What do you look for in a serious life partner? Honesty? Open communication? Someone who has your back and is invested in your future?
Hiring an SEO company should tick the same boxes (although you’ll have to look elsewhere for foot rubs).Â
The problem is, you’re too busy running your business to “play the field” and sort through a blizzard of bad matches. You need a simple way to spot the keepers and avoid the catfish: a clear checklist of red flags to help in your SEO agency selection, so you can find your diamond in the rough.
Why Choosing the Right Partner Matters
Effective SEO directly impacts your bottom line. When it works, your website becomes a reliable source of qualified leads, phone calls, and sales. When it doesn’t, the consequences are immediate.
A poor SEO partnership can lead to:
- Wasted Marketing Spend: Months of investment with no visible return.
- Ranking Penalties: Unethical tactics can get your site blacklisted by Google, making you invisible to customers.
- Brand Damage: Low-quality content and ‘spammy’ links erode the trust you’ve built with your audience.
- Lost Ground: While you’re trying to fix mistakes, your competitors are capturing your market share.
Ultimately, choosing the right SEO company means finding a partner who understands that SEO is a long-term commercial tool, not a quick & easy technical exercise.
Common Red Flags to Spot Immediately
Knowing how to spot the most common SEO company red flags is the first step. Here’s what to look out for during your initial conversations and proposals…
Guaranteed #1 Rankings (Too Good to Be True)
This is one of the classic SEO scam signs: If an agency promises, unequivocally, ‘We’ll easily get you to rank #1 for ‘plumber in Sydney’,’ that should trigger the alarm bells.
No one can guarantee a specific ranking on Google.
Search engine algorithms change constantly, and your competitors are always active. A reputable agency will never promise a specific position. Instead, they will focus on a clear strategy to improve your overall visibility, traffic, and (most importantly) your lead generation. They talk about progress, and leave impossible promises to the amateurs and the inequitable.Â
Lack of Transparency in Strategy and Reporting
You ask what they plan to do for you, and you get a vague answer about a “proprietary process” or “secret sauce.” This is a major red flag. If an agency can’t (or is unwilling to) explain what you’re paying for in plain English, something is wrong.
A trusted partner should provide:
- A clear, upfront strategy.
- Regular reports that you can actually understand.
- Full access to your own Google Analytics data.
- A clear point of contact who can answer your questions.
Secrecy and ambiguity often hides a lack of meaningful work or the use of outdated, black-hat tactics.
Cheap Packages and One-Size-Fits-All Solutions
Extremely low prices are a sign that corners are indeed being cut. Proper SEO requires specialist time for technical analysis, content creation, and strategic outreach. Here’s what a cheap package really costs you:
- Offshore Outsourcing: Content written by someone who doesn’t understand your local market or brand voice.
- Automated Software: Relying on low-quality, automated tools for tasks like link building.
- Recycled Strategies: Applying the same generic template to your business that they use for everyone else.
Your business isn’t generic. Your SEO strategy shouldn’t be either.
Overuse of Technical Jargon Without Explanation
Some agencies use complex jargon to sound impressive or deliberately confuse you. This is a dirty sales tactic, not a sign of genuine expertise.
True Search Engine Optimisation Experts can explain complex ideas simply. If you feel like you’re being talked down to or intentionally kept in the dark, that’s a poor foundation for a trusting partnership.
Here’s a simple rule: if they can’t explain it clearly, they may not understand it well enough themselves.
No Discussion About Content Quality or User Experience
If a pitch is all about keywords and backlinks but never mentions your website’s content or how easy it is for customers to navigate, their approach to SEO is at least a decade out of date. Either that or they don’t expect to keep you on as a client for very long.
Today, SEO and the user experience are linked. Inextricably so.
If your website is slow, confusing, or has pointless and unhelpful content, it won’t convert visitors into customers, and its rankings will eventually suffer.
A modern strategy must prioritise how real people interact with your site.
How to Identify a Trusted SEO Agency
If you’re asking how to choose an SEO company that will actually deliver the results you dream of, the key is to look for positive signals, not just avoid the negative ones. A trustworthy agency that works with Australian SMBs will have:
- Relevant Case Studies: They can show you a long track record of proven results for businesses like yours, whether you’re in the trades, finance, e-commerce, or a medical field.
- A Clear Process: They explain their strategy and reporting schedule from the start with zero ambiguity.
- A Focus on Business Goals: The conversation is about leads and sales, not just rankings and traffic.
- Client Testimonials: They have lots of happy clients who are willing to vouch for their work.
Questions to Ask Before You Sign Anything
You don’t need to interrogate a potential agency, but how they respond to a few direct questions is very revealing:
- “How will you measure success for my business specifically?”
- “Can I see a sample of the report I’ll be receiving each month?”
- “Who will be my day-to-day contact?”
- “What does the first 90 days of working together look like?”
- “How do you approach building links or creating content for my site?”
Listen for clear, confident answers that are free of jargon and focused on your business outcomes.
When It’s Time to Walk Away from Your SEO Provider
Perhaps you’re already working with a provider and things don’t feel right. It might be time to move on if you see:
- No Tangible Results: Six months have passed with no meaningful movement in organic leads, calls, or key rankings.
- Poor Communication: Your emails go unanswered, and your contact person seems to have disappeared.
- Vague Reporting: The reports you get are confusing or focus on vanity metrics that don’t impact your business.
- Unethical Tactics: You discover your site is linked to ‘spammy’, low-quality directories.
Don’t continue investing in a partnership that isn’t working for you. A clean break is better than another six months of wasted budget. After all, a healthy partnership is all about give and take, right?
Move Ahead Media’s Approach to Ethical SEO
Our philosophy is simple: we believe in transparency, partnership, and results. As The Leading Digital Marketing Agency, we don’t have a “secret sauce,” and we don’t use one-size-fits-all packages. First, we take the time to understand your business and your goals. Then, we build a custom SEO strategy designed to achieve them.
You’ll receive clear, monthly reports that track the metrics that matter (leads, conversions, and ROI), and as a Google Premier Partner, our work is held to the highest industry standards.
We also operate on a no lock-in contract basis because we believe our results should be what keeps you with us, and it will.
The next step in choosing the right SEO company is having a real conversation about your business and your goals. Tired of going it alone? Get Started and see what a true partnership looks like.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are the main red flags when hiring an SEO company?
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Still have questions? We cover a wide range of topics on our comprehensive SEO FAQs page.
