Question answered
How do I check if an SEO company is any good?
Answered by Daniel Stoychev, Webso Digital · 4 September 2026 · 4 min read
Check an SEO company in five ways that take about an hour: run their own website through a speed test and look for a named person and an address; ask for a real monthly report from an existing client with the details removed; confirm in writing that Search Console and the Google Business Profile will be owned by you; ask for the absolute numbers behind any case study; and ask what they refuse to do. A company that passes all five is worth talking to whatever its size.
Their own website
Run it through PageSpeed Insights on the mobile tab. A company whose own site scores in the 50s is not the company to fix yours. Look for a named person, a real address, a registration number and a privacy policy that reads as if a person wrote it. Search the company's name and see whether its own Google Business Profile is filled in. A company that has not done the basics for itself has told you what it will do for you.
A real report
Ask for a monthly report from an existing client with the details removed. It should be short, in plain English, with numbers from Search Console rather than a rank-tracking dashboard, and it should say what was done with URLs, what changed, what was deliberately left alone and why, and what happens next month. A forty-page PDF of charts is a document designed not to be read. A company that cannot produce a report at all has not been writing them.
The data arrangement
Confirm in writing that the Search Console property will be shared with your Google account from the first week, and that the Google Business Profile, Analytics and any ads account are created in your name with the company added as a manager. A company that keeps any of those in its own name is keeping your business hostage against the day you leave. This is the check that most often ends the conversation, and it should.
The case study caveats
Every case study has a starting point and an absolute number, and a company that volunteers them is being straight. "Clicks up 500 per cent" is true of an account that went from 7 to 42, and it is a different claim from one that went from 700 to 4,200. Ask for both numbers, ask what the caveat is, and be reassured by a company that has already written the caveat on the page.
What they refuse to do
Ask the question plainly and listen for the speed and specificity of the answer. Bought links, bought or gated reviews, town pages on a template, keywords stuffed into a business name, rewriting pages that are working: a good company names those without prompting, because it has cleaned up after all of them. A company that hesitates, or that offers a "link building package" in the same conversation, has answered.
We built this site to pass the five checks, and it is fair to run them on us: the speed score, the person and address on the about page, the report described on the results page, the ownership terms on the pricing page, and the refusals on the services page.
Follow-up questions
Are reviews on Google or Trustpilot a reliable check?
A signal, not a proof. Read the detailed ones and look for specifics about what was done. A company with dozens of reviews that all say 'great results, highly recommend' has either a template or a routine; the ones that describe the work are the ones to weigh.
Should I ask for references?
Yes, and ask the reference the five questions above rather than whether they are happy. Whether they have Search Console access, and whether their report names next month's work, tells you more than a general recommendation.
What if the company is very new?
Judge it on the five checks and on the person. A new company run by someone who can show technical findings and pages they have written, and who shares the data, is a better bet than an established one that fails the ownership check.