This is the part of the purchase most buyers skip: the checklist you work through after you like someone and before you sign. Austin has plenty of capable search firms and the difference between a good year and a wasted one is rarely which one you picked, it is what was agreed before the first invoice. Scope written in countable units, accounts held in your own name, definitions settled while everyone is still friendly, and a ninety day test you set in advance. This page is that checklist, with the reasoning behind each item, so you can work through it on a call and know by the end whether the engagement is going to be legible.
Scope, written in units you can count
Most disappointing retainers were vague retainers. Convert every proposal into countable monthly output before you compare two of them: how many original pages published, who writes them, how many technical fixes shipped, whether review management is included and what it consists of, whether link acquisition is included and what it actually involves in plain language. A retainer described only in hours, or only in strategic language, cannot be compared with anything, and it also cannot be judged later, because there is no stated output to compare against what arrived. Ask for the setup fee separately from the monthly fee, since the first quarter contains the audit, the cleanup and the initial page builds and is genuinely more work than a steady month. Once both proposals are expressed in these terms, most of the apparent price difference turns out to be a difference in scope rather than in rate, which is a far easier decision to make.
Own the accounts before anyone touches them
Create the Search Console property, the analytics property and the business profile in your own name, then invite the agency as a user. This single decision determines whether a change of provider is a handover or a rebuild. Agencies that create these assets for you are not necessarily acting badly, but the practical effect is that your entire measurement history leaves with them, and rebuilding a year of data is impossible rather than merely expensive. The same applies to any advertising account, any tracking numbers used for call attribution, and any listings created during a citation cleanup. Ask for a written list of every account created during the engagement, with the email address it sits under, and agree in the contract that the list is handed over on request. Providers who work this way already keep that list, because it is how they operate.
Definitions, agreed while everyone is still friendly
Nearly every dispute at month nine is a definition dispute. What counts as a lead: a form submission, a qualified enquiry, a booked appointment. How a phone call is attributed and over what window, which matters because search led enquiries frequently arrive weeks after the first visit. Which queries are tracked and who chose them, since a provider selecting its own success terms can report progress on words nobody searches for. Which data source is authoritative, because a third party rank tracker and Search Console will disagree and someone has to decide in advance which one the contract means. Settle all four in writing before the first invoice. They cost nothing to agree in month zero and are close to unresolvable in month nine, when both sides have a version of events and an incentive.
The ninety day test, set before you start
Decide now what you will look at in three months, because a test invented afterwards is always argued about. Judge the first ninety days on leading signals rather than revenue: work shipped with links to it, pages published, queries you now appear for that you did not before, and impressions and clicks from Search Console rather than a rank tracker alone. Google's own guidance notes that some changes take effect within hours while others take months to show, so absence of enquiries at day ninety is not evidence of failure, but absence of shipped work is. Then set the twelve month test in the same conversation: enquiries attributed to search, using the attribution method you already agreed. Buyers who choose among search engine optimization companies in Austin on rapport and then invent a test at month six are usually the ones who describe search as unmeasurable, when what was actually unmeasured was the agreement.
Questions people ask about search engine optimization austin
What is the single most important thing to agree before signing?
Ownership of the accounts. Everything else can be renegotiated while the relationship runs, but account ownership is only tested on the day you leave, which is exactly when you have no leverage. Create the properties yourself, invite the agency, and keep a written list of everything created during the engagement.
How long a contract term is reasonable?
Search work needs quarters rather than weeks to show, so some commitment is fair. A common middle ground is a three month initial term covering the setup heavy period, then rolling monthly. What is not reasonable is a long fixed term with no stated monthly deliverables, because you have committed to a duration without committing anyone to an output.
Should I let the agency choose the target queries?
They should propose, you should approve. A provider selecting its own success terms can show progress on words with no commercial value. Ask for each proposed query with an estimate of volume and an explanation of who is searching it and why, then check that the list contains terms a buyer would actually type before a purchase.
What is a reasonable reporting cadence?
Monthly is standard and sufficient for most engagements, with a quarterly review that steps back from the numbers. What matters more than frequency is content: work shipped, queries gained and lost, and enquiries attributed. A weekly report of ranking positions is noise, because the underlying work moves on a slower clock than the report does.