Calgary, AB

How to choose an SEO company without getting burned.

Almost every business we speak to has been through one bad SEO relationship. The pattern is consistent enough that it's avoidable with about six questions.

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What's the single best question to ask?

'What did you change on a client's site last month?' Not what they reported — what they changed. Vagueness here is the whole answer.

Someone doing real work can describe it immediately and specifically: these titles rewritten, these four pages merged, this schema added, this category changed. Someone producing reports will talk about strategy, momentum and algorithm updates.

It's a hard question to prepare for and an easy one to ask, which is what makes it the most useful thing you can do in a sales call.

What should worry you in a pitch?

Guaranteed rankings, a proprietary score, cold outreach claiming to have 'noticed errors on your site', and any refusal to explain what will actually be done.

The guarantee is the clearest disqualifier. Nobody controls Google's ranking, and a promise of position one is a promise about something the seller does not own.

Guaranteed rankings
— Not possible. Anyone offering it is either misinformed or relying on you not checking.
A proprietary score
— An alarming number with no defined meaning, improvable only by hiring whoever calculated it.
Cold emails about 'errors on your website'
— Sent in bulk to thousands of businesses, usually from a template that never looked at your site.
Long contracts with no exit
— Results take months, which is a reason for patience — not a reason to remove your leverage.
Vagueness about deliverables
— 'Ongoing optimisation' is not a deliverable. Ask what ships and how often.

Who should own the accounts?

You, in every case. Your Google Business Profile, Search Console, Analytics and website should be in your accounts with the agency added as a user.

This is the most consequential detail in the whole relationship and it's usually decided carelessly in week one. An agency that creates these accounts under its own ownership controls assets you cannot get back, and 'we'll transfer it later' has ended a lot of relationships badly.

Every one of these platforms supports adding a named user with the access they need. There is no legitimate reason for an agency to own them.

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What happens to the work if you leave?

It should stay — everything done on your site, in your accounts, under your ownership. If leaving means losing pages, that's a rental, not a service.

Some arrangements host your site on the agency's platform, or publish content through a system that removes it on cancellation. Others build the ranking on a microsite the agency owns.

Ask directly: if I cancel next month, what disappears? The answer should be 'nothing'.

How do you verify results honestly?

Google Search Console, which is free, yours, and Google's own data. Ask for reporting drawn from it rather than from a third-party rank tracker.

Rank trackers estimate a position from a server that isn't where your customers are, which is why local rankings reported by tools rarely match what a customer sees. Search Console reports actual impressions and clicks for actual queries.

Set it up yourself before you hire anyone. It takes ten minutes, it's free, and it means the reporting can be checked against a source the agency doesn't control.

Does a Calgary agency beat a remote one?

For local search, usually — but because of market knowledge rather than proximity. The work itself is done remotely either way.

Local knowledge matters in ways that are hard to fake: what the quadrants mean, which suburbs are new builds, that hail season drives roofing demand, that Alberta pharmacists prescribe. That knowledge shows up in the content and it's what makes a page specific rather than templated.

What doesn't matter is whether anyone visits your office. Insisting on in-person meetings mostly buys you a meeting.

What does a fair arrangement look like?

Month-to-month or a short term, you own every account, work is applied to your live site, reporting comes from Search Console, and nothing is published without your approval.

For what it's worth, that's the shape of this one: the audit lands in 48 hours, fixes go live within 1 week, a snapshot is taken before every change, you approve everything, and you can cancel any month.

None of that is unusual or generous — it's just what the arrangement looks like when nothing depends on you being locked in.

Common questions

Should I hire an agency or a freelancer?

An agency if you need capacity, multiple locations or a team that survives someone's holiday. A freelancer if you'd rather talk to whoever is doing the work and pay less for less overhead.

How do I check an agency's own ranking?

Search 'SEO Calgary' and see whether they appear. It's not conclusive — that term is brutally competitive and some good operators don't chase it — but it's worth knowing.

Are case studies trustworthy?

Only when they name the client and the timeframe. An anonymous '312% traffic increase' is unverifiable and usually measured from a deliberately chosen starting point.

What if I've already signed a bad contract?

Read the exit terms, take ownership of your Google accounts immediately if you don't have it, and set up Search Console yourself so you can see the real numbers.

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