<h3>9. Test Their Technical SEO Knowledge</h3>
<p>Ask how they handle technical SEO. If they can't fix CLS, or have someone that can, then they probably aren't good. If they don't even know what technical SEO is and aren't able to explain it to you, then they are a scam. <br /></p>
<h3>10. Learn Enough SEO To Hire SEO</h3>
<p>The more SEO knowledge you have, the more SEO-related questions you can ask - but some of those require you to know what the answers should be. If you don't have any SEO knowledge, you should hire an SEO consultant to evaluate their strategy. It is cheaper to pay an SEO consultant a few hundred than to pay the agency thousands.</p>
<h3>11. Have Them Audit Your Website</h3>
<p>They should be able to do a legitimate breakdown and audit of your site on the fly. The audit should be a this is where you are, this is what is good, this is what needs to be improved audit. If it is simply your h1 is bad, or you are missing alt tags, then they are just a salesman and not an SEO. Agencies train salespeople to point out very simple things like h1 and alt tags. In-depth audits take a long time and can be expensive, but any web professional can do a quick audit in a few minutes for free. SEO isn't that difficult, but if it were that simple, it wouldn't require professionals.</p>