Hiring an SEO agency: red flags for contractors

Why contractors are easy targets

Most home service companies are small. In 2023, more than half of employer establishments in every major home service industry had fewer than five employees, rising to 81.0% for residential remodelers, the category that includes handyman services^[4]. Few of these companies have a marketing person on staff, so the owner buys SEO between service calls, often from whoever called last.

Good agencies exist, and a capable one can be worth every dollar. The trouble is that bad and good agencies use the same words. The way to tell them apart is in the contract, the ownership of your assets and what they promise to report.

Red flags in the pitch

• Guaranteed rankings. Google states there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking^[1]. An agency can promise work, not positions.
• A secret method or special access to Google. No agency has a private line to rankings.
• An AI search package built on special files. Google says its AI features need no new machine-readable files, AI text files or special schema^[5].
• Adding your city and services to your business name. Google does not permit marketing taglines or location information in the business name, and unnecessary information can lead to suspension^[2].
• Creating extra listings at virtual offices to appear in more towns. Google says a rented address you do not operate from is not eligible for a Business Profile^[2].
• Review programs that filter out unhappy customers or pay for positive reviews. The FTC's final rule bans fake reviews, and it prohibits incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment^[3].
• Hundreds of near-identical city pages. Thin pages that swap town names add little and can drag down the site's quality.

Red flags in the contract

Questions to ask on the sales call

Use these questions word for word. A good agency answers them easily; a weak one changes the subject.

1. Who will own the domain, the website, the Google profile, the ad accounts and the phone numbers, and can you put that in writing?
2. If we part ways, what exactly do we get on the last day, and in what format?
3. Which three home service clients can I call, and how long have they been with you?
4. Who will do the work, and are they on your staff or subcontracted overseas?
5. What will you report monthly, and can it include booked jobs from our job management system?
6. How do you get reviews, and how do you make sure the process follows Google and FTC rules?
7. What do you need from us each month, in hours, photos and approvals?
8. What results would make you tell us to stop spending with you?

Green flags: what a good agency does first

Red flags are only half the picture. Strong agencies tend to behave the same way in the first three months, and you can ask for this plan in writing before you sign.

• They start with an audit of what you already have: profile, citations, website, reviews, ads and tracking, and they share it with you whether or not you hire them.
• They ask about your capacity, margins, best job types and the towns you want, because more calls for work you cannot staff are not a win.
• They set up call tracking and lead-source reporting before spending more on ads, so results can be measured from the first month.
• They explain what will take time, such as reviews and service pages, and what can move quickly, such as fixing profile errors or wasted ad spend.
• They ask for your photos, your technicians' knowledge and your approval on content, instead of publishing generic pages in your name.
• They name the person doing the work and give you a direct way to reach them.

What honest reporting looks like

Rankings and traffic are inputs. What pays your technicians is booked jobs. A useful monthly report connects the two, so you can see which work produced revenue and decide what to keep.

• Calls by source from tracking numbers, with answered and missed calls shown separately.
• Form fills, chats and texts by source.
• Booked jobs and revenue by source, matched from your job management system or CSR lead-source field.
• Spend by channel, including the agency fee, and cost per booked job.
• Work completed this month and what is planned next, in plain language.
• Google Business Profile calls, direction requests and new reviews.

If an agency cannot or will not tie its work to booked jobs, you cannot judge it. Our guide to cost per lead versus cost per booked job explains how to set up that view, and this budget guide helps you decide how much to put behind it.

Before you sign: an exit-proof setup

1. 01

   Inventory your assets

   List your domain registrar, hosting, website login, Google profile owners, ad accounts, analytics, tracking numbers and social pages, and who controls each one today.

2. 02

   Move ownership to the company

   Use a company email address that does not belong to one employee. Make yourself primary owner of the Google profile and admin on ad and analytics accounts.

3. 03

   Give the agency access, not ownership

   Add the agency as a manager or user. You can remove access later without losing anything.

4. 04

   Write the exit terms into the contract

   Specify the files you receive, the number transfer process and the notice period. Ask for a sample handover pack.

5. 05

   Set a review date

   Agree what results you expect at 90 and 180 days, measured in calls and booked jobs, and when either side can walk away.

Example: leaving an agency without losing the phones

Example (fictional): Summit Ridge Roofing had used the same agency for four years. When the owner decided to switch, he learned that the website was built on the agency's platform and that the tracking numbers on 300 yard signs and two truck wraps belonged to the agency.

Because the contract said nothing about exit, he negotiated: a three-month overlap during which the old numbers forwarded to the main line, a content export, and a port of the two truck-wrap numbers for a fee. He rebuilt the site on a platform in his own name and reprinted the signs with a number the company owned. The lesson he now shares with other owners is to settle ownership on day one, when the agency wants your business most.

Checking the work yourself

You do not need to be an expert to keep an agency honest. Thirty minutes a month is enough to spot most problems before they cost a season.

• Search your main services and town on your phone and note where your profile appears, in the map and below it.
• Open your Google profile as owner and check that the name, phone, hours and categories are still what you approved.
• Read any new pages on your site; if a page describes work you do not do or towns you do not serve, ask for it to be fixed or removed.
• Log in to the ad account and look at the search terms report for irrelevant searches you are paying for.
• Call your own tracking numbers once a month to confirm they still ring through to your office.