None of these questions need a special vocabulary to ask. They are designed to surface practical facts about how an agency operates. Honest answers are usually short. Vague answers and long detours tend to indicate the operation is not built around the things the questions test for.
The 9 questions
1. Who actually does the work?
Not the salesperson. The person whose hands are on the account weekly. If the answer involves a team, ask who the named contact is. If the work is offshore, you should know that going in.
2. How long is the contract?
Month to month is the cleanest answer. Twelve and 24 month lock ins are common in agency work but they protect the agency rather than the client. The longer the contract, the less the agency has to earn each month.
3. What happens if I cancel in month three?
The clean answer is that the assets built belong to you and there is nothing further to pay. Penalties, exit fees, or losing access to your own Google Business Profile are red flags worth asking about specifically.
4. Can you show three live local pack rankings you currently produce?
Live, today, in Google. Not screenshots from previous years. If the agency has done it for clients, three live examples are not difficult to produce.
5. Who owns the Google Business Profile after we part ways?
You should. Always. If the agency stores your profile under their agency Google account, you have a problem in the making. Ownership should be yours from day one.
6. Will you put deliverables in writing for month one?
An agency with a real system can describe exactly what will be done in the first 30 days. The absence of that list usually means the system is being figured out as the work proceeds.
7. How do you measure success?
Rankings on their own are a means, not an end. Calls, form submissions, bookings, and revenue attributable back to the work are the proper measures. If success ends at rank position, the metrics will not survive contact with reality.
8. What happens when Google updates the algorithm and rankings move?
The right answer is that the agency tells you the same week, explains why, and adjusts inside two weeks at no extra cost. The wrong answer involves silence.
9. Do I keep the assets if I leave?
Suburb pages should live on your domain, in your CMS, with you owning the content. Some agencies build assets on subdomains they control, then take them down at cancellation. Insist on assets being built in your own environment.
An agency that answers all nine in plain English is worth a serious conversation. An agency that dodges three or more is a no.
This is also a fair test for SEO Monkey. Ask all nine on the strategy call. We will answer each in plain English and tell you exactly how we set things up so you keep ownership.
Edited by a human.