What Exactly Will You Do Each Month?
This is the single most revealing question you can ask. A legitimate company answers with a concrete deliverable list: a set number of GBP posts, citation builds or cleanups, review outreach volume, content pieces, and reporting. Vague answers — we will optimize your presence, build authority, improve visibility — are how commodity resellers hide the fact that the monthly work is an automated software run. Push for specifics on the unglamorous work too: who responds to reviews, who monitors the profile for suggested edits and policy changes, who fixes it when a duplicate listing appears. Also ask what happens in slow months versus heavy months; real campaigns have natural cadence, and an honest company will tell you which months are build-heavy and which are maintenance. If they cannot itemize the work, you are not buying work — you are buying a subscription to hope. Request the list in writing before you sign, so the promised scope is enforceable rather than remembered differently later.
How Do You Measure and Report Results?
Rankings alone are a poor measure of local SEO success; what matters is whether the phone rings. Ask which metrics they report and how they connect them to revenue: map pack positions for target keywords, Google Business Profile calls, direction requests, and website conversions with call tracking. Ask to see a sample report and, crucially, whether a human walks you through it each month or whether a PDF simply lands in your inbox. Find out how they attribute results — do they use call tracking numbers, and if so, how do they handle NAP consistency concerns? A thoughtful answer here reveals operational maturity. Finally, ask what a realistic timeline looks like for your market specifically. Anyone who gives you the same timeline they give everyone is not thinking about your competitive landscape. Ask about attribution windows too — how long after first touch they credit a call to SEO — and whether they track assisted conversions, since customers often discover you on Maps but convert later through your website. Sophisticated attribution separates mature operators from ranking-chasers.
Who Owns the Accounts and Assets?
This question prevents one of the nastiest surprises in the industry. Some providers create your Google Business Profile, build citations, and publish content under their own agency accounts — and when you cancel, you discover you cannot access or transfer what you paid for. Insist that every asset lives in accounts you own and control: your GBP, your logins, your website. The agency should operate as a manager or collaborator, never as the owner. Get this in writing before work begins, along with a clear statement of what happens to all work product on termination. While you are at it, ask who specifically will work on your account and how much of the work is done in-house versus outsourced. Heavy undisclosed outsourcing is not automatically disqualifying, but you deserve to know who is touching your business presence. Probe subcontracting directly: ask which tasks are done in-house, which are outsourced, and to whom. Outsourcing content or citation work is common and acceptable; what matters is quality control and whether the people doing the work understand your market.
What Is Your Approach to Reviews?
Reviews are the highest-leverage asset in local SEO and the easiest place for an agency to cut ethical corners. Ask how they generate reviews: the right answer is systematic outreach to real customers — post-service texts or emails with a direct link — with no incentives, no selective solicitation that filters out unhappy customers (which violates platform policies), and no purchased or fake reviews, ever. Ask who responds to reviews and how quickly, and whether responses are templated or personalized. Also ask how they handle negative reviews; a mature company has a process for flagging, responding professionally, and escalating genuine service issues back to you. If a provider is vague here, or worse, hints at shortcuts, treat it as disqualifying — review manipulation can get your profile suspended and permanently damage customer trust. Ask how they identify and handle fake competitor reviews, which plague many local markets. A seasoned company has a process — documenting violations, reporting through proper channels, advising on responses — rather than shrugging at one of the most corrosive problems in local search.
What Happens If I Cancel?
Every engagement ends eventually, and the terms of the ending tell you everything about the company's ethics. Ask directly: what do I keep, what stops, and is there any penalty? You should keep everything built for you — content, citations, optimized profiles — because you paid for the work. Ongoing services like monthly posting and monitoring naturally stop, but nothing should be removed or held hostage. Ask about notice periods and whether there are setup fees that only make sense over a long commitment. A company confident in its retention through results will offer short terms and a clean exit; a company that needs twelve-month lock-ins and exit penalties is telling you its churn rate. Get the cancellation terms in the same document as the deliverables, before you sign anything. Confirm data portability: can you export your reports, call recordings, and ranking history if you leave? Companies confident in their value make leaving easy; those that trap your data are monetizing switching costs rather than results.
Ask these five questions on every sales call and the serious operators will stand out immediately. If you want an independent baseline first — the same diagnostic a good agency runs before quoting — our free audit maps your profile, reviews, and rankings against your competitors.