Search engine optimisation: what an agency can change and what it cannot

Technical SEO deals with how search engines reach and read your site: page speed, mobile display, indexing, duplicate pages, redirects, structured data and sitemaps. On-page work makes each page's title, headings and content match a clear search intent. Content work adds pages or guides that answer questions your customers ask. Local SEO covers your Google Business Profile, map listings and location pages. Off-site work, often called digital PR, tries to earn mentions and links from other reputable sites.

An audit is a sensible first step when you do not know where the problems are. It should end in a prioritised list of fixes with an estimate of the effort, not a hundred-page export from a tool. Ask who will make the changes: some agencies implement them, others hand the list to your web developer.

Rankings depend on your competitors, on changes Google makes to its systems, on how search results are laid out, and increasingly on AI-generated answers that sometimes satisfy the searcher without a click. An agency can influence your site and your reputation; it cannot influence those. That is why sensible targets are about outcomes you can measure, such as enquiries, calls and sales from organic search, and why progress is judged over months rather than weeks.

Be sceptical of anyone who guarantees positions, claims a special relationship with Google or offers to submit your site with priority. Google's own guidance warns against exactly these claims. Equally, a fixed monthly fee with no agreed activities and no link to your business results is hard to judge.

Tell the agency what you sell, where you sell it and which work is most profitable, because ranking for a service you would rather not do is wasted effort. Name your main competitors in search, which are not always your competitors in the street. Mention past SEO work too, especially if a previous supplier built links, since that history can matter.

Give access rather than handing over ownership. The agency will need Google Search Console and your analytics, ideally starting with read-only access, and later access to your content management system. Keep the accounts in your company's name so the data stays with you if the agency leaves.

• the services and areas you want more work in
• your website platform and who can change it
• Search Console and analytics access
• previous SEO or link-building work
• how you measure an enquiry or sale today
• who in your business can supply facts, photos and case studies

For businesses serving an area, the Google Business Profile often brings more calls than the website itself. It should be owned by your business, with the agency added as a manager. Accurate categories, opening hours, service areas and real photos help; a keyword-stuffed business name breaks Google's guidelines and can get the profile suspended.

Reviews are now a legal matter as well as a marketing one. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 bans submitting or commissioning fake consumer reviews, and reviews that hide the fact they were incentivised. If an agency offers to supply reviews, walk away. Asking genuine customers for honest feedback is fine.

Pages for each town you serve are useful only if each one says something real about the work there. Near-identical pages with the town name swapped are treated as low-value doorway pages and can harm the whole site.

Source: legislation.gov.uk

Buying links that pass ranking credit breaks Google's spam policies, and the consequences land on your domain, not on the agency. Ask where links will come from and how they are obtained. Digital PR that earns coverage because you have something worth reporting is slower but does not leave you exposed.

Content written for you should become yours. Copyright stays with its author unless it is assigned to you in writing, so make sure the contract transfers the rights to articles and pages you pay for. Otherwise you may have to remove them if you part with the agency.

SEO is sold as a one-off project, such as an audit or a migration, or as a monthly retainer. For a retainer, check the minimum term and notice period, and ask for a monthly plan of activities. Reports should use your own Search Console and analytics data and show clicks, enquiries and the pages that brought them, with an honest note of what did not work.

Describe your goal, whether you have a website, the type of engagement and your start date. We confirm your phone number and email, and then SEO agencies in your area see the request without your name or contact details. One agency buys it, and it then leaves our marketplace. Before that agency receives your details, we email you its name, address and phone number.

The service is free to you. We cannot promise that any agency takes the request; if none does within 21 days, it is withdrawn. Offrano only checks that the buyer is a registered business, so ask the agency for examples of results it achieved for similar businesses, and look up how its own site performs.