

21. What are the term, the notice period and the handover when we leave?

Why it matters: SEO takes months, so a minimum term is fair. A lock-in with no checkpoint is not.

Good answer: A defined term, a notice period, quarterly reviews, and a handover list: files, change log, keyword map, question set and raw AI answers.

Red flag: Automatic renewal, no exit before 12 months, or a fee to hand over your own data.

22. Who carries the risk if your tactics trigger a Google penalty?

Why it matters: Google states that you are responsible for the actions of any company you hire.

Good answer: A written commitment to Google Search Essentials, a ban on paid links, and a duty to tell you about any manual action within days.

Red flag: “Our methods are confidential.”

What should you ask after month 1?

After the first month you stop judging a pitch and start checking evidence. Ask for the raw data behind the report, the log of every change, and the state of your Arabic pages. Month one rarely moves revenue, so judge the quality and honesty of the work rather than the shape of the traffic chart.

23. Can I see the Search Console data behind your report?

Why it matters: Reports built on third-party rank trackers show only what the agency chose to track.

Good answer: Search Console clicks and impressions, split by Arabic and English folders and by country, next to the agency’s own figures.

Red flag: Ranking tables. Nothing else.

24. What changed on the site this month, and where is the change log?

Why it matters: Google expects an SEO to explain every change it makes to your site, and without a dated log nobody can link a gain or a drop to its cause.

Good answer: A dated log with URL, change and reason, plus one thing learned that adjusts the plan.

Red flag: “Lots of on-page optimization this month.”

25. Are our Arabic pages indexed and paired with their English versions?

Why it matters: An Arabic page that is not indexed, or not paired, earns nothing in Arabic results or Arabic AI answers.

Good answer: The Page indexing report filtered to /ar/, an hreflang check, and the first AI baseline delivered.

Red flag: Nobody has checked.

My read: which question would I never skip?

If I could ask only one question, it would be number 19: who owns the accounts and the data. Price, tactics and reporting are open to renegotiation mid-contract. Ownership is not. An agency that keeps your Search Console or Business Profile on its own login has turned your search presence into its retention tool. Beshoy Adel, Head of SEO and GEO.

How does VOCTOS answer the three hardest questions?

We wrote this list and we sell the service it describes. Hold us to it. Here is how our SEO service page answers three of the hardest ones as published on 27 October 2026, and we do not claim every other answer here as ours.

• Guarantees (question 5). The page states that no ethical agency can promise a fixed ranking. Its performance-based plan ties part of the fee to metrics agreed in advance, described as shared risk, not a ranking guarantee.
• Price and the first 90 days (questions 12 and 13). Most engagements fall between $700 and $2,500 a month, depending on niche competition, the keyword and page set, and the site’s starting condition. Setup runs 30 to 45 days, with a technical audit and keyword map before any change ships, and a 90-day plan with KPIs written into the contract.
• Who does the work (question 2). Delivery is in-house, run from Cairo and Delaware since 2017, and not subcontracted.

Printable checklist: 25 questions to ask an SEO or GEO agency

Tick a question only when you have the answer in writing, not just on the call. Use one copy per agency and keep the filled copy with the signed contract. An agency that leaves more than three boxes empty after the proposal has told you enough.

Frequently asked questions

These five worries come up once the agency calls start. Each answer names the fix and, where it applies, the checklist question that settles it, so you can put the issue to the agency directly instead of guessing what its silence means.

“Every agency I talk to promises page one within three months.”

Call it the guarantee trap: the promise sells the contract, and the tactics needed to keep it put your domain at risk. Google says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking. Ask each agency for targets built from your own Search Console baseline instead, and drop any agency that will not give them in writing.

“My old agency still has owner access to our Search Console.”

Verify the property yourself, remove their user, then delete their verification token from the site. Google’s help pages note that a removed verified owner can re-verify while the token remains (Search Console Help). Do the same audit for GA4 and your Business Profile.

“I can’t tell whether the Arabic content I’m paying for is written or machine-translated.”

Ask who wrote it and for the brief they wrote from. Then compare the Arabic page with the English one: if paragraphs, examples and sentence order match one to one, it was translated. Native copy uses local examples and the phrasing your customers type.

“Do I need a separate GEO agency on top of my SEO agency?”

Not by default. Google treats optimizing for its AI features as SEO, and most of the work overlaps. What a second vendor adds is measurement, so run questions 14 to 18 past your current agency first. Hire separately only if it cannot answer them. Our Arabic GEO guide covers the Arabic side.

“Is a 12-month contract a red flag?”

Not on its own. The red flag is a long term with no quarterly review, no notice period and no handover list, so ask for all three in the contract before you sign.

The better question to ask yourself

The useful test is not which agency sounds best on the call but which one is willing to put every answer it gave you in writing. If two or three agencies pass the ownership, Arabic-content and measurement questions, compare their written scopes line by line and pick on fit.

If none of them passes, fix your side first: create Search Console, GA4 and Business Profile under your own company, then go back to market with this checklist.

Get my answers to these 25 questions in writing

Last updated 28 October 2026. Change log: first published 28 October 2026.

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