Choosing a marketing agency for your trade business

Start here, because it is the hardest thing to fix later. Your Google listing and your website are business assets, and they should sit in accounts that you control.

Google's help page on owners and managers sets out the roles. It says "As the owner, you have full control over the profile." Managers have nearly the same access, with one exception: "they can't add or remove users or remove the profile." So an agency added as a manager can do the daily work without holding the keys. The page also notes "If you're the primary owner, you can't remove yourself until after you transfer primary ownership to someone else," which is the situation owners find themselves in when an agency created the profile under its own login.

Ask these before signing:

1. Will my own Google account be the primary owner of the Business Profile, with your team added as managers?
2. Is the domain registered in my name, and who holds the registrar login?
3. Who pays for and controls hosting, and can I get a full copy of the site if we part ways?
4. Do I get the analytics, Search Console, and call-tracking accounts under my ownership?

An agency that hesitates on any of these is telling you something. Our own website checklist for contractors covers the ownership items on the site side.

A report should connect work to phone calls and booked jobs. Rankings alone can rise while the phone stays quiet. First Call reports in calls, booked jobs and revenue, in plain English. The call tracking is what makes that possible, because each call carries a source.

Ask any agency to show a sample report from a real account with names removed, and check four things: whether calls are separated from form fills, whether it names the source of each, whether changes made that month are listed, and whether it says what did not work.

Google's guidance on hiring an SEO is a useful neutral checklist. It suggests asking "Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site" and "What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?" It also advises that you "only grant read access to Search Console (at this stage, don't grant them write access)" while you are still evaluating. On promises, it is blunt: Google says no one can promise a top ranking, and it tells owners to look elsewhere when a firm does.

That last point doubles as a screening test. Any agency promising a ranking position or a result date is promising something that depends on a search engine it does not control.

• Term and exit. How long is the minimum, and what notice ends it? Month-to-month after an initial period is easier to leave than an annual lock.
• Scope in writing. The deliverables should be listed. "Ongoing optimization" with no list gives you nothing to check against.
• What you keep on exit. Content written for you, the site files, and the account logins should hand over without a fee.
• Fees beyond the retainer. Ask about ad spend, tool charges, and any separate build or setup fees, and who pays the platforms directly.
• Subcontracting. Ask who actually does the work and whether it is outsourced.

For price expectations, our guide to what contractor SEO costs explains what moves a quote. If you want to see how a provider reads your current setup, the free 100-point audit gives you a scored view of your site and listing, and the why First Call page describes how we work.