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How to Choose an SEO Company
Written by Chayan Sarkar, founder of Boost It Junior
The right SEO company can tell you exactly what it will do in your first three months, who will do it and how you will know it’s working. The wrong one talks about rankings and guarantees.
Here is how to tell them apart before you sign anything, written for businesses in India comparing agencies, freelancers and consultants.
Start With What You Need SEO To Do
Write the problem down before you take a single call. “We need SEO” isn’t a brief. “We get almost no enquiries from Google in Kolkata” is. So is “our online store has thousands of products and most of them aren’t indexed”.
The answer shapes the help you need. Local SEO suits a business serving one city or area: Google Business Profile, local pages, reviews and listings. Technical SEO suits large or messy websites. Content-led SEO suits businesses whose buyers research before they buy. A company that is strong in one isn’t automatically strong in the others.
Questions That Separate Real SEO Companies From Sales Decks
Generic questions get generic answers. These force specific ones.
What will you do in the first 90 days? A good answer names an audit, the fixes that come out of it, the pages to create or improve and how your Google Business Profile will be handled. A weak answer talks about “optimisation”.
Who will actually work on my account? Ask for names and roles, and whether the work is done in-house or passed to someone else.
How will we measure success? Look for enquiries, calls, sales and organic traffic to the pages that matter. Rankings alone are easy to inflate with phrases nobody searches.
Can I see a sample report and a sample audit? Client names can be hidden. The depth of the work can’t.
Whose accounts are these? Your Search Console, analytics, Business Profile and website logins should stay in your name, with the agency added as a user.
What happens if I leave? You should keep every page, piece of content, link and account you paid for.
Red Flags That Should End The Call
Guaranteed rankings. Google itself says no one can guarantee a top position. A guarantee usually means cheap tactics, or a promise about keywords nobody searches.
Hundreds of backlinks a month. Bulk link packages are exactly what Google’s spam policies target, and cleaning up afterwards can cost more than the package did.
Secret methods. Good SEO can be explained. If they can’t tell you what they’ll do, they probably won’t do much.
Long lock-ins with no way out. SEO takes months, so a minimum term can be fair. A year-long contract you can’t leave isn’t.
Fake reviews or self-awarded stars. An agency that buys reviews, or marks up its own pages so stars appear in Google, is taking risks it may take with your business too.
Unedited AI content at scale. Dozens of unreviewed articles a month look a lot like the scaled content abuse Google’s spam policies describe.
Agency, Freelancer Or Consultant?
A freelancer can be excellent value for a small local business, as long as they cover technical, content and local work, or are honest about what they don’t do.
A small specialist agency gives you a team without layers. Ask whether the person who sells to you also works on your account.
A large agency suits big sites and multi-city brands that need several specialists. Check who will handle a smaller account day to day.
A consultant suits companies with an in-house team that needs direction, audits and training rather than hands-on delivery.
How SEO Pricing Works In India
Most SEO companies in India charge a monthly retainer. Others sell one-off audits or projects, and a few charge by results. Be careful with pay-per-ranking deals, which tend to reward easy, low-value keywords.
Prices vary widely because the amount of work varies widely. Two quotes at the same price can include very different deliverables, so compare what’s included, not just the total, and check whether GST is added. Our guide to SEO cost in India shows typical monthly ranges by tier and what each usually covers.
Comparing Two SEO Proposals
Put them side by side and ask each the same five things: what gets done each month, who does it, what gets reported, what you own and how you can leave. The proposal that answers all five clearly is usually the safer choice, even when it isn’t the cheapest.
If you are in Kolkata, check local knowledge too: how well they understand the way people search in the city, which areas matter to you, and how they would handle your Google Business Profile. Our SEO company in Kolkata page explains how we approach local SEO here.
| A good SEO company says | Question this | |
|---|---|---|
| First 90 days | A dated plan: audit, fixes, pages, Business Profile | “We’ll optimise your site” |
| Results | Enquiries, calls and traffic to key pages | Rankings for phrases nobody searches |
| Links | How links are earned, with examples | “50 high-quality backlinks a month” |
| Content | How many pieces, on what, written by whom | “Regular blog posts” |
| Accounts | Everything stays in your name | Accounts set up under their login |
| Contract | A clear notice period | A long lock-in with no exit |
| Guarantees | Commitments on the work, none on rankings | “Page one in 30 days” |
The Bottom Line
Choose the SEO company that explains its plan in plain language, names the people doing the work, reports on enquiries rather than rankings and leaves you owning everything. Treat guarantees, bulk links and secret methods as reasons to walk away.
Boost It Junior is an SEO-led agency in Kolkata. Ask us what your first 90 days would look like before you decide.
FAQ
Questions before we cook.
Look for a clear 90-day plan, named people doing the work, reporting tied to enquiries and sales, and contracts that leave you owning your accounts and content. Avoid anyone who guarantees rankings.
Ask what they will do in the first 90 days, who will work on your account, how they measure success, whether you can see a sample report, whose name the accounts are in and what happens if you leave.
A freelancer can be better value for a small local business. An agency suits businesses that need technical, content and local work together, or several specialists. Judge either on the plan and the people, not the label.
No. Google says no one can guarantee a ranking. Treat any guarantee as a red flag.
Usually several months for meaningful movement. Local fixes such as your Google Business Profile can show sooner. Competitive keywords and new websites take longer.
Comparing SEO companies? Start with a conversation.