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Should You Hire an SEO? Questions to Ask and Red Flags
Editorial responsibility: SearchCub
Most solo bloggers can start SEO without hiring anyone; if you do hire, interview with Google's own questions, walk away at the red flags below and check their results in your own Search Console. Google's page on hiring an SEO (last updated 5 June 2026) is the source for most of this checklist (Google: Do you need an SEO?).
What is SEO explains what the work involves and whether you can do it yourself. This post starts where that one stops: you are thinking about paying someone, and you want to know when it is worth it and how to choose well.
What an SEO can actually do for you
Google is plain that hiring cuts both ways: it may make your site more visible and free up your time, but it can also put your site and your reputation at risk. Its list of useful services includes a review of your content or site structure, technical advice on things like hosting, redirects, error pages and JavaScript, content development, keyword research, SEO training, market or country expertise, and optimizing for generative AI.
Use the list to decide what you would hire for. A blog rarely needs all of it, and a one-off review of structure and technical setup is a different job from ongoing content work.
Set up these three things before you hire
Do these first, whatever you decide. They cost nothing, and they are what you will judge any SEO against later.
Verify your site in Google Search Console. Its Performance report shows how your site does in Google Search, measured by Google. Without it, you will be relying on whatever numbers the SEO chooses to show you.
Save a baseline. Note your clicks, impressions and top pages for the last three months, with the dates. Measuring an SEO page refresh shows how to compare equal periods before and after a change.
Read Google's SEO starter guide once. Google recommends it because it covers much of the work an SEO would do for you, and knowing those techniques helps you spot an SEO who proposes a method Google doesn't recommend.
If Search Console shows pages missing from Google, start with why a page is not indexed; it is often a fix you can make yourself.
When hiring makes sense for a blog
Google names two good moments: when you are thinking about a site redesign (hiring early is better), or when you are preparing a new site for launch. For a blogger, that usually means one of these:
You are moving to a new platform or domain, and every old address needs a working redirect.
Search Console reports a technical problem you cannot diagnose, such as pages that rely on JavaScript or keep returning errors.
Your time is worth more than the fee, and you have a specific job to hand over.
You want to learn. SEO training is on Google's list, and a one-off review plus a teaching session can leave you able to do the routine work yourself.
If none of these applies and you have not yet done the basics, spend the money later.
Questions to ask before you hire
Google suggests interviewing any SEO you consider. The first six questions below come from Google's page, put in our own words; the last two are our additions, and the right-hand column is what a useful answer looks like for a blog.
Ask | A useful answer includes |
|---|---|
What past work can you show me, and which successes can you point to? | Sites or pages you can look up, what the problem was, what they changed, and where their numbers came from |
Does your work stay within Google Search Essentials (formerly the Webmaster Guidelines)? | A yes they can explain, including which spam policies limit what they will do |
What outcomes do you predict, on what timeline, and how will you measure success? | A realistic estimate measured in Search Console, never a promised position |
Have you worked with sites in my field before? | Work for sites like yours: blogs, your niche, your country |
Will you report every change to my site and explain your recommendations, and the thinking behind them, in detail? | A written list of every change, with the reason for each |
Do you cite official Google documentation for your recommendations? | Links to Google's own pages, not just their word |
What would you need access to, and why? | Read-only Search Console access for an audit; anything more only for named tasks |
Where does each number in your reports come from? | The data source, country and date range for every figure |
Two more checks from Google. A good SEO asks about you: Google says they should ask you what sets your business apart, who your rivals are and how search results could help. And talk to references: ask past clients whether the SEO's service was helpful, whether working together went smoothly and whether the results were good.
If they sell AI-search work, Google's page covers that as well. Ask whether their advice for "AEO" or "GEO" is aligned with Google's guidance on generative AI features. SEO vs AI search optimization explains what that guidance says.
Red flags: walk away if you see these
A guaranteed ranking. "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." Google also warns against SEOs who claim privileged ties to Google or advertise a fast track for submitting your site to it.
An offer to buy links. Google's spam policies list buying links for ranking purposes as link spam, including "Exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links" and "Exchanging goods or services for links" (Google: spam policies, link spam, updated 28 August 2026). What is a backlink covers what Google does want from links.
A link back to them. Google says it directly: "You should never have to link to an SEO." A footer credit repeats on every page of your site; sitewide backlinks explains how links like that are read.
Submitting to thousands of search engines. Google groups this with schemes to inflate your link popularity and says both are usually a waste of effort.
An unsolicited email. Google receives these too, and says to treat them with as much doubt as you would diet pills that claim to burn fat while you sleep.
Secrecy. If they will not explain a change, stop. Google is blunt about who carries the risk: in the end, you answer for whatever any company you hire does.
A tool "approved" by Google. Google says it neither assesses nor vouches for third-party SEO tools, and that the ranking data it holds internally is not available to them.
Owner access for an audit. Google's advice is to give an SEO nothing beyond read-only Search Console access at the audit stage.
The cost of getting this wrong is real: Google warns that if an SEO produces content for you that deceives or misleads, your whole site could be dropped from Google's index.
How to check what you're told
Ask for access, not screenshots. A screenshot shows what someone chose to show; with access to your Search Console, you both look at the same numbers.
Add them as a restricted user. In Search Console, as the property owner, open Settings > Users and permissions, click Add user, enter their Google Account email, choose the permission level and save. Search Console Help says a restricted user "Has simple view rights on most data"; a full user can also "take some actions". Use restricted for an audit, and choose Remove access when the work ends.
Make every report name its source. Each number should say where it came from, which country and which dates. Search Console is Google's measurement of your own site. Scores and traffic figures from third-party tools, SearchCub's included, are estimates; a score such as domain authority is one tool's view, not Google's.
Check a success story yourself. For a public site they name, Domain overview shows SearchCub's estimated ranking keywords and visits by month on its Search estimates tab. These are estimates rather than that site's analytics, so a mismatch with the story is a question to ask, not a verdict.
Compare equal periods after each change. Use the baseline you saved, the same number of days before and after, and the same filters, before deciding whether the work helped.
Check advice against Google's pages. Google's own instruction is to weigh every claim or recommendation you hear with a critical eye, then decide for yourself with the facts in hand.
If you believe an SEO deceived you, Google points to the Federal Trade Commission for complaints in the United States and to econsumer.gov when the company is outside the United States.
Your next step
Before you reply to any SEO, verify your site in Search Console and save three months of clicks and impressions. Then take the questions table into the first call. If you decide to keep doing the work yourself, what is SEO maps out the four kinds of work, and keyword research for bloggers is the place to start choosing your next post.