Vetting an SEO agency comes down to four things: talk to former clients (real ones, by phone), demand case studies with specifics not vague percentages, find out who actually does the work versus who sold you the deal, and pay attention to how the agency reacts when you ask hard questions. The discomfort signal is the most reliable signal you’ve got.
Here’s the conversational checklist — what to actually do during a vetting process, in roughly the order it should happen.
Talk to two former clients, on the phone
Not testimonials on their website. Not a written case study. Two real phone calls with two real former or current clients who you can identify by name and firm. If the agency can’t or won’t put you in touch with two reference clients in the legal vertical, that’s the end of the conversation. Either they don’t have happy clients in your space, or they don’t have permission to share their names — both of which tell you something.
On those reference calls, ask three things: what specifically was the work, did rankings and case volume actually move, and would you hire them again. Then — most important — ask if they’ve ever wanted to leave, and what the conversation was like if they did. You’ll get a clean read in 15 minutes.
Demand case studies with specifics
A good case study includes the firm name (or at minimum, the firm type and market), the starting point (rankings, traffic, case volume), the timeframe, what specifically was done, and the ending point. Concrete, falsifiable, defensible.
A bad case study reads: “We worked with a Tier 1 PI firm and increased their organic traffic by 312% in 9 months, achieving 47 first-page rankings on competitive keywords.”
The second one tells you nothing. 312% from what? First page for which keywords? “Competitive” by whose definition? If their case studies look like the second one, ask for specifics. Watch how they answer. Specifics either show up immediately or never.
Find out who actually does the work
This is the single most important question, and the one most firms forget to ask. The person selling you the engagement is almost certainly not the person doing the work. Ask, by name, who will do the strategy, who will write the content, who will manage your GBP, and who will be your point of contact six months in.
Then ask to spend 10 minutes on the phone with the person doing the strategy — before signing anything. If the agency can’t or won’t put you on a call with that person, you have your answer. The work that moves cases for your firm requires strategic judgment. If the person making those judgments is a junior strategist juggling 30 accounts, that’s a different engagement than the one the salesperson described.
Read the contract before the proposal lands
Ask to see a sample contract early — ideally before they’ve even sent the proposal. You want to see the standard terms before you’ve emotionally committed to the agency. Specifically look for: contract length, auto-renew clause, notice period, early termination fee, IP ownership of work delivered, and exclusivity (some agencies bind you to use them exclusively for “all digital marketing”).
The shorter the contract and the lighter the exit penalties, the more confident the agency is in the work. The longer the contract and the heavier the penalties, the more they’re hedging against you wanting out. The contract is a leading indicator of how the relationship will actually go.
Run the conflict-of-interest check
Ask directly: “Are you working with any other law firms in our market and practice area? If we hired you, would you exclude any competing firms going forward?” This is one of the more telling questions you can ask. If the agency works with three other PI firms in your metro, they cannot do their best work for all four of you. They are splitting strategy, splitting attention, and competing with themselves on the same SERPs.
Good agencies operate with explicit market exclusivity — they pick one firm per practice area per metro. Bad ones sign anyone who’ll sign back, and hope you don’t notice.
Look at how they report
Ask for a sample monthly report from an existing client, with the names redacted. Then read it. The report should be readable. It should make obvious what was done in the past month, what’s being worked on next month, and — most importantly — whether the agency’s work is producing cases for the firm.
If the report is 40 pages of charts, dashboards, and screenshots of Google Analytics, that’s theater. If you can’t tell from the report whether the firm got more calls last month than the month before, the agency is not measuring what matters. The good reports are short, honest, and end with a clear statement of what’s working, what isn’t, and what’s next.
Watch the salesperson’s face when you ask if you can talk to the person who’ll actually do the strategy. The microsecond of hesitation tells you more than the answer that comes after it.
Four questions that filter agencies fast
These four questions, asked in the first sales call, eliminate roughly 70% of the agencies you’ll talk to. Use them.
1. “What would you tell us NOT to spend money on?” A specialist has opinions about what’s worth doing and what isn’t. A generalist tries to sell you the whole menu. If the answer is “well, it depends, but everything we offer has its place,” they’re trying to upsell, not advise.
2. “What’s the shortest contract you offer?” Watch what they say after they say the number. If “12 months minimum” is followed by a defensive explanation of why SEO needs time, that’s the contract speaking, not the truth. SEO does take time. The contract length has nothing to do with that.
3. “If rankings don’t improve in 90 days, what’s the conversation we’ll have?” The right answer involves real accountability — a check-in, a frank look at the work, and a decision together about whether to continue. The wrong answer is some version of “SEO is a long game” with no off-ramp.
4. “Can I talk to the person who’d actually do the work for 10 minutes before I decide?” Yes or no. Yes means you’ll meet someone real. No means you’re being sold a deck and handed a junior.
The discomfort signal
This is the meta-rule. Pay attention to how the agency reacts when you ask hard questions. A confident, honest operator gets sharper and more specific. They get a little more engaged. They start liking you because you’re asking the right things.
An agency that’s selling something it can’t deliver gets uncomfortable. They get defensive. They redirect to the bullet points on the slide deck. They start talking faster. They make jokes to ease tension. They try to move the conversation forward to the close.
Trust the discomfort signal more than anything they put in writing.
Related reading: what questions to ask an SEO agency, red flags when hiring an SEO agency, and finding an SEO agency that’s not BS.