How to choose an SEO consultant, questions to ask and warning signs

Choosing a supplier is like choosing a friend or a partner. You need to sit down together and be on the same wavelength. For me, that matters most. And then what?
Choose on four things, not on price. Who will actually work on your website, what they will do in the first 90 days and why in that order, how they will measure results in orders and revenue rather than rankings, and who keeps the access and data once the work ends. If someone promises you the top spot within a month and has not even seen your data yet, walk away straight away.

Below you will find seven questions for the first meeting, with guidance on telling a good answer from a bad one. Then five warning signs that should end the conversation, and how to test a consultant before you sign a long contract. With my own clients, I see that most things go wrong right at the start, during the selection.

On the one hand, I am writing here about how careful a client should be when choosing, yet I am not one for long courtships myself. I usually take a look at the client and offer a three-month retainer (as a trial). Of course, the client can end it at any time without giving a reason. No time wasted on proposals.

When an independent consultant makes sense and when an agency does

If your SEO budget does not exceed 30,000 CZK (about 1,200 EUR) a month, I always recommend looking for a freelancer. The reason is simple. A freelance consultant’s hourly rate tends to be 30 to 60% lower than an agency’s, because the agency adds overheads and a project manager. At an agency, the person actually working on your project is also often a junior you never even spoke to at the first meeting.

With an independent consultant, you pay directly for their experience and the time spent on your online shop or other project. The difference between a senior and a junior is not the hourly rate but which 20% of the work they choose to do in the first place. A senior SEO consultant focuses on the tasks that will have the greatest impact on your business. I personally implement changes directly, even for larger clients. I arrange access, make backups and then present the results.

For large corporations with a budget of 50,000 CZK (about 2,100 EUR) a month or more, which want SEO bundled with other services and need cover when someone is away, an SEO agency may be the more suitable option. I write about the pros and cons of both approaches in more detail in my article on how much SEO costs.

When you hire an individual, you deal throughout with the person who does the work themselves. They cannot blame poor communication between departments or someone handing over the brief badly. Either they deliver the work or they do not. This directness saves you time and energy when approving proposed changes.

Seven questions to help you choose at the first meeting

At the first meeting, ask about specific methods and past projects. Do not settle for general advice about how important it is to have the right copy and links. A good partner can explain even technical details in a way that you, as a business owner, can understand. Before you start the meetings, it also helps to know the difference between a consultant and a specialist.

The first three questions are recommended directly by Google in its help page on hiring an SEO. I add the other four from my own experience. The table will help you work out whether you are sitting across from an expert or just a salesperson with nice promises.

Question	Good answer	Bad answer
Can you show me examples of your previous work and successful projects?	Shows specific websites and explains what growth in revenue or traffic was achieved and how long it took.	Says they are bound by confidentiality and cannot show anything, not even in anonymised form.
Do you follow Google Search Essentials?	Yes, I follow the official guidelines and do not use techniques that could harm the website.	Does not know the document or claims that Google’s rules do not matter.
What results do you expect, over what time frame, and how do you measure success?	Suggests tracking orders and organic traffic and says which steps will show results sooner and which later.	Promises the top position for a specific keyword within two weeks of signing the contract.
Who will actually work on my project?	I will personally prepare the strategy and carry out the key tasks.	We have a team of experienced people who will look after you under my supervision.
What will you need from us in the first 30 days?	Access to Google Analytics 4, Search Console and hosting, and a contact for your developer.	Just send us the money and we will take care of everything ourselves without you.
What is your approach to buying backlinks?	We build links strategically where it makes sense for your target audience.	We have packages of hundreds of links for a few thousand CZK, which we deploy all at once.
What will you do first after the contract is signed?	I will carry out an in-depth audit and set a list of priorities based on their impact.	We will start writing blog articles so that we quickly have some content.

In the end, you are responsible for the actions of the company you hire.

Google Search Central

Remember that the supplier advises, but the website is yours. According to the same help page, unethical practices that break Google’s spam policies can lead to a drop in search results or even removal of the website from the index. So do not settle for vague answers. Ask to see that the person understands the principles on which search works.

How to check references so they are not just logos on a website

Logos of well-known brands on a consultant’s website look great, but on their own they say nothing about the quality of their work. They may have done only a small consultation for that company five years ago. If you are serious about working together, do not be afraid to ask for the contact details of a specific person at the reference client.

A short phone call with another company’s marketing director will tell you more than a nicely designed case study. Ask about meeting deadlines, the quality of communication, how the consultant handled a step that did not work out and, above all, whether the investment in SEO actually paid off. At Erika Fashion, for example, we managed to double organic traffic in one year. A good consultant will show you a figure like that directly in the data. I achieved similar results at Chlorit, Manboxeu and others. In 2025, all my ongoing clients grew by at least 27% year on year.
Ask to see Google Search Console charts over a longer period. A snapshot of one successful day or week is useless, because you need to see the long-term trend, the seasonality of your sector and, above all, whether the results held up after search algorithm updates, when website rankings get reshuffled. The right expert will show you the figures before the work started and after it had been running for some time.

Also look at how large the consultant’s clients are. I specialise in online shops with turnover of 70 to 250 million CZK (about 2.9 million to 10 million EUR) and in B2B. If you are looking for someone for a small local website, a senior consultant for big players may be unnecessarily expensive. Look for someone with experience in your type of business and a similar market size.

Five warning signs that mean you should walk away straight away

Some things should stop the conversation immediately. None of them is a matter of opinion, and for two of them Google says so explicitly. One of these signs is enough; you do not need any more evidence.

No one can guarantee a number one ranking on Google.

Google Search Central

1. A guaranteed top position. Anyone who promises it is either knowingly lying or has no idea how the field works. Google says that in such a case you should find someone else.
2. An unsolicited email out of the blue. Google directly warns against SEO companies and consultants who approach you this way. A mass-mailed offer knows nothing about your website.
3. Secrecy about methods. An expert must be able to explain clearly and plainly every step they plan to take on your website. If they cannot or will not, you have a problem.
4. An annual contract with no option to terminate. A good consultant keeps you through results, not through a contract. I personally work with no notice period, ending from one day to the next. If the client is happy, they have no reason to leave, and if they are not, I see no reason to hold on to them.
5. A report showing only keyword rankings. Rankings are a supporting metric. What matters to you are orders from organic search and traffic to the pages that bring them in. A table of keyword positions without business context means something is wrong.

What an hour costs and why it is not the main criterion

Price is always an important topic, but it must not be the only one. In the Czech Republic, an SEO consultant’s hourly rate is most often between 1,500 and 1,800 CZK (about 74 EUR) excluding VAT. To be frank, you will find people for 700 CZK (about 29 EUR), but also experts for 3,000 CZK (about 120 EUR). What matters is what you get for that price.

For comparison, here is data from abroad. A survey by Ahrefs of 439 SEO service providers found that the average hourly rate is 111 US dollars. The most common range, for 24% of respondents, is 75 to 100 dollars. A full 90% of professionals charge up to 150 dollars per hour of work.

Market	Hourly rate	Source
Czech Republic, most common rate	1,500 to 1,800 CZK (about 62 to 74 EUR) excl. VAT	my overview of SEO prices in the Czech Republic
Czech Republic, full range	700 to 3,000 CZK (about 29 to 120 EUR) excl. VAT	my overview of SEO prices in the Czech Republic
Ahrefs, most common rate	75 to 100 USD (24% of respondents)	Ahrefs survey, 439 providers
Ahrefs, average	111 USD	Ahrefs survey, 439 providers

Most consultants, 78.2% according to Ahrefs data, charge a monthly retainer, most often 501 to 1,000 dollars a month. For a medium-sized Czech online shop, expect a retainer of 20,000 to 40,000 CZK (about 820 to 1,600 EUR) for the work to have a real impact. For a few thousand a month, you are more likely to get a rankings report and a few hours of work than actual progress.

A low hourly rate can end up costing you more. Take a hypothetical example. If a junior needs ten hours for a task and a senior finishes it in two, the senior costs you less even at double the rate. You also get a result that actually makes sense. Always ask how many hours a month the consultant will give you and exactly what those hours will cover.

How to test a consultant before a long contract

Before you commit to a long-term engagement, try the person out on a smaller task. The ideal format is a one-off SEO consulting session or an initial audit. For example, I offer a four-hour block for 5,000 CZK (about 210 EUR), in which the client gets a review of their website and, after the meeting, written conclusions with tips. This small sample of work quickly shows you whether you are a good fit, both personally and professionally.

A good output from this kind of test should include a clear list of priorities. The consultant should be able to say what they would do in the first 30 to 90 days and why in that particular order. If all you get is a list of errors with no explanation of their impact on the business, keep looking. You need a partner who understands your goals.

Another option is to commission keyword research for one specific category of your online shop. You will see how the specialist thinks about data. Do they just mechanically copy keywords out of tools, or do they try to understand how your customers actually search for solutions to their problems?

During this test phase, also watch how quickly they respond and how willing they are to explain things. SEO depends on constant communication between you, your developers and the consultant. If communication is already difficult at the start, it will only get worse with more complex tasks.

Who AI recommends and why that is not enough

More and more people ask AI directly to recommend an SEO consultant. At SEO Loger 2026, Tomáš Novák from Marketing Miner showed what AI says in response to such questions. His team sent 5,000 prompts to five tools, from ChatGPT and Gemini to Perplexity, AI Overviews and AI Mode. On average, an answer names between 2.22 consultants in ChatGPT and 3.39 in AI Overviews.

Only two Czech consultants made the TOP 10 in all five tools. The others appear depending on exactly how the user phrases the question. In the background, AI asks itself follow-up queries, and these follow five recurring patterns.

1. Location, such as a consultant in Prague or Brno.
2. References and reviews.
3. Best and top.
4. Pricing and hourly rate.
5. Year, so the answer is up to date.

The pages AI cites most often are “SEO consultant” pages, SEO price lists, lists of the best-known specialists and selection guides like this one. My website patrikpilous.cz appeared in the Marketing Miner data among the ten most cited domains, and I, Patrik Pilous, came sixth.

However, an answer from AI is only a first filter. AI chooses from the pages that exist about consultants, and it has no way of knowing whether a given person is right for you. If you want to know how SEO and GEO work and why some names appear more often, I have written a separate article about it. Always check the AI shortlist against the questions and signals above. I personally know several SEO consultants and marketers who do not present themselves publicly at all and are very good.

What to expect from the first month of working together

Be prepared for the consultant to ask for access to Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4, your hosting and your website admin. The client must always own these accounts, not the supplier. If you ever decide to make a change, you need full control over your data and content.

The first few weeks usually bring an analysis of the current state and a technical audit. The output should be a clear list of priorities, with tasks ranked by benefit against the effort needed to implement them. I prefer to talk directly to your developers and help them implement the changes straight away, rather than just sending recommendations.

The first month is not about a miraculous rise in orders. It is about solid foundations, without which all further work would just be a waste of money. We often need to fix past mistakes first before we can move on to growth.

If the consultant is taking over from an agency, which is the most common situation in my practice, the first month is also about reviewing earlier priorities. Sometimes I find that work was being done on things that brought the client nothing. When we cut them, budget and development capacity are freed up for what works.

So what should you do right now? Write down the seven questions from the table, approach two or three consultants and ask each of them for one reference you can call. Try the first one who passes on a paid consultation or audit. If you just want to get your bearings first, the initial call with me is free. I will tell you whether SEO makes sense in your situation and in what budget range.

Euro amounts are approximate, converted at the Czech National Bank rate of 24.34 CZK per EUR on 29 October 2026.