{"id":18932,"date":"2026-06-09T10:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T10:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.copebusiness.com\/?p=18932"},"modified":"2026-06-07T12:46:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T12:46:45","slug":"questions-to-ask-before-hiring-seo-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.copebusiness.com\/es\/technical-seo\/preguntas-a-cara-antes-de-contratar-a-una-empresa\/","title":{"rendered":"What Questions Should I Ask Before Hiring an SEO Company?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Before_You_Ask_Anything_Set_the_Right_Context\"><\/span>Before You Ask Anything: Set the Right Context<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Walk into any SEO agency conversation knowing two things:<\/p><div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 ez-toc-wrap-left counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">On this page<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Alternar tabla de contenidos\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #0a0a0a;color:#0a0a0a\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #0a0a0a;color:#0a0a0a\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.copebusiness.com\/es\/technical-seo\/preguntas-a-cara-antes-de-contratar-a-una-empresa\/#Before_You_Ask_Anything_Set_the_Right_Context\" >Before You Ask Anything: Set the Right Context<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.copebusiness.com\/es\/technical-seo\/preguntas-a-cara-antes-de-contratar-a-una-empresa\/#The_15_Questions_to_Ask_%E2%80%94_and_What_to_Listen_For\" >The 15 Questions to Ask \u2014 and What to Listen For<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.copebusiness.com\/es\/technical-seo\/preguntas-a-cara-antes-de-contratar-a-una-empresa\/#Green_Flags_Signs_Youre_Talking_to_a_Good_Agency\" >Green Flags: Signs You&#8217;re Talking to a Good Agency<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.copebusiness.com\/es\/technical-seo\/preguntas-a-cara-antes-de-contratar-a-una-empresa\/#Red_Flags_Walk_Away_If_You_Hear_These\" >Red Flags: Walk Away If You Hear These<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.copebusiness.com\/es\/technical-seo\/preguntas-a-cara-antes-de-contratar-a-una-empresa\/#One_Final_Check_Ask_Yourself\" >One Final Check: Ask Yourself<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/www.copebusiness.com\/es\/technical-seo\/preguntas-a-cara-antes-de-contratar-a-una-empresa\/#Frequently_Asked_Questions\" >Frequently Asked Questions<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n\n<p><strong>1. Good agencies ask questions before they give answers.<\/strong> A technical SEO provider who pitches a strategy without first auditing your site or asking about your platform is guessing. Any meaningful recommendation \u2014 what to fix, how long it takes, what it costs \u2014 requires seeing your site first.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Vague answers to specific questions are red flags.<\/strong> The questions below have defensible, specific answers. If you get platitudes (\u00abwe take a holistic approach to SEO\u00bb), that tells you something important.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_15_Questions_to_Ask_%E2%80%94_and_What_to_Listen_For\"><\/span>The 15 Questions to Ask \u2014 and What to Listen For<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<h3>1. \u00abWhat do you need to see before you can recommend a strategy?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> A competent agency will list specific things \u2014 GSC access, current analytics data, site crawl, information about your platform, recent traffic history. An agency that&#8217;s ready to pitch a strategy before seeing any of this is selling a template, not a tailored solution.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> <em>\u00abWe&#8217;d want access to your Google Search Console, ideally your analytics, and we&#8217;d run a crawl of your site before giving you any recommendations. Without that, we&#8217;d just be guessing.\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> <em>\u00abBased on what you&#8217;ve told us, we&#8217;d start with on-page optimisation, link building, and a content strategy.\u00bb<\/em> \u2014 Generic. They haven&#8217;t seen your site.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>2. \u00abHave you worked with sites on [your platform] before?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> Technical SEO is platform-specific. The way you implement hreflang on a WordPress multisite is completely different from how you do it on Shopify. The canonical tag limitations on Shopify don&#8217;t exist on WordPress. WooCommerce URL bloat is a different problem from Magento URL bloat. An agency without hands-on experience on your exact platform will learn on your time and your money.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> They name specific issues common to your platform and how they&#8217;ve addressed them. For Shopify: <em>\u00abWe deal with the collection page canonical limitations and the sitemap index restrictions regularly.\u00bb<\/em> For WordPress: <em>\u00abWe&#8217;ve seen the tag archive bloat issue and the plugin conflict patterns on most WordPress audits we run.\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> <em>\u00abWe work with all platforms.\u00bb<\/em> \u2014 Technically possible, but probe deeper. Ask them to name one technical SEO limitation specific to your platform. If they can&#8217;t, they haven&#8217;t done the work.<\/p>\n<p>We publish platform-specific guides including our breakdown of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.copebusiness.com\/technical-seo-services\/seo-tools-audit-errors-fixing\/\">23 issues we find on every WordPress technical SEO audit<\/a> and our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.copebusiness.com\/seo\/shopify-seo-services\/\">Shopify SEO services overview<\/a> \u2014 you can use these as a reference to assess whether an agency&#8217;s answers hold up.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>3. \u00abCan you show me an example of a technical SEO audit you&#8217;ve delivered?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> An audit sample tells you more than a case study. It shows you the depth of analysis, the quality of prioritisation, and whether the recommendations are platform-specific or generic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> They share a redacted audit (client name removed) with a clear prioritisation framework, platform-specific fixes written in actionable language, and evidence of manual analysis \u2014 not just a Screaming Frog export in a PDF.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> They&#8217;re reluctant to share any example, or the sample they share is a colour-coded spreadsheet of URLs with no explanation of what to do or why.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>4. \u00abWho will actually be working on my account?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> In many agencies, the senior expert closes the deal and a junior account manager \u2014 or an offshore team \u2014 delivers the work. You need to know who will be doing the analysis, writing the recommendations, and verifying fixes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> They name a specific person or team and describe their background. Ideally, you meet the person who will own your account before signing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> <em>\u00abOur team of experts will handle your account.\u00bb<\/em> \u2014 Vague. Press for a name and ask to speak to that person during the sales process. If they can&#8217;t arrange that, it&#8217;s a structure where the delivery team is disconnected from the sales team.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>5. \u00abHow do you measure the success of technical SEO work?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> Technical SEO success is measurable \u2014 but it requires the right metrics. Agencies who don&#8217;t know what to measure are doing work they can&#8217;t evaluate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> They name specific metrics: indexed page counts in GSC, Core Web Vitals pass rates, crawl error resolution rates, organic impressions and click trends for fixed pages, and crawl frequency improvements from log file data.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> <em>\u00abWe track keyword rankings.\u00bb<\/em> \u2014 Rankings are an outcome metric, not a technical SEO health metric. Keyword rankings can move for reasons completely unrelated to technical SEO. An agency that measures only rankings cannot tell you whether their technical work specifically is the cause of any improvement or decline.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>6. \u00abWhat happens after you deliver the audit \u2014 who implements the fixes?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> Many agencies audit and hand over a document. Others implement directly or coordinate with your developer. These are completely different levels of service at completely different price points \u2014 and the distinction matters enormously for whether fixes actually get done.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> A clear explanation of who does what. Either: <em>\u00abWe implement fixes directly on your CMS\u00bb<\/em> or <em>\u00abWe write detailed developer tickets for your team and verify each fix in GSC once deployed\u00bb<\/em> \u2014 both are acceptable. What&#8217;s not acceptable is handing over a report and calling it done.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> <em>\u00abWe provide recommendations and it&#8217;s up to your team to implement.\u00bb<\/em> \u2014 Not wrong as a model, but only acceptable if the recommendations are written at a level your team can actually act on, and if there&#8217;s a verification step included.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>7. \u00abHave you ever made a site&#8217;s SEO worse? What happened?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> This is a trust-building question \u2014 and a filter. No experienced agency has a perfect track record. Sites get migrated, algo updates land mid-campaign, a fix that looked correct creates an unforeseen conflict. An agency that claims zero negative outcomes either hasn&#8217;t done enough work or isn&#8217;t being honest.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> They describe a specific situation with honesty \u2014 a migration that didn&#8217;t go as planned, a robots.txt change that had to be reversed, a canonical strategy that conflicted with a CMS behaviour they hadn&#8217;t encountered before \u2014 and explain how they diagnosed and resolved it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> <em>\u00abWe&#8217;ve never had a negative outcome.\u00bb<\/em> \u2014 Statistically impossible if they&#8217;ve done meaningful volume. This answer reveals either limited experience or a culture of avoiding accountability.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>8. \u00abHow do you handle Google algorithm updates that affect client rankings?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> Google updates its core algorithm multiple times a year, and some updates specifically target technical quality signals \u2014 page experience, spam, helpfulness. An agency&#8217;s response to algorithm volatility reveals how proactively they monitor, communicate, and adapt.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> <em>\u00abWhen a broad core update rolls out, we review our active clients&#8217; GSC data within 48 hours, compare the pattern of any traffic changes against the update&#8217;s known focus areas, and communicate proactively with clients \u2014 even when the news isn&#8217;t what they want to hear.\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> <em>\u00abWe adjust our strategy based on algorithm changes.\u00bb<\/em> \u2014 Too vague. How? On what timeline? Based on what data source? This answer is technically not wrong but says nothing specific.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>9. \u00abDo you guarantee rankings or traffic results?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> This is a filter question. Ethical, competent SEO providers do not guarantee specific rankings. Google&#8217;s algorithm is controlled by Google \u2014 no third party can guarantee its output. An agency that offers guaranteed rankings is either lying or using tactics (typically black-hat link schemes) that will cause short-term gains and long-term penalties.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> <em>\u00abNo. We guarantee the quality of our work and our process \u2014 but rankings are determined by Google&#8217;s algorithm. What we can commit to is measurable improvements in indexation health, Core Web Vitals scores, and crawl efficiency, which create the conditions for better rankings.\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> Any form of ranking guarantee. Guaranteed \u00abpage 1 in 90 days\u00bb is a strong signal to walk away.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>10. \u00abHow do you report, and what does a typical monthly report look like?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> Reporting tells you how the agency thinks about accountability. Reports that contain only vanity metrics (domain authority, a list of keywords with arrows) without tying work done to measurable site health improvements are covering a lack of substance with noise.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> They describe reports structured around: work completed this month \u2192 what changed in GSC as a result \u2192 what&#8217;s planned next month. Ideally with a short written summary of any notable changes \u2014 indexation shifts, Core Web Vitals improvements, crawl error reductions \u2014 tied to specific actions taken.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> <em>\u00abWe send a monthly PDF with ranking movements and a traffic summary.\u00bb<\/em> \u2014 Rankings change constantly and for many reasons. A technical SEO report that only shows rankings is not a technical SEO report.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>11. \u00abWhat access do you need to my site and accounts?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> Legitimate technical SEO work requires specific access \u2014 Google Search Console (at minimum view access, ideally full), Google Analytics, and depending on scope, staging site access or direct CMS access. This question reveals whether the agency actually intends to do the work or whether they&#8217;re operating from the outside.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> <em>\u00abWe need full access to Google Search Console, read access to your analytics, and depending on what the audit finds, we may need limited CMS access or staging access to test fixes before they go live.\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> <em>\u00abWe don&#8217;t need access to your accounts \u2014 we can work from your URL.\u00bb<\/em> \u2014 You cannot do meaningful technical SEO without GSC data. Any agency claiming otherwise is using only surface-level tools.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>12. \u00abWhat is your approach to technical SEO for JavaScript-heavy sites?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> If your site is built on React, Next.js, Vue, or Angular \u2014 or if you&#8217;re considering moving to one \u2014 this question will immediately reveal depth of knowledge. JavaScript SEO is one of the most technically complex areas of the discipline and one of the most commonly mishandled.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> They discuss server-side rendering vs. static generation vs. client-side rendering, how Googlebot handles deferred content, how to audit what Googlebot actually sees using URL Inspection, and the trade-offs between different rendering strategies for SEO. Reference to our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.copebusiness.com\/technical-seo\/json-ld-seo-automation\/\">Next.js SEO guide on server rendering, sitemaps, and meta tags<\/a> gives you a benchmark for the depth of knowledge a real answer requires.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> <em>\u00abWe make sure the site is crawlable and indexable.\u00bb<\/em> \u2014 This is a non-answer. Press for specifics on JavaScript rendering. If they can&#8217;t provide them, they can&#8217;t help with a JavaScript framework site.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>13. \u00abHow do you handle site migrations from an SEO perspective?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> Site migrations are one of the highest-risk SEO events a business can go through. Mishandled migrations cause traffic drops of 40\u201380% that take 6\u201312 months to recover from. An agency&#8217;s answer to this question tells you whether they&#8217;ve done migration work at a serious level.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> They describe a pre-migration audit, a redirect map built from the old URL structure to the new one, a pre-launch QA checklist (canonicals, sitemaps, robots.txt, GSC verification), a staged rollout approach if possible, and a post-launch monitoring plan. Our guide on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.copebusiness.com\/technical-seo\/seo-redirects-types-impact\/\">how to build a redirect map for a site migration<\/a> is a useful benchmark for what this level of rigour looks like.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> <em>\u00abWe&#8217;ll handle the SEO side \u2014 your developer handles the redirects.\u00bb<\/em> \u2014 Redirects are the SEO side of a migration. An agency that treats them as a developer-only concern hasn&#8217;t actually done migration work.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>14. \u00abWhat does your onboarding process look like for a new client?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> Onboarding structure is a proxy for operational maturity. Agencies that have delivered good work at scale have a repeatable process \u2014 they know what they need, in what order, and why.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> A clear sequence: access requests \u2192 baseline audit \u2192 priority findings presentation \u2192 roadmap agreement \u2192 first sprint. Roughly 2\u20134 weeks from sign-off to first recommendations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> <em>\u00abWe&#8217;ll get started right away and have updates for you within the month.\u00bb<\/em> \u2014 Vague. If there&#8217;s no structured onboarding, there&#8217;s no systematic approach. The work may be good, or it may not \u2014 you have no way to know, and neither do they.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>15. \u00abCan I speak to a current or recent client in a similar industry or platform?\u00bb<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Why ask it:<\/strong> References are the strongest signal of real-world performance. A strong agency should be able to name clients willing to speak on their behalf. This isn&#8217;t a gotcha \u2014 it&#8217;s a standard due diligence step that serious buyers of any professional service should take.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good answer:<\/strong> They provide one or two references without hesitation. Even better if the reference is on a similar platform or in a similar industry to yours.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Red flag:<\/strong> Reluctance, inability to provide references, or offering to send \u00abwritten testimonials\u00bb only. Written testimonials on an agency&#8217;s own website prove nothing \u2014 they control what gets published. A live reference call is what matters.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Green_Flags_Signs_Youre_Talking_to_a_Good_Agency\"><\/span>Green Flags: Signs You&#8217;re Talking to a Good Agency<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Beyond individual question answers, look for these patterns across the conversation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They ask more questions than they answer in the first meeting<\/li>\n<li>They reference your specific platform by name and demonstrate familiarity with its constraints<\/li>\n<li>They&#8217;re willing to tell you what&#8217;s outside their scope or expertise<\/li>\n<li>They talk about verification \u2014 how they check that fixes worked \u2014 not just implementation<\/li>\n<li>They give you an honest timeline (\u00ab3\u20136 months for meaningful indexation improvement\u00bb) rather than a fast one (\u00abyou&#8217;ll see results in 30 days\u00bb)<\/li>\n<li>They have a clear point of view on what your site specifically needs, based on what they&#8217;ve seen \u2014 not a generic \u00abhere&#8217;s our process\u00bb<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Red_Flags_Walk_Away_If_You_Hear_These\"><\/span>Red Flags: Walk Away If You Hear These<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Guaranteed rankings or traffic (\u00abpage 1 in 60 days\u00bb)<\/li>\n<li>No audit or diagnostic before proposing a retainer<\/li>\n<li>Vague deliverables (\u00abwe do everything SEO\u00bb)<\/li>\n<li>Reluctance to share a sample audit or report<\/li>\n<li>Monthly reports focused only on keyword positions<\/li>\n<li>No clear answer on who specifically does the work<\/li>\n<li>Claims they can improve rankings without access to your GSC<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"One_Final_Check_Ask_Yourself\"><\/span>One Final Check: Ask Yourself<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>After the meeting, ask yourself: <em>Did they say anything specific about my site \u2014 or did they describe a process they use for every client?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The best technical SEO agencies tailor their approach to your platform, your current technical state, and your specific growth constraints. If everything they said could have been said to any business in any industry, you haven&#8217;t found a specialist \u2014 you&#8217;ve found a generalist with a sales deck.<\/p>\n<p>At <a href=\"https:\/\/www.copebusiness.com\/technical-seo-services\/\">Cope Business<\/a>, we start every conversation with a diagnostic, not a proposal. We won&#8217;t quote a retainer until we&#8217;ve seen your site \u2014 because until we have, we&#8217;d just be guessing like everyone else.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Frequently_Asked_Questions\"><\/span>Frequently Asked Questions<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><strong>How long should the initial meeting with an SEO agency take?<\/strong> A substantive initial meeting typically takes 45\u201360 minutes. Shorter than that and there isn&#8217;t enough time to ask meaningful questions or get specific answers. Longer than that in the first meeting, without a follow-up audit scheduled, often means it&#8217;s becoming a sales session rather than a diagnostic conversation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Should I get proposals from multiple agencies before deciding?<\/strong> Yes \u2014 ideally 2\u20133. This gives you a baseline for comparing scope, price, and approach. Be cautious of the agency that comes back fastest with the most detailed proposal \u2014 speed often means they&#8217;re using a template, not doing site-specific analysis.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is it a red flag if an agency specialises in only one or two platforms?<\/strong> No \u2014 it&#8217;s often a green flag. Platform specialisation means deeper experience with the specific technical constraints of that environment. A generalist who claims expertise across every platform and every industry is more likely to be average at all of them than exceptional at any.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What should I give an agency access to before the first meeting?<\/strong> Nothing sensitive before you&#8217;ve decided to work with them. For an initial discovery conversation, providing your domain name and a brief description of your site is sufficient. Access to GSC and analytics should come after you&#8217;ve agreed on scope and signed a contract.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do I know if the technical SEO agency I&#8217;m evaluating is actually technical?<\/strong> Ask them to explain one non-obvious thing they&#8217;ve encountered on a site built on your platform. A genuinely technical SEO expert will have a specific, experience-based answer. Someone with shallow technical knowledge will give you a textbook answer about crawling and indexing that doesn&#8217;t reference anything platform-specific.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><em>If you want a straight-talking technical SEO assessment before committing to an agency, our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.copebusiness.com\/technical-seo-services\/\">technical SEO team<\/a> starts with a diagnostic \u2014 and we&#8217;ll tell you honestly what we find, including if the answer is that you don&#8217;t need ongoing help yet.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before You Ask Anything: Set the Right Context Walk into any SEO agency conversation knowing two things: 1. 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