SEO Partner Evaluation Questions

1. Foundational Thinking: Do they understand modern search architecture?

How do you define SEO in 2025?
Red flag: Talks only about keywords, backlinks, and rankings.
Good sign: Mentions search intent, user experience, entity-based SEO, structured data, and AI Overviews.
What’s changed most about SEO in the last three years?
Red flag: Says “not much, just more competition.”
Good sign: References Google’s AI Overviews (SGE), semantic search, and the integration of NLP and LLMs.
How do you balance technical SEO, on-page optimization, and content strategy?
Red flag: Only talks about site speed and tags.
Good sign: Describes the interplay between information architecture, schema, and relevance signals.

Can you explain how Google determines crawl budget and indexing frequency?
Red flag: Vague response like “depends on your content quality.”
Good sign: Talks about site authority, server performance, internal linking, sitemap structure, and freshness signals.
What’s your process for diagnosing indexing issues?
Red flag: “We just resubmit to Search Console.”
Good sign: References canonicalization, robots.txt rules, crawl logs, and rendering issues.
Do you believe external “indexing tools” can force Google to crawl faster?
Red flag: Says yes, or claims to “guarantee daily indexing.”
Good sign: Clarifies that you can encourage crawling (through pings, sitemaps, or internal signals) but not control it.

How do you approach keyword research in an era of AI-generated search results?
Red flag: Still relies purely on keyword volumes from tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush.
Good sign: Talks about mapping user intent clusters, natural language prompts, and semantic topic modeling.
How do you optimize content for entities, not just keywords?
Red flag: Doesn’t know what “entities” are.
Good sign: Mentions Knowledge Graphs, schema markup, and linking to canonical identifiers (e.g., Wikidata).
How do you ensure your content aligns with E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)?
Red flag: Says “we add author bios.”
Good sign: References content provenance, transparency, citations, and structured author data.
How do you structure FAQs or long-form content to be AI Overview–friendly?
Red flag: Treats FAQs as SEO fluff.
Good sign: Talks about schema markup, Q&A structure, and aligning content with AI-generated question formats.

What’s your link-building philosophy in 2025?
Red flag: Mentions private blog networks or link exchanges.
Good sign: Focuses on digital PR, authoritative mentions, unlinked brand references, and entity trust.
How do you evaluate whether a backlink actually improves topical authority?
Red flag: “It’s all about Domain Authority (DA).”
Good sign: References semantic relevance, link placement context, and E-E-A-T reinforcement.
Do you consider non-traditional authority signals like Wikipedia or Reddit citations?
Red flag: Says “Reddit doesn’t help SEO.”
Good sign: Recognizes that LLMs and AI Overviews draw heavily from community and reference sites.

Which KPIs matter most to you beyond rankings and traffic?
Red flag: Only lists page views and keywords.
Good sign: Includes conversion quality, engagement metrics, visibility across AI Overviews, and brand authority.
How do you measure visibility when zero-click results dominate the SERP?
Red flag: Doesn’t know what zero-click means.
Good sign: Discusses impression share, AI Overview inclusion, and off-site brand visibility.
Do you integrate data from Search Console, analytics, and AI monitoring tools?
Red flag: Tracks everything manually.
Good sign: Mentions API integration, dashboards, and cross-channel measurement (e.g., SEO + AI visibility).

What’s your view on how LLMs will affect organic traffic?
Red flag: “It won’t really change anything.”
Good sign: Understands how AI Overviews reduce click-throughs and how structured content can maintain visibility.
How do you prepare content for inclusion in AI-generated answers?
Red flag: Doesn’t know what AI Overviews or ChatGPT citations are.
Good sign: Talks about structured data, citations, trusted domains, and maintaining factual consistency.
Have you run experiments with ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini to test brand visibility?
Red flag: Says “That’s not relevant to SEO.”
Good sign: Has tested prompt visibility and tracked how AI models cite websites.
If you had to redesign SEO from scratch for AI-driven discovery, what would you keep and what would you drop?
Red flag: “I wouldn’t change much.”
Good sign: Drops keyword obsession, doubles down on entity linking, structured data, and content quality.

How do you see AI Visibility and SEO fitting together?
Red flag: Views them as competing priorities.
Good sign: Sees them as complementary layers — SEO for discoverability, AI Visibility for interpretability.
Would you be open to experimenting with AI Visibility audits (tracking model citations and schema coverage)?
Red flag: Defensive or dismissive.
Good sign: Curious, collaborative, and willing to integrate.
When was the last time you updated your SEO playbook to include structured data for AI models?
Red flag: Doesn’t have one.
Good sign: Actively iterating based on AI search developments.