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How to Choose an SEO Agency in 2026: A B2B and Retail Checklist
What to ask an SEO agency, how to score proposals, what AEO and GEO work should cover, what SEO costs in 2026 and the contract terms to agree before signing.
The short answer
Choose an SEO agency that explains how it will grow qualified traffic and AI visibility for your business, shows past work it can explain, follows Google’s guidelines, works in accounts you own and agrees measurable 90-day deliverables. Walk away from anyone who guarantees rankings or sells AEO and GEO hacks.
Key points
- 51% of B2B software buyers now start research in an AI chatbot more often than in Google (G2, 2026).
- Google’s guide to hiring an SEO now asks you to check that AEO and GEO advice matches its official guidance.
- SEO agencies on Clutch charge $3,199 a month on average, and most charge $100 to $149 an hour (2026).
- Score every proposal on the same weighted criteria and compare total first-year cost, not the monthly fee.
Most SEO proposals promise the same four things: an audit, keyword research, content and links. The difference between agencies shows up months later, in whether the work changed how buyers find you and whether you can see that change in your own data. In 2026 it also means showing up when buyers ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Google’s AI Mode for a shortlist.
This checklist is for B2B companies and large retailers choosing an SEO agency. It covers the questions to ask, how to score proposals, what AEO and GEO work should include, what SEO costs and the contract terms to agree before you sign. Every figure links to its source at the end.
What should an SEO agency do for you in 2026?
A good SEO agency still does the fundamentals. It makes sure search engines can crawl and index the right pages, fixes the technical problems that hold them back, builds pages that answer what buyers search for and earns mentions on sites your buyers trust. What has changed is where buyers meet the result.
B2B buyers ask AI first. In G2’s 2026 survey of 1,076 B2B software buyers, 51% said they now start their research in an AI chatbot more often than in Google, up from 29% in 2025. 69% chose a different vendor than they had planned because it appeared in the chatbot’s recommendation.
Shortlists form before anyone calls you. 6sense’s 2025 study of nearly 4,000 buyers found that 94% of buying groups rank their shortlist before they speak to sellers, and 77% said their first vendor conversation was with the eventual winner.
AI shoppers are few but valuable. Adobe reported that traffic from generative AI tools to US retail sites rose 693% in the 2025 holiday season, and that those visitors converted 31% better than other traffic.
Being cited beats ranking under the answer. In Seer Interactive’s 2026 study of 53 brands, being cited in Google’s AI Overview on informational queries brought 120% more organic clicks per impression than not being cited.
So the agency you hire has two jobs: classic SEO, and what the industry now calls AEO (answer engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization), which means being named and cited in AI answers. Google treats them as one discipline. Its 2026 guide says “optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO.” That helps when you choose. You don’t need two agencies, but you do need one that can show how its work reaches AI answers.
Write a one-page brief before you speak to agencies
Agencies propose what you ask for. Send every agency the same brief, so you can compare their answers:
Business goal. Qualified leads, pipeline or revenue, not traffic. Say what a good lead or order is worth to you.
Markets and languages. The countries and languages you sell in, and where you want to grow.
Site facts. Platform, number of pages or products, planned redesigns or migrations, and who can ship changes.
History. Past agencies and audits, and what happened.
Constraints. Legal review, brand rules, regulated claims and data protection requirements.
Data you can share. Search Console, analytics, CRM and, for retailers, Merchant Center.
Google’s own advice is that “a great time to hire is when you’re considering a site redesign (the earlier, the better), or planning to launch a new site”. It costs less to build pages right than to fix them after launch.
12 questions to ask an SEO agency
The first six come from Google’s guide to hiring an SEO. The other six cover AI search, delivery and ownership.
Question | A good answer | A red flag |
|---|---|---|
Can you show examples of your previous work? | Specific sites, what they changed and what happened, with data they can explain | Traffic charts with no context or no client you can check |
Do you follow Google Search Essentials? | Yes, and they explain how their methods stay within it | Talk of “aggressive” or “grey hat” tactics |
What results do you expect, in what timeframe, and how will you measure them? | Leading indicators for the first 90 days and business results over 6 to 12 months, measured in your accounts | Ranking or traffic promises before they have seen your data |
What’s your experience in our industry and countries? | Relevant examples, or a clear plan to learn your buyers and markets | A claim to know every industry equally well |
What’s your experience with international sites? | Hreflang, regional pages and local search experience | “We’ll translate the pages” |
Will you share every change you make and the reasoning behind it? | A named lead, a regular call and a written change log | A dashboard instead of explanations |
What will you do for AI search (AEO and GEO), and does it match Google’s guidance? | Answer-first pages, evidence, genuine mentions, product data and measurement, in line with Google’s and Microsoft’s published guidance | A paid “AI-ready” package of special files or markup, or bought mentions |
Which AI platforms and prompts will you track? | A fixed set of prompts per market and product line, tested monthly and reported with citations and traffic | A single “AI visibility score” with no method behind it |
How will you earn mentions on sites our buyers trust? | Digital PR, industry associations, partner pages, reviews and expert commentary | Link packages or guest posts on unrelated sites |
Who will do the work, and for how many hours? | Named people, their roles and monthly hours | A senior team at the pitch that you never see again |
What will you need from our team? | Developer time, approvals and data, estimated up front | “Nothing, we handle everything” |
What do we keep if we leave? | All content, data, accounts and reports, with a handover plan | Accounts in the agency’s name, or content held back |
Google adds that a good SEO “should ask questions about what makes your business unique, who your competitors are, how search results can help, and how your customers find you.” If an agency asks you nothing, take note.
Red flags to walk away from
Most of these come straight from Google’s hiring guide:
Guaranteed rankings. In Google’s words, “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.”
A “special relationship” with Google or a “priority submit”. Neither exists.
Secrecy. Google says to “be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.”
Link schemes. Avoid anyone who talks about “link popularity schemes or submitting your site to thousands of search engines.”
Cold emails promising quick wins. Google warns against SEO firms “that email you out of the blue.”
AI hacks. Google’s 2026 guide says you don’t need “new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown” to appear in Google Search, and that “No third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems.” An agency that promises a guaranteed place in ChatGPT or AI Overviews is selling something nobody can deliver.
How to score SEO agency proposals
Score every proposal on the same criteria, out of 5, and weight each criterion by what matters to your business. Here is a starting point:
Criterion | Weight | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
Understanding of your business | 15% | Uses your buyers, products, markets and goals rather than a template |
Technical SEO | 15% | Crawling, indexing, speed, migrations, faceted navigation and international setup |
Content and expertise | 15% | Pages that answer buyer questions with facts, and a plan to use your experts |
AI search (AEO and GEO) | 10% | A clear method in line with Google’s and Microsoft’s guidance, and prompt tracking |
Mentions and digital PR | 10% | Earned coverage on relevant sites, no paid link packages |
Team and hours | 10% | Named people, seniority and hours per month |
Measurement and reporting | 10% | Reports from your Search Console, analytics and CRM, tied to pipeline or revenue |
Commercial terms | 15% | Total cost over 12 months, notice period, ownership and exit plan |
Compare the total first-year cost, not just the monthly fee. Then turn broad deliverables such as “content” or “link building” into acceptance tests: which pages, how many, by when, and how you will know they worked. Our guide to comparing agency proposals shows how to do this line by line.
What should B2B companies look for in an SEO agency?
B2B purchases are slow and involve many people. Forrester’s State of Business Buying 2026 found that a typical buying decision now includes 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers. A good B2B SEO agency will:
Map content to the buying committee. Engineers want specifications, finance wants cost and risk, procurement wants compliance. One page rarely serves all of them.
Build comparison and pricing content. Buyers ask AI tools “X vs Y” and “how much does X cost”. Answer honestly on your own site before someone else answers for you.
Treat review sites as part of search. In G2’s 2026 survey, 45% of software buyers said review-site citations were the most confidence-inspiring signal in an AI answer.
Connect search to pipeline. Ask how they will tie organic and AI-referred visits to qualified leads in your CRM.
Keep the story consistent. Gartner found that 69% of B2B buyers prefer to validate AI-generated insights with sales reps, so your website, your sales team and AI answers need to say the same thing.
What should large retailers look for in an SEO agency?
Retail SEO is a problem of scale: thousands of products, filters, variants and stock changes. An agency for a large retailer should show experience with:
Crawling and indexing at scale. Faceted navigation, pagination, duplicate variants and out-of-stock pages.
Product data. Google says Merchant Center feeds help products appear in its AI responses, and it has added optional “conversational attributes”, such as questions and answers and document links, to help AI systems understand products.
Shipping and returns markup. Google supports shipping and return policies in Organization structured data, so every product page can inherit them.
AI shopping. OpenAI now says purchases found through ChatGPT shopping are completed on merchants’ own sites, and that Shopify and Etsy catalogs are already integrated. Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol is starting to power checkout in AI Mode and Gemini, so far for select merchants in an early-access program in the US, Canada and Australia. Ask how the agency keeps up with changes like these.
Migrations. Ask for an example of a migration or replatforming they managed, and how they protected traffic and revenue.
Reporting by category. Revenue from organic search and AI referrals by product category, not only sitewide traffic.
Our guide to AEO and GEO best practices covers product data, product pages and B2B content in detail.
How much does an SEO agency cost?
Clutch’s 2026 pricing guide, based on data from 65,550 SEO companies and their client reviews, puts the average monthly cost of SEO projects at $3,199 and the average project with an SEO agency at about $37,159. Most agencies on Clutch charge $100 to $149 an hour, and monthly fees typically range from $2,000 to $20,000.
Three things move the price:
Size and complexity. A retailer with 50,000 products in several countries needs far more technical work than a 40-page B2B site.
Content and PR. Writing, expert interviews and outreach take time, so check how much of each the fee includes.
Who ships the changes. If the agency implements changes on your site rather than handing your developers a list, the fee rises, and so does the speed.
Be careful with very low retainers. Ask how many hours the fee buys and whose hours they are.
What should the first 90 days deliver?
Period | What you should see |
|---|---|
Days 1–30 | Access set up in your accounts, a technical audit with priorities, and a baseline of rankings, traffic, conversions and AI answers for a fixed set of prompts |
Days 31–60 | The most important technical fixes shipped, your most valuable pages rewritten or created, and product data and structured data errors fixed |
Days 61–90 | New pages and mentions published, a first report against the baseline and a plan for the next quarter |
Agree a review at day 90. If the agency can’t show what it shipped and what moved, you will know early.
Contract terms to agree before you sign
You own everything. Accounts stay in your name, with the agency added as a user. Content, data and reports belong to you.
Access levels. For an audit, Google advises that you “only grant read access to Search Console (at this stage, don’t grant them write access).”
Deliverables as acceptance tests. Named pages, fixes and reports, with dates.
A change log. Every change to your site, recorded with the reason.
A sensible notice period. Avoid long lock-ins without review points.
Data protection. If the agency handles personal data from your forms or CRM, sign a data processing agreement that meets GDPR, CCPA or the rules in your markets.
How should you measure an SEO agency’s work?
Ask for reports built on your own tools, not only the agency’s:
Google Search Console for clicks and impressions. Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted in the main Web report, and since August 31, 2026 every site can also see a separate report of its impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance, which shows how often Copilot and Bing’s AI answers cite your pages.
Google Analytics 4, which now has an AI Assistant channel for visits from ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and similar tools. Visits from AI Overviews and AI Mode stay in organic search.
Your CRM or ecommerce platform, for leads, pipeline and revenue.
A monthly prompt test, run the same way each time, to see which brands AI answers name. Our guide on how to check AI search visibility explains the method.
Comparing agencies? Send us your brief
If you’re choosing an SEO agency now, send us your brief and we’ll answer the 12 questions above for your business. Our SEO and AI search service covers technical SEO, content, mentions and AI visibility for B2B companies and retailers, from teams in New Delhi and Malta. Or book a 30-minute call.
Sources
Google Search Central, Do you need an SEO? Tips for hiring an SEO, updated June 2026
Google Search Central, Google’s guide to optimizing for generative AI features on Google Search, updated July 2026
G2, In the answer economy, don’t win the click, win the answer, April 2026
G2, 2026 AI search insight report, 2026
6sense, 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report, 2025
Adobe, AI-driven traffic surges across industries, with retail experiencing biggest gains, January 2026
Seer Interactive, AIO impact on Google CTR: 2026 update, April 2026
Forrester, The State of Business Buying, 2026, January 2026
Gartner, Gartner survey finds 69% of B2B buyers turn to sales reps to validate AI-generated insights, May 2026
Google Merchant Center Help, How to use conversational attributes
Google Search Central, Return policy structured data and shipping policy structured data
OpenAI, ChatGPT merchants
Google Merchant Center Help, Universal Commerce Protocol checkout
Clutch, SEO agency pricing guide 2026, updated September 2026
Google Search Console Help, Generative AI performance report
Google Search Central, AI features and your website
Bing Webmaster Blog, Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools public preview, February 2026
Google Analytics Help, Default channel group
Questions people ask
Send every agency the same one-page brief, ask the same 12 questions and score their proposals on weighted criteria such as business understanding, technical SEO, content, AI search, team and commercial terms. Prefer the agency that explains its method, works in accounts you own and agrees measurable 90-day deliverables.
Google suggests asking for examples of previous work, whether they follow Google Search Essentials, what results they expect and how they measure them, and their experience in your industry, your country and with international sites. In 2026, also ask how they handle AI search and whether that advice matches Google’s guidance.
Clutch’s 2026 data puts the average at $3,199 a month, with most agencies charging $100 to $149 an hour and monthly fees typically between $2,000 and $20,000. Large retailers and multi-country sites need more technical work, so expect the upper end of that range.
Usually not. Google says optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO. Choose an SEO agency that can show how its work reaches AI answers, tracks a fixed set of prompts and reports citations and AI referrals alongside rankings and revenue.
No. Google says no one can guarantee a top ranking, and that no third-party tool has access to its ranking or AI systems. Treat a guarantee as a reason to walk away.
Keep every account in your name and add the agency as a user. For an audit, Google recommends read access to Search Console only. Agree up front that content, data and reports stay with you if you part ways.
Expect leading indicators in the first 90 days, such as fixes shipped, pages indexed and impressions rising. Leads and revenue take longer and depend on your site, your competitors and how fast changes go live, so agree a review at day 90.
We plan and run admissions campaigns, websites, SEO and AI search, ads and CRM follow-up for schools, manufacturers and growing brands, from teams in New Delhi and Malta.
Published 13 October 2026.
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- Journal
- SEO & AI Search
How to Choose an SEO Agency in 2026: A B2B and Retail Checklist
What to ask an SEO agency, how to score proposals, what AEO and GEO work should cover, what SEO costs in 2026 and the contract terms to agree before signing.
The short answer
Choose an SEO agency that explains how it will grow qualified traffic and AI visibility for your business, shows past work it can explain, follows Google’s guidelines, works in accounts you own and agrees measurable 90-day deliverables. Walk away from anyone who guarantees rankings or sells AEO and GEO hacks.
Key points
- 51% of B2B software buyers now start research in an AI chatbot more often than in Google (G2, 2026).
- Google’s guide to hiring an SEO now asks you to check that AEO and GEO advice matches its official guidance.
- SEO agencies on Clutch charge $3,199 a month on average, and most charge $100 to $149 an hour (2026).
- Score every proposal on the same weighted criteria and compare total first-year cost, not the monthly fee.
Most SEO proposals promise the same four things: an audit, keyword research, content and links. The difference between agencies shows up months later, in whether the work changed how buyers find you and whether you can see that change in your own data. In 2026 it also means showing up when buyers ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Google’s AI Mode for a shortlist.
This checklist is for B2B companies and large retailers choosing an SEO agency. It covers the questions to ask, how to score proposals, what AEO and GEO work should include, what SEO costs and the contract terms to agree before you sign. Every figure links to its source at the end.
What should an SEO agency do for you in 2026?
A good SEO agency still does the fundamentals. It makes sure search engines can crawl and index the right pages, fixes the technical problems that hold them back, builds pages that answer what buyers search for and earns mentions on sites your buyers trust. What has changed is where buyers meet the result.
B2B buyers ask AI first. In G2’s 2026 survey of 1,076 B2B software buyers, 51% said they now start their research in an AI chatbot more often than in Google, up from 29% in 2025. 69% chose a different vendor than they had planned because it appeared in the chatbot’s recommendation.
Shortlists form before anyone calls you. 6sense’s 2025 study of nearly 4,000 buyers found that 94% of buying groups rank their shortlist before they speak to sellers, and 77% said their first vendor conversation was with the eventual winner.
AI shoppers are few but valuable. Adobe reported that traffic from generative AI tools to US retail sites rose 693% in the 2025 holiday season, and that those visitors converted 31% better than other traffic.
Being cited beats ranking under the answer. In Seer Interactive’s 2026 study of 53 brands, being cited in Google’s AI Overview on informational queries brought 120% more organic clicks per impression than not being cited.
So the agency you hire has two jobs: classic SEO, and what the industry now calls AEO (answer engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization), which means being named and cited in AI answers. Google treats them as one discipline. Its 2026 guide says “optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO.” That helps when you choose. You don’t need two agencies, but you do need one that can show how its work reaches AI answers.
Write a one-page brief before you speak to agencies
Agencies propose what you ask for. Send every agency the same brief, so you can compare their answers:
Business goal. Qualified leads, pipeline or revenue, not traffic. Say what a good lead or order is worth to you.
Markets and languages. The countries and languages you sell in, and where you want to grow.
Site facts. Platform, number of pages or products, planned redesigns or migrations, and who can ship changes.
History. Past agencies and audits, and what happened.
Constraints. Legal review, brand rules, regulated claims and data protection requirements.
Data you can share. Search Console, analytics, CRM and, for retailers, Merchant Center.
Google’s own advice is that “a great time to hire is when you’re considering a site redesign (the earlier, the better), or planning to launch a new site”. It costs less to build pages right than to fix them after launch.
12 questions to ask an SEO agency
The first six come from Google’s guide to hiring an SEO. The other six cover AI search, delivery and ownership.
Question | A good answer | A red flag |
|---|---|---|
Can you show examples of your previous work? | Specific sites, what they changed and what happened, with data they can explain | Traffic charts with no context or no client you can check |
Do you follow Google Search Essentials? | Yes, and they explain how their methods stay within it | Talk of “aggressive” or “grey hat” tactics |
What results do you expect, in what timeframe, and how will you measure them? | Leading indicators for the first 90 days and business results over 6 to 12 months, measured in your accounts | Ranking or traffic promises before they have seen your data |
What’s your experience in our industry and countries? | Relevant examples, or a clear plan to learn your buyers and markets | A claim to know every industry equally well |
What’s your experience with international sites? | Hreflang, regional pages and local search experience | “We’ll translate the pages” |
Will you share every change you make and the reasoning behind it? | A named lead, a regular call and a written change log | A dashboard instead of explanations |
What will you do for AI search (AEO and GEO), and does it match Google’s guidance? | Answer-first pages, evidence, genuine mentions, product data and measurement, in line with Google’s and Microsoft’s published guidance | A paid “AI-ready” package of special files or markup, or bought mentions |
Which AI platforms and prompts will you track? | A fixed set of prompts per market and product line, tested monthly and reported with citations and traffic | A single “AI visibility score” with no method behind it |
How will you earn mentions on sites our buyers trust? | Digital PR, industry associations, partner pages, reviews and expert commentary | Link packages or guest posts on unrelated sites |
Who will do the work, and for how many hours? | Named people, their roles and monthly hours | A senior team at the pitch that you never see again |
What will you need from our team? | Developer time, approvals and data, estimated up front | “Nothing, we handle everything” |
What do we keep if we leave? | All content, data, accounts and reports, with a handover plan | Accounts in the agency’s name, or content held back |
Google adds that a good SEO “should ask questions about what makes your business unique, who your competitors are, how search results can help, and how your customers find you.” If an agency asks you nothing, take note.
Red flags to walk away from
Most of these come straight from Google’s hiring guide:
Guaranteed rankings. In Google’s words, “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.”
A “special relationship” with Google or a “priority submit”. Neither exists.
Secrecy. Google says to “be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.”
Link schemes. Avoid anyone who talks about “link popularity schemes or submitting your site to thousands of search engines.”
Cold emails promising quick wins. Google warns against SEO firms “that email you out of the blue.”
AI hacks. Google’s 2026 guide says you don’t need “new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown” to appear in Google Search, and that “No third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems.” An agency that promises a guaranteed place in ChatGPT or AI Overviews is selling something nobody can deliver.
How to score SEO agency proposals
Score every proposal on the same criteria, out of 5, and weight each criterion by what matters to your business. Here is a starting point:
Criterion | Weight | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
Understanding of your business | 15% | Uses your buyers, products, markets and goals rather than a template |
Technical SEO | 15% | Crawling, indexing, speed, migrations, faceted navigation and international setup |
Content and expertise | 15% | Pages that answer buyer questions with facts, and a plan to use your experts |
AI search (AEO and GEO) | 10% | A clear method in line with Google’s and Microsoft’s guidance, and prompt tracking |
Mentions and digital PR | 10% | Earned coverage on relevant sites, no paid link packages |
Team and hours | 10% | Named people, seniority and hours per month |
Measurement and reporting | 10% | Reports from your Search Console, analytics and CRM, tied to pipeline or revenue |
Commercial terms | 15% | Total cost over 12 months, notice period, ownership and exit plan |
Compare the total first-year cost, not just the monthly fee. Then turn broad deliverables such as “content” or “link building” into acceptance tests: which pages, how many, by when, and how you will know they worked. Our guide to comparing agency proposals shows how to do this line by line.
What should B2B companies look for in an SEO agency?
B2B purchases are slow and involve many people. Forrester’s State of Business Buying 2026 found that a typical buying decision now includes 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers. A good B2B SEO agency will:
Map content to the buying committee. Engineers want specifications, finance wants cost and risk, procurement wants compliance. One page rarely serves all of them.
Build comparison and pricing content. Buyers ask AI tools “X vs Y” and “how much does X cost”. Answer honestly on your own site before someone else answers for you.
Treat review sites as part of search. In G2’s 2026 survey, 45% of software buyers said review-site citations were the most confidence-inspiring signal in an AI answer.
Connect search to pipeline. Ask how they will tie organic and AI-referred visits to qualified leads in your CRM.
Keep the story consistent. Gartner found that 69% of B2B buyers prefer to validate AI-generated insights with sales reps, so your website, your sales team and AI answers need to say the same thing.
What should large retailers look for in an SEO agency?
Retail SEO is a problem of scale: thousands of products, filters, variants and stock changes. An agency for a large retailer should show experience with:
Crawling and indexing at scale. Faceted navigation, pagination, duplicate variants and out-of-stock pages.
Product data. Google says Merchant Center feeds help products appear in its AI responses, and it has added optional “conversational attributes”, such as questions and answers and document links, to help AI systems understand products.
Shipping and returns markup. Google supports shipping and return policies in Organization structured data, so every product page can inherit them.
AI shopping. OpenAI now says purchases found through ChatGPT shopping are completed on merchants’ own sites, and that Shopify and Etsy catalogs are already integrated. Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol is starting to power checkout in AI Mode and Gemini, so far for select merchants in an early-access program in the US, Canada and Australia. Ask how the agency keeps up with changes like these.
Migrations. Ask for an example of a migration or replatforming they managed, and how they protected traffic and revenue.
Reporting by category. Revenue from organic search and AI referrals by product category, not only sitewide traffic.
Our guide to AEO and GEO best practices covers product data, product pages and B2B content in detail.
How much does an SEO agency cost?
Clutch’s 2026 pricing guide, based on data from 65,550 SEO companies and their client reviews, puts the average monthly cost of SEO projects at $3,199 and the average project with an SEO agency at about $37,159. Most agencies on Clutch charge $100 to $149 an hour, and monthly fees typically range from $2,000 to $20,000.
Three things move the price:
Size and complexity. A retailer with 50,000 products in several countries needs far more technical work than a 40-page B2B site.
Content and PR. Writing, expert interviews and outreach take time, so check how much of each the fee includes.
Who ships the changes. If the agency implements changes on your site rather than handing your developers a list, the fee rises, and so does the speed.
Be careful with very low retainers. Ask how many hours the fee buys and whose hours they are.
What should the first 90 days deliver?
Period | What you should see |
|---|---|
Days 1–30 | Access set up in your accounts, a technical audit with priorities, and a baseline of rankings, traffic, conversions and AI answers for a fixed set of prompts |
Days 31–60 | The most important technical fixes shipped, your most valuable pages rewritten or created, and product data and structured data errors fixed |
Days 61–90 | New pages and mentions published, a first report against the baseline and a plan for the next quarter |
Agree a review at day 90. If the agency can’t show what it shipped and what moved, you will know early.
Contract terms to agree before you sign
You own everything. Accounts stay in your name, with the agency added as a user. Content, data and reports belong to you.
Access levels. For an audit, Google advises that you “only grant read access to Search Console (at this stage, don’t grant them write access).”
Deliverables as acceptance tests. Named pages, fixes and reports, with dates.
A change log. Every change to your site, recorded with the reason.
A sensible notice period. Avoid long lock-ins without review points.
Data protection. If the agency handles personal data from your forms or CRM, sign a data processing agreement that meets GDPR, CCPA or the rules in your markets.
How should you measure an SEO agency’s work?
Ask for reports built on your own tools, not only the agency’s:
Google Search Console for clicks and impressions. Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted in the main Web report, and since August 31, 2026 every site can also see a separate report of its impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance, which shows how often Copilot and Bing’s AI answers cite your pages.
Google Analytics 4, which now has an AI Assistant channel for visits from ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and similar tools. Visits from AI Overviews and AI Mode stay in organic search.
Your CRM or ecommerce platform, for leads, pipeline and revenue.
A monthly prompt test, run the same way each time, to see which brands AI answers name. Our guide on how to check AI search visibility explains the method.
Comparing agencies? Send us your brief
If you’re choosing an SEO agency now, send us your brief and we’ll answer the 12 questions above for your business. Our SEO and AI search service covers technical SEO, content, mentions and AI visibility for B2B companies and retailers, from teams in New Delhi and Malta. Or book a 30-minute call.
Sources
Google Search Central, Do you need an SEO? Tips for hiring an SEO, updated June 2026
Google Search Central, Google’s guide to optimizing for generative AI features on Google Search, updated July 2026
G2, In the answer economy, don’t win the click, win the answer, April 2026
G2, 2026 AI search insight report, 2026
6sense, 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report, 2025
Adobe, AI-driven traffic surges across industries, with retail experiencing biggest gains, January 2026
Seer Interactive, AIO impact on Google CTR: 2026 update, April 2026
Forrester, The State of Business Buying, 2026, January 2026
Gartner, Gartner survey finds 69% of B2B buyers turn to sales reps to validate AI-generated insights, May 2026
Google Merchant Center Help, How to use conversational attributes
Google Search Central, Return policy structured data and shipping policy structured data
OpenAI, ChatGPT merchants
Google Merchant Center Help, Universal Commerce Protocol checkout
Clutch, SEO agency pricing guide 2026, updated September 2026
Google Search Console Help, Generative AI performance report
Google Search Central, AI features and your website
Bing Webmaster Blog, Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools public preview, February 2026
Google Analytics Help, Default channel group
Questions people ask
Send every agency the same one-page brief, ask the same 12 questions and score their proposals on weighted criteria such as business understanding, technical SEO, content, AI search, team and commercial terms. Prefer the agency that explains its method, works in accounts you own and agrees measurable 90-day deliverables.
Google suggests asking for examples of previous work, whether they follow Google Search Essentials, what results they expect and how they measure them, and their experience in your industry, your country and with international sites. In 2026, also ask how they handle AI search and whether that advice matches Google’s guidance.
Clutch’s 2026 data puts the average at $3,199 a month, with most agencies charging $100 to $149 an hour and monthly fees typically between $2,000 and $20,000. Large retailers and multi-country sites need more technical work, so expect the upper end of that range.
Usually not. Google says optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO. Choose an SEO agency that can show how its work reaches AI answers, tracks a fixed set of prompts and reports citations and AI referrals alongside rankings and revenue.
No. Google says no one can guarantee a top ranking, and that no third-party tool has access to its ranking or AI systems. Treat a guarantee as a reason to walk away.
Keep every account in your name and add the agency as a user. For an audit, Google recommends read access to Search Console only. Agree up front that content, data and reports stay with you if you part ways.
Expect leading indicators in the first 90 days, such as fixes shipped, pages indexed and impressions rising. Leads and revenue take longer and depend on your site, your competitors and how fast changes go live, so agree a review at day 90.
We plan and run admissions campaigns, websites, SEO and AI search, ads and CRM follow-up for schools, manufacturers and growing brands, from teams in New Delhi and Malta.
Published 13 October 2026.
More articles
AEO and GEO Best Practices for 2026: A Guide for B2B and Retail
What Google, Microsoft and OpenAI say about AEO and GEO, what studies show gets cited, and best practices for B2B pages, product feeds and measurement in 2026.
How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT and AI Search
How ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI answers choose which businesses to recommend, with a 10-step checklist, crawler settings and a 30-day plan.
How to Increase School Admissions: A 16-Week Plan for 2027–28
A week-by-week plan to fill seats for 2027–28: reply to enquiries faster, fix your admissions page, collect recent reviews, run better visits and follow up.
- Journal
- SEO & AI Search
How to Choose an SEO Agency in 2026: A B2B and Retail Checklist
What to ask an SEO agency, how to score proposals, what AEO and GEO work should cover, what SEO costs in 2026 and the contract terms to agree before signing.
The short answer
Choose an SEO agency that explains how it will grow qualified traffic and AI visibility for your business, shows past work it can explain, follows Google’s guidelines, works in accounts you own and agrees measurable 90-day deliverables. Walk away from anyone who guarantees rankings or sells AEO and GEO hacks.
Key points
- 51% of B2B software buyers now start research in an AI chatbot more often than in Google (G2, 2026).
- Google’s guide to hiring an SEO now asks you to check that AEO and GEO advice matches its official guidance.
- SEO agencies on Clutch charge $3,199 a month on average, and most charge $100 to $149 an hour (2026).
- Score every proposal on the same weighted criteria and compare total first-year cost, not the monthly fee.
Most SEO proposals promise the same four things: an audit, keyword research, content and links. The difference between agencies shows up months later, in whether the work changed how buyers find you and whether you can see that change in your own data. In 2026 it also means showing up when buyers ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Google’s AI Mode for a shortlist.
This checklist is for B2B companies and large retailers choosing an SEO agency. It covers the questions to ask, how to score proposals, what AEO and GEO work should include, what SEO costs and the contract terms to agree before you sign. Every figure links to its source at the end.
What should an SEO agency do for you in 2026?
A good SEO agency still does the fundamentals. It makes sure search engines can crawl and index the right pages, fixes the technical problems that hold them back, builds pages that answer what buyers search for and earns mentions on sites your buyers trust. What has changed is where buyers meet the result.
B2B buyers ask AI first. In G2’s 2026 survey of 1,076 B2B software buyers, 51% said they now start their research in an AI chatbot more often than in Google, up from 29% in 2025. 69% chose a different vendor than they had planned because it appeared in the chatbot’s recommendation.
Shortlists form before anyone calls you. 6sense’s 2025 study of nearly 4,000 buyers found that 94% of buying groups rank their shortlist before they speak to sellers, and 77% said their first vendor conversation was with the eventual winner.
AI shoppers are few but valuable. Adobe reported that traffic from generative AI tools to US retail sites rose 693% in the 2025 holiday season, and that those visitors converted 31% better than other traffic.
Being cited beats ranking under the answer. In Seer Interactive’s 2026 study of 53 brands, being cited in Google’s AI Overview on informational queries brought 120% more organic clicks per impression than not being cited.
So the agency you hire has two jobs: classic SEO, and what the industry now calls AEO (answer engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization), which means being named and cited in AI answers. Google treats them as one discipline. Its 2026 guide says “optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO.” That helps when you choose. You don’t need two agencies, but you do need one that can show how its work reaches AI answers.
Write a one-page brief before you speak to agencies
Agencies propose what you ask for. Send every agency the same brief, so you can compare their answers:
Business goal. Qualified leads, pipeline or revenue, not traffic. Say what a good lead or order is worth to you.
Markets and languages. The countries and languages you sell in, and where you want to grow.
Site facts. Platform, number of pages or products, planned redesigns or migrations, and who can ship changes.
History. Past agencies and audits, and what happened.
Constraints. Legal review, brand rules, regulated claims and data protection requirements.
Data you can share. Search Console, analytics, CRM and, for retailers, Merchant Center.
Google’s own advice is that “a great time to hire is when you’re considering a site redesign (the earlier, the better), or planning to launch a new site”. It costs less to build pages right than to fix them after launch.
12 questions to ask an SEO agency
The first six come from Google’s guide to hiring an SEO. The other six cover AI search, delivery and ownership.
Question | A good answer | A red flag |
|---|---|---|
Can you show examples of your previous work? | Specific sites, what they changed and what happened, with data they can explain | Traffic charts with no context or no client you can check |
Do you follow Google Search Essentials? | Yes, and they explain how their methods stay within it | Talk of “aggressive” or “grey hat” tactics |
What results do you expect, in what timeframe, and how will you measure them? | Leading indicators for the first 90 days and business results over 6 to 12 months, measured in your accounts | Ranking or traffic promises before they have seen your data |
What’s your experience in our industry and countries? | Relevant examples, or a clear plan to learn your buyers and markets | A claim to know every industry equally well |
What’s your experience with international sites? | Hreflang, regional pages and local search experience | “We’ll translate the pages” |
Will you share every change you make and the reasoning behind it? | A named lead, a regular call and a written change log | A dashboard instead of explanations |
What will you do for AI search (AEO and GEO), and does it match Google’s guidance? | Answer-first pages, evidence, genuine mentions, product data and measurement, in line with Google’s and Microsoft’s published guidance | A paid “AI-ready” package of special files or markup, or bought mentions |
Which AI platforms and prompts will you track? | A fixed set of prompts per market and product line, tested monthly and reported with citations and traffic | A single “AI visibility score” with no method behind it |
How will you earn mentions on sites our buyers trust? | Digital PR, industry associations, partner pages, reviews and expert commentary | Link packages or guest posts on unrelated sites |
Who will do the work, and for how many hours? | Named people, their roles and monthly hours | A senior team at the pitch that you never see again |
What will you need from our team? | Developer time, approvals and data, estimated up front | “Nothing, we handle everything” |
What do we keep if we leave? | All content, data, accounts and reports, with a handover plan | Accounts in the agency’s name, or content held back |
Google adds that a good SEO “should ask questions about what makes your business unique, who your competitors are, how search results can help, and how your customers find you.” If an agency asks you nothing, take note.
Red flags to walk away from
Most of these come straight from Google’s hiring guide:
Guaranteed rankings. In Google’s words, “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.”
A “special relationship” with Google or a “priority submit”. Neither exists.
Secrecy. Google says to “be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.”
Link schemes. Avoid anyone who talks about “link popularity schemes or submitting your site to thousands of search engines.”
Cold emails promising quick wins. Google warns against SEO firms “that email you out of the blue.”
AI hacks. Google’s 2026 guide says you don’t need “new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown” to appear in Google Search, and that “No third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems.” An agency that promises a guaranteed place in ChatGPT or AI Overviews is selling something nobody can deliver.
How to score SEO agency proposals
Score every proposal on the same criteria, out of 5, and weight each criterion by what matters to your business. Here is a starting point:
Criterion | Weight | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
Understanding of your business | 15% | Uses your buyers, products, markets and goals rather than a template |
Technical SEO | 15% | Crawling, indexing, speed, migrations, faceted navigation and international setup |
Content and expertise | 15% | Pages that answer buyer questions with facts, and a plan to use your experts |
AI search (AEO and GEO) | 10% | A clear method in line with Google’s and Microsoft’s guidance, and prompt tracking |
Mentions and digital PR | 10% | Earned coverage on relevant sites, no paid link packages |
Team and hours | 10% | Named people, seniority and hours per month |
Measurement and reporting | 10% | Reports from your Search Console, analytics and CRM, tied to pipeline or revenue |
Commercial terms | 15% | Total cost over 12 months, notice period, ownership and exit plan |
Compare the total first-year cost, not just the monthly fee. Then turn broad deliverables such as “content” or “link building” into acceptance tests: which pages, how many, by when, and how you will know they worked. Our guide to comparing agency proposals shows how to do this line by line.
What should B2B companies look for in an SEO agency?
B2B purchases are slow and involve many people. Forrester’s State of Business Buying 2026 found that a typical buying decision now includes 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers. A good B2B SEO agency will:
Map content to the buying committee. Engineers want specifications, finance wants cost and risk, procurement wants compliance. One page rarely serves all of them.
Build comparison and pricing content. Buyers ask AI tools “X vs Y” and “how much does X cost”. Answer honestly on your own site before someone else answers for you.
Treat review sites as part of search. In G2’s 2026 survey, 45% of software buyers said review-site citations were the most confidence-inspiring signal in an AI answer.
Connect search to pipeline. Ask how they will tie organic and AI-referred visits to qualified leads in your CRM.
Keep the story consistent. Gartner found that 69% of B2B buyers prefer to validate AI-generated insights with sales reps, so your website, your sales team and AI answers need to say the same thing.
What should large retailers look for in an SEO agency?
Retail SEO is a problem of scale: thousands of products, filters, variants and stock changes. An agency for a large retailer should show experience with:
Crawling and indexing at scale. Faceted navigation, pagination, duplicate variants and out-of-stock pages.
Product data. Google says Merchant Center feeds help products appear in its AI responses, and it has added optional “conversational attributes”, such as questions and answers and document links, to help AI systems understand products.
Shipping and returns markup. Google supports shipping and return policies in Organization structured data, so every product page can inherit them.
AI shopping. OpenAI now says purchases found through ChatGPT shopping are completed on merchants’ own sites, and that Shopify and Etsy catalogs are already integrated. Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol is starting to power checkout in AI Mode and Gemini, so far for select merchants in an early-access program in the US, Canada and Australia. Ask how the agency keeps up with changes like these.
Migrations. Ask for an example of a migration or replatforming they managed, and how they protected traffic and revenue.
Reporting by category. Revenue from organic search and AI referrals by product category, not only sitewide traffic.
Our guide to AEO and GEO best practices covers product data, product pages and B2B content in detail.
How much does an SEO agency cost?
Clutch’s 2026 pricing guide, based on data from 65,550 SEO companies and their client reviews, puts the average monthly cost of SEO projects at $3,199 and the average project with an SEO agency at about $37,159. Most agencies on Clutch charge $100 to $149 an hour, and monthly fees typically range from $2,000 to $20,000.
Three things move the price:
Size and complexity. A retailer with 50,000 products in several countries needs far more technical work than a 40-page B2B site.
Content and PR. Writing, expert interviews and outreach take time, so check how much of each the fee includes.
Who ships the changes. If the agency implements changes on your site rather than handing your developers a list, the fee rises, and so does the speed.
Be careful with very low retainers. Ask how many hours the fee buys and whose hours they are.
What should the first 90 days deliver?
Period | What you should see |
|---|---|
Days 1–30 | Access set up in your accounts, a technical audit with priorities, and a baseline of rankings, traffic, conversions and AI answers for a fixed set of prompts |
Days 31–60 | The most important technical fixes shipped, your most valuable pages rewritten or created, and product data and structured data errors fixed |
Days 61–90 | New pages and mentions published, a first report against the baseline and a plan for the next quarter |
Agree a review at day 90. If the agency can’t show what it shipped and what moved, you will know early.
Contract terms to agree before you sign
You own everything. Accounts stay in your name, with the agency added as a user. Content, data and reports belong to you.
Access levels. For an audit, Google advises that you “only grant read access to Search Console (at this stage, don’t grant them write access).”
Deliverables as acceptance tests. Named pages, fixes and reports, with dates.
A change log. Every change to your site, recorded with the reason.
A sensible notice period. Avoid long lock-ins without review points.
Data protection. If the agency handles personal data from your forms or CRM, sign a data processing agreement that meets GDPR, CCPA or the rules in your markets.
How should you measure an SEO agency’s work?
Ask for reports built on your own tools, not only the agency’s:
Google Search Console for clicks and impressions. Clicks from AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted in the main Web report, and since August 31, 2026 every site can also see a separate report of its impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance, which shows how often Copilot and Bing’s AI answers cite your pages.
Google Analytics 4, which now has an AI Assistant channel for visits from ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and similar tools. Visits from AI Overviews and AI Mode stay in organic search.
Your CRM or ecommerce platform, for leads, pipeline and revenue.
A monthly prompt test, run the same way each time, to see which brands AI answers name. Our guide on how to check AI search visibility explains the method.
Comparing agencies? Send us your brief
If you’re choosing an SEO agency now, send us your brief and we’ll answer the 12 questions above for your business. Our SEO and AI search service covers technical SEO, content, mentions and AI visibility for B2B companies and retailers, from teams in New Delhi and Malta. Or book a 30-minute call.
Sources
Google Search Central, Do you need an SEO? Tips for hiring an SEO, updated June 2026
Google Search Central, Google’s guide to optimizing for generative AI features on Google Search, updated July 2026
G2, In the answer economy, don’t win the click, win the answer, April 2026
G2, 2026 AI search insight report, 2026
6sense, 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report, 2025
Adobe, AI-driven traffic surges across industries, with retail experiencing biggest gains, January 2026
Seer Interactive, AIO impact on Google CTR: 2026 update, April 2026
Forrester, The State of Business Buying, 2026, January 2026
Gartner, Gartner survey finds 69% of B2B buyers turn to sales reps to validate AI-generated insights, May 2026
Google Merchant Center Help, How to use conversational attributes
Google Search Central, Return policy structured data and shipping policy structured data
OpenAI, ChatGPT merchants
Google Merchant Center Help, Universal Commerce Protocol checkout
Clutch, SEO agency pricing guide 2026, updated September 2026
Google Search Console Help, Generative AI performance report
Google Search Central, AI features and your website
Bing Webmaster Blog, Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools public preview, February 2026
Google Analytics Help, Default channel group
Questions people ask
Send every agency the same one-page brief, ask the same 12 questions and score their proposals on weighted criteria such as business understanding, technical SEO, content, AI search, team and commercial terms. Prefer the agency that explains its method, works in accounts you own and agrees measurable 90-day deliverables.
Google suggests asking for examples of previous work, whether they follow Google Search Essentials, what results they expect and how they measure them, and their experience in your industry, your country and with international sites. In 2026, also ask how they handle AI search and whether that advice matches Google’s guidance.
Clutch’s 2026 data puts the average at $3,199 a month, with most agencies charging $100 to $149 an hour and monthly fees typically between $2,000 and $20,000. Large retailers and multi-country sites need more technical work, so expect the upper end of that range.
Usually not. Google says optimizing for generative AI search is still SEO. Choose an SEO agency that can show how its work reaches AI answers, tracks a fixed set of prompts and reports citations and AI referrals alongside rankings and revenue.
No. Google says no one can guarantee a top ranking, and that no third-party tool has access to its ranking or AI systems. Treat a guarantee as a reason to walk away.
Keep every account in your name and add the agency as a user. For an audit, Google recommends read access to Search Console only. Agree up front that content, data and reports stay with you if you part ways.
Expect leading indicators in the first 90 days, such as fixes shipped, pages indexed and impressions rising. Leads and revenue take longer and depend on your site, your competitors and how fast changes go live, so agree a review at day 90.
We plan and run admissions campaigns, websites, SEO and AI search, ads and CRM follow-up for schools, manufacturers and growing brands, from teams in New Delhi and Malta.
Published 13 October 2026.
More articles
AEO and GEO Best Practices for 2026: A Guide for B2B and Retail
What Google, Microsoft and OpenAI say about AEO and GEO, what studies show gets cited, and best practices for B2B pages, product feeds and measurement in 2026.
How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT and AI Search
How ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI answers choose which businesses to recommend, with a 10-step checklist, crawler settings and a 30-day plan.
How to Increase School Admissions: A 16-Week Plan for 2027–28
A week-by-week plan to fill seats for 2027–28: reply to enquiries faster, fix your admissions page, collect recent reviews, run better visits and follow up.
Bring your first priority.
Bring one problem: a brand that's drifted, a website that doesn't sell or enquiries going nowhere. We'll spend 30 minutes finding the first fix.
Projects & shared-team retainers
Bring your first priority.
Bring one problem: a brand that's drifted, a website that doesn't sell or enquiries going nowhere. We'll spend 30 minutes finding the first fix.
Projects & shared-team retainers