To choose an ecommerce SEO agency, judge each one on three things: exactly what it will change on your store, how it will show you the result, and whether you keep ownership of every account and piece of work. An agency that is clear on all three, and doesn't promise rankings, is worth comparing on price; one that is vague on any of them isn't, however cheap it is.
- They say which pages and templates they will change, not just "SEO services"
- They make the changes on your store, or say clearly that they won't
- They share a written log of every change, every month
- Reports use Search Console clicks and impressions and your own revenue data
- No guaranteed ranking, no "special relationship" with Google
- No bought links, stated in writing
- Search Console, Analytics, the store and the domain stay in your name
- Access through user accounts and Shopify collaborator access, never your password
- A clear term, notice period and handover when you leave
- Named people who will do the work
Use the checklist on every agency you talk to, including us. The rest of this guide explains each line and ends with a scorecard for comparing proposals side by side.
Questions to ask before you sign
Google publishes its own list of questions to ask an SEO, and it is a good place to start. The table adds what a store owner should listen for in the answer.
| Question | A good answer | A worry |
|---|---|---|
| Can you show me past work on stores like mine? | Named examples or anonymized reports with real figures, including what didn't work | Only logos, or "results are confidential" with nothing to show |
| Do you follow Google's Search Essentials? | Yes, and they can explain what that rules out | A shrug, or talk of tricks |
| What results do you expect, and by when? | A range tied to specific pages, with months rather than weeks | A guaranteed position or date |
| How do you measure success? | Search Console clicks and impressions, and revenue from organic search, on the pages they work on | Rankings for a keyword list they chose |
| Will you share every change you make? | A written log of each change, with the reason | "Our methods are proprietary" |
| Who makes the changes on the store? | They do, in a copy of the theme where possible, or they write it up for your developer | Unclear, which usually means you do |
| Who will actually work on my account? | Named people and their roles | A sales contact and nobody else |
The last two questions matter more for a store than for most sites. A lot of ecommerce SEO is template work: category pages, product pages, filters and structured data. A report telling you what to fix is worth little if nobody has the time or the access to fix it, so find out before you sign whether you are buying the work or a list of work.
Red flags
Most of these come straight from Google's own guidance on hiring an SEO. Any one of them is a reason to walk away.
- A guaranteed ranking. Google says that if someone guarantees first place, find someone else.
- A "special relationship" with Google, or a "priority submit" to it. Neither exists.
- Cold outreach out of the blue. Google warns about firms that email you unprompted.
- Secrecy. If they won't explain what they will do, don't let them do it.
- Write access during an audit. Google says to grant only read access to Search Console at that stage.
- Link schemes, or a requirement to link to them. Google says you should never have to link to an SEO.
- Bought links presented as link building.
That last one carries real risk. Google's spam policies list buying or selling links for ranking purposes as link spam, and say that sites that break the policies may rank lower or not appear at all. Ask directly how links are earned and whether any are paid for. If links are bought, the store is the one that takes the penalty, not the agency.
Who owns the accounts
Everything an agency touches should be in your name, with the agency added as a user. If the relationship ends, you remove them and keep the history. If the accounts are in the agency's name, you may lose years of data on the way out.
| Account | How to give access | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Add the agency as a user from Settings > Users and permissions | Keep yourself as a verified owner. Per Search Console's help, a property needs at least one verified owner, or every user loses access after a grace period |
| Google Analytics | Add the agency's Google account as a user | Keep an Administrator role yourself; per Analytics help, adding and deleting users needs it |
| Shopify admin | Approve a collaborator request from their Shopify Partner account | Give only the permissions they need. Per Shopify's help, collaborators can be given every permission, so choose carefully |
| Domain and DNS | Never transfer it; add them to the DNS provider only if needed | The domain should be registered to your business |
| Content and code | Written into the contract | Copy, templates and code made for your store are yours to keep |
Shopify's collaborator accounts suit this well. A Partner sends a request with your store's four-digit collaborator request code, collaborators don't count towards your store's user limit, and you can remove one at any time. Shopify notes that removal is permanent, so the agency would have to request access again. Never give anyone your own login or password.
Contract terms to read
This is general information, not legal advice. Have an attorney read any agreement that commits you to a long term or a large sum. Before you sign, look for these points in plain words:
- The term and the notice period. How long the first term is, and how much notice you must give after it. Compare these across proposals, since they vary.
- The deliverables. What gets done each month, written as work rather than as hours or a vague "SEO services".
- Who makes the changes. Whether implementation on the store is included, or quoted separately.
- Ownership. Content, code, reports and accounts stay with you, during and after the contract.
- How links are earned. A written statement that no links are bought for ranking.
- What happens when you leave. A handover of access, change logs and any content in progress, within a set number of days.
- Price changes. How much notice they must give before raising the fee.
A contract with no deliverables and a long lock-in is the combination to avoid. If the agency is confident in its work, a short first term followed by month-to-month is a reasonable thing to ask for.
What the monthly report should show
The report is how you'll judge the agency, so agree its contents before you sign. A useful one fits on a page or two and covers:
- Clicks and impressions from Search Console for the pages worked on, compared with the month and the year before.
- Orders and revenue from organic search in your analytics, so the work is tied to sales rather than traffic alone.
- Indexing: how many of your product and category pages are indexed, and why others aren't.
- The change log: every change made that month, on which page, and why.
- What's next and what they need from you.
Be wary of reports built around a long keyword ranking list the agency chose, or around metrics from their own tools that you can't check in Search Console. Rankings move daily and differ by location and device; clicks and orders are what pay the fee.
What retainers cost
Prices vary with catalog size and with whether the agency makes the changes or only advises. As one reference point, the most common monthly retainer in Ahrefs' survey of 439 SEO providers was $501 to $1,000, though that survey covers SEO in general and was last updated in August 2024. Our guide to how much ecommerce SEO costs covers retainers, hourly and project pricing, software and the do-it-yourself route, and shows how to work out how many extra orders a fee has to bring in.
How to compare proposals: a scorecard
Proposals are hard to compare because each agency writes them differently. Score each one on the same criteria. Weight what matters most to your store, score each proposal from 1 to 5 on each criterion, multiply, and add up.
| Criterion | Example weight | What a 5 looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Scope of work | 3 | Named pages and templates, with what changes on each |
| Who makes the changes | 3 | They do, tested in a copy of the theme |
| Reporting | 2 | Search Console and revenue data, plus a change log, every month |
| Account and content ownership | 2 | Everything in your name, written into the contract |
| Ecommerce experience | 2 | Stores on your platform, with reports you can see |
| Contract terms | 1 | Short first term, clear notice, clean handover |
| Price for the scope | 1 | A fixed monthly fee for the listed work |
Price carries a low weight on purpose. A cheaper proposal that leaves the work to you can cost more in your own time, or in work that never gets done.
| Proposal A: scope 4×3, changes 5×3, reporting 4×2, ownership 5×2, experience 3×2, terms 4×1, price 2×1 | 57 |
| Proposal B: scope 2×3, changes 1×3, reporting 3×2, ownership 3×2, experience 4×2, terms 2×1, price 5×1 | 36 |
| Highest possible: 5 × 14 weight points | 70 |
| Proposal A as a share of the maximum | 81% |
| Proposal B as a share of the maximum | 51% |
If two proposals score close together, ask each agency to walk you through what they would do in the first month. The answer usually settles it.
Where Gigabit fits
We are one of the agencies you could compare, and you should hold us to this checklist like any other. Our ecommerce SEO work starts with category and product templates, we make the changes on the store ourselves, and the monthly report shows Search Console clicks and impressions on the pages that sell and every change we made. We don't publish a price, because it depends on the store, and we don't promise a ranking.
If you want something to score, our free store audit gives you a written view of what we would fix and what it would cost. Use it as one proposal among several. If you'd rather start on your own, the Shopify SEO checklist covers the basics.
