, 6 min, Washington SEO Company team
Comparing SEO Proposals: How to Read an Agency Quote
Read an SEO proposal line by line: deliverables, link definitions, contract length, who owns the work and the report, plus red flags to walk away from.
To compare SEO proposals, put them side by side and check five lines: what gets delivered each month and how much of it, how the links are defined, how long you're committed, who owns what gets built, and what the report shows. A proposal that's vague on any of those is hard to hold to account, whatever the price. Two quotes with the same monthly number can describe very different amounts of work.
Here is how to read each line, and what to send back before you sign.
Start with one sheet
Before you read anyone's sales pages, copy the deliverables from each proposal into a single sheet with the same rows for every agency:
| Line | What to write down | What to ask if it's missing |
|---|---|---|
| Keywords | How many, and who picks them | Which phrases, and which page answers each? |
| On-page work | Pages audited or changed | Which pages, and how will I see the changes? |
| Links | Count by type, with definitions | Where does each type point, and will I get every URL? |
| Local work | Business Profile, citations, reviews | Included, or billed separately? |
| Content | Posts per month and length | Who writes them, and do I approve them first? |
| Term | Minimum months, notice to cancel | What happens if I stop after month three? |
| Report | What's listed, and how often | Does it list every link with its URL, target page and anchor text? |
The empty cells become your questions. Send them in writing and keep the answers with the proposal. An agency that fills the sheet in clearly is telling you how its reports will read.
Deliverables: count them
"Comprehensive SEO strategy" is not a deliverable. A deliverable is something you can count and check: 10 target keywords, an on-page audit, 10 guest posts, a Business Profile cleanup. Counts make two proposals comparable. They also make the first report easy to check. If the proposal said 10 guest posts and the report lists 6, you have a short, specific conversation to have.
Counts only mean something when each item is defined, though. "500 backlinks" with no word on where they come from or where they point could be almost anything.
Check that the keyword line fits where you actually work. A Tri-Cities contractor who serves Kennewick, Pasco and Richland needs research on all three towns, not one list labeled "Eastern Washington." A Vancouver business that sells across the Columbia River into Portland needs to know whether the agency will target the Oregon side too. It doesn't matter much whether the agency sits in Seattle, Spokane or somewhere else; what matters is whether its proposal names your towns.
Link counts and what they mean
Links are where proposals go vague, so ask for a definition of every link type in writing. These are the three you're most likely to see, with the definitions we use:
- Guest posts: articles placed through real outreach on other websites, each linking to your site.
- Web 2.0s: pages published on high-authority publishing platforms, pointing to your site.
- Amplification links: second-tier links that point at those guest posts and Web 2.0 pages, never at your site, to strengthen them and get them indexed.
Other agencies may use the same words for different things, which is exactly why you ask. A few questions worth sending:
- Which links point at my site, and which point at other pages?
- Is there a minimum for the sites you use, and how do you measure it? (We set DA 20+ for guest posts and DA 50+ for Web 2.0s. DA, or Domain Authority, is a third-party score; ask any agency which score it means.)
- Will every link be listed with its live URL?
- How are the sites found, and do they publish real content for real readers?
Contract length
Look for three things: the minimum term, the notice period, and what happens to work in progress if you leave. Some proposals ask for six or twelve months up front.
The usual argument for a long term is that SEO takes months. That part is true: results take months and depend on how much competition you face. But a long term doesn't make the work faster. It only removes your option to stop if the work isn't happening. Month to month, with a report you can check, keeps both sides honest.
Who owns the work
Ask directly, and get the answers into the contract:
- Your domain is registered in your name.
- Your Google Business Profile is owned by you, with the agency added as a manager.
- Pages and posts written for your site stay on your site if you leave.
- Any analytics or tracking accounts belong to you.
If an agency builds or hosts your site on its own platform, ask what you keep if you cancel: the pages, a file export, or nothing.
The report
A monthly report should let you check each deliverable against the proposal. For links that means each live URL, the page on your site it points to, and the anchor text. For on-page work, the pages changed and what changed. For local work, the listings touched. Rank tracking is useful context, but it isn't proof that anything was done. Ask what the report contains before you sign, not after the first one arrives.
The guide Match Your Monthly Search Report to Calls and Booked Jobs can help you agree on the reporting evidence before signing.
Red flags
Some lines should end the conversation:
- A ranking guarantee, or a promise of a top spot by a date. No one controls Google's results.
- "Proprietary" methods the agency won't describe. If you can't know what's done in your name, you can't judge the risk.
- A long lock-in with a large cancellation fee.
- Links described only as a big number, with no definitions and no URLs.
- A plan to add keywords to your Business Profile name. It breaks Google's guidelines and can get the profile suspended.
- Your domain or profile staying in the agency's name.
A worked comparison
Say a Kirkland accounting firm gets two quotes. Agency A offers "full-service SEO" with "high-quality backlinks," a 12-month minimum and a monthly ranking report. Agency B lists 10 keywords, 10 defined guest posts, Business Profile and citation cleanup, month to month, with a report that names every link URL. Even if Agency A's monthly number is lower, Agency B's quote is the one the firm can check. The fair move is to ask Agency A to restate its proposal in the same terms. How it answers is part of the comparison.
The guide From Service Pages to Reports: Checking Monthly Agency Work can help you ask for deliverables you can verify.
Where our published tiers fit
Treat our tiers as one reference point, not the answer. Every plan on our pricing page lists its keywords, guest posts, Web 2.0s, amplification links, domains and turnaround. Foothill, for example, is $125 a month ($140 one time) for 10 keywords, 10 guest posts, 10 Web 2.0s and 3,000 amplification links. Ridgeline is $235 a month ($260 one time) for 20 keywords, 20 guest posts, 20 Web 2.0s and 5,000 amplification links, plus in-depth research, premium indexing, an on-page audit and a content gap review. Every plan includes Business Profile optimization, citation building and cleanup, and review-generation work, runs month to month, and comes with a report listing every live link URL, target page and anchor text.
Line those numbers up against the other quotes on your sheet. If another agency's proposal is clearer and fits your business better, take it.
Before you sign
Send each agency your sheet with the empty cells highlighted and ask them to fill it in. If you'd like a second reader on a quote you already have, request a call and we'll go through it line by line with you, ours included.