How do you choose an SEO consultant you can trust?

Search engine optimization, the work of getting your website found on Google and Bing, is a field with no licence, no exam and a long history of overpromising. That makes choosing a consultant harder than choosing an accountant or a solicitor. The good news is that the warning signs are well known, and Google itself publishes advice on what to look out for.

What should an SEO consultant actually do?

Before you can judge a consultant, it helps to know what the job involves. Good SEO work for an established business usually covers four areas:

• Technical health. Making sure Google can find, read and load your pages quickly, on phones as well as desktops.
• Content. Pages that answer the questions your buyers actually search for, such as cost, timelines and comparisons.
• Local presence, if you serve a town or region: your Google Business Profile, reviews and consistent business details across directories.
• Reputation. Genuine mentions and links from sources Google trusts, such as trade bodies, local press and partner sites.

Increasingly, it should also cover how AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews describe your business. Those tools lean heavily on search results, so the work overlaps. The guide to GEO vs SEO explains where they differ.

What are the red flags?

Google's own guidance, Do you need an SEO?, states plainly that no one can guarantee a top ranking on Google. It also tells businesses to be wary of anyone who claims a special relationship with Google. Use that as your baseline, and add these:

• Guarantees of rankings or traffic. Nobody controls Google's results. A guarantee means the seller is guessing or has a get-out clause.
• Secret methods. Good SEO is not secret. A consultant should be able to tell you exactly what they will change and why.
• Link packages. Offers of "100 backlinks a month" usually mean low-quality or paid links. Google's spam policies specifically cover link schemes, and they can damage a site.
• Unsolicited emails saying your site has urgent problems and offering to fix them cheaply.
• Reports built on activity, not outcomes. Pages of keyword positions and charts, with nothing about enquiries.
• They want to own your accounts. Your website, Google Search Console and analytics should belong to you.
• Long lock-in contracts with no exit. A minimum term is reasonable because SEO takes months. Twelve months with no break clause is a lot to ask from someone you have not worked with.

If a consultant guarantees you a first-page ranking, you have learned the most important thing about them already.

What does a good consultant look like?

The signs of a good consultant are less dramatic but just as clear:

• They ask about your business, your best customers and how enquiries turn into sales before they talk about keywords.
• They explain your situation in plain English, and every technical term in one clause.
• They tell you what will not work, or what is not worth doing yet.
• They give realistic timescales. SEO usually takes several months to show a clear trend; see how long SEO takes.
• They tie their work to business results: enquiries from search, and the searches that bring buyers rather than browsers.
• They are clear about what they do not do, such as web development, design or ads, and who would.

How do you check their evidence?

Claims are cheap. Evidence you can check yourself is not.

1. Ask for comparable work. A business of similar size, in a similar kind of market. Local service businesses, ecommerce stores and national B2B firms need different SEO.
2. Check it yourself. Search for the terms they say they improved. Visit the sites they built or worked on. Are they fast on your phone? Do they answer buyer questions clearly?
3. Speak to a client. Ask what changed in enquiries, how communication worked, and whether they would hire the consultant again.
4. Look at their own visibility. It is not a perfect test, because good consultants are often busy with client work. But someone selling AI and search visibility should have a site that is easy for search engines to read and clear about what they do.
5. Be careful with case-study numbers. Percentages without a starting point mean little. A 300 percent rise from three visits is nine visits.

Why start with a small paid project?

The best way to judge a consultant is to see how they think about your business, not someone else's. A fixed-price audit does that. It is a contained cost, it shows you their method, and it leaves you with a plan you keep whether or not you hire them for the ongoing work.

A useful audit should tell you, in order of value, what is stopping you being found and chosen: where you rank for your most valuable searches, who ranks above you and why, technical problems, gaps in content, and what AI tools say about you. The guide to what an SEO audit costs explains what moves the price, and the AI search visibility audit guide covers the AI side.

Is this consultant right for your kind of business?

A consultant who is excellent for one kind of business can be the wrong choice for another. Ask about their experience with:

• Your search pattern. Local ("near me" and town-based searches), national, or international in several languages.
• Your platform. WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, Wix or a custom site. Some fixes are easy on one and hard on another.
• Your sale. A high-value bespoke service, where a few good enquiries matter, is different from ecommerce, where volume matters.
• Your other channels. If you also run ads or are planning a redesign, the SEO plan needs to fit those. A redesign without an SEO plan is one of the commonest ways to lose rankings, as covered in the guide to redesigning without losing SEO.

If your problem goes beyond search, such as a dated brand or a website that does not convert, you may need someone who covers more than SEO. The guide to choosing who runs your marketing compares those options.

What should you agree before you sign?

Put these in writing:

• Named person. Who does the work, and who you speak to.
• Deliverables in numbers. For example, a set number of new pages a month, a technical fix list by a date, and a monthly report.
• Ownership. You own the website, content, Google Search Console, Google Business Profile and analytics, and the consultant has access.
• Measures. Enquiries from search, rankings for an agreed list of valuable searches, and how AI tools describe you.
• Term and exit. A minimum term long enough for SEO to show a trend, often around three months, then a clear notice period and a handover.

Finally, trust how the first conversation felt. A consultant who listens, asks about your customers and is willing to say what they do not know is usually the same person a year into the work. One who talks mostly about their tools and their awards usually is too.

Then interview with care. The companion guide lists the questions to ask an SEO agency, and they work just as well for an individual consultant.