Last reviewed by: Lee Thomas, Managing Director, Crescat Digital — 18 June 2026
Picture the pitch. A confident, well-prepared agency is across the table, the slides look sharp, and every answer lands. They have done this hundreds of times. Your firm does it once every few years. That imbalance is the real problem with choosing a marketing agency: a weak agency and a strong one sound almost identical in the room, because the meeting is built to make them sound the same.
The usual questions do not help much. “Do you have experience?” and “How do you report?” are questions any agency can answer smoothly, because they have rehearsed them. What you need are questions where a good agency and a weak one genuinely answer differently, and a clear sense of what a strong answer to each one sounds like.
This article gives you fifteen of those questions, grouped into five themes, each with the good answer and the red-flag answer spelled out. You do not need to become a marketing expert to use them. You need to know which answer you are hearing. It matters more for a law firm than for most businesses, because the agency is producing content your firm is accountable for, and because a wasted year is a year a competitor spends pulling ahead. This is also, for what it is worth, the list we would want you to put to us. If you have already decided whether to use an agency at all, this is how you choose which one.
Key takeaways
- You do not need marketing expertise to choose a good agency. You need the right questions and a clear sense of what a strong answer to each one sounds like.
- The most useful questions are the ones a weak agency cannot answer well. A question any agency handles smoothly tells you nothing.
- For a law firm, agency choice carries regulatory weight. Under SRA rules your firm stays accountable for marketing produced in its name, including by a third party.
- The biggest agency failure is reporting rankings and traffic while the firm sees no new enquiries. Insist on measurement tied to enquiries and signed work.
- Watch the contract, not just the monthly fee. Ranking guarantees, per-lead pricing, long lock-ins, and losing control of your own accounts are the traps that cost firms most.
Table of contents
- Why choosing the wrong agency costs more than the fee
- How to use these 15 questions
- Questions about specialism, track record, and people
- Questions about strategy, scope, and the first 90 days
- Questions about measurement, pricing, and contracts
- Questions about compliance, risk, and communication
- How to check what they’re telling you
- What to get in writing before you sign
- So how do you pick?
- Frequently asked questions
1. Why choosing the wrong agency costs more than the fee
The cost of the wrong agency is never just the wasted retainer. It is four costs at once, and only one of them shows up on the invoice.
The first is the direct cost: the fees you pay for little or no return. The second is opportunity cost, which is usually larger. SEO compounds over months, so a year spent with an agency that does little is a year a better-resourced competitor spends climbing past you. Realistic timelines vary by practice area, but the principle holds: lost months are expensive and hard to win back. The third is internal cost, the credibility of whoever signed the contract and must now explain the spend to partners. The fourth, specific to law firms, is regulatory and reputational: content that goes out under your firm’s name but was written by someone who did not understand the rules your firm answers to.
That last cost is the one generic agency-selection advice ignores. A law firm’s marketing is regulated in a way a plumber’s is not. Your firm is accountable for the accuracy of what it publishes, and for a sceptical partnership, a marketing misstep is not a minor embarrassment but a professional one.
Law firms are also spending real money on this. UK law and accountancy firms invest an average of 3.1% of turnover (excluding salaries) in marketing and business development, according to the Law Firm Marketing Club’s Professional Services Marketing Survey of 130 firms, yet only 18% say marketing drives their firm’s strategy. A lot of budget, in other words, is handed over without close strategic oversight, which is exactly the condition in which a poor agency choice goes unnoticed until the money is gone.
The real cost of a bad agency
- Direct: the fees, for little return
- Opportunity: months lost while a competitor pulls ahead
- Internal: the credibility of whoever chose them
- Regulatory: content published in your firm’s name that breaks the rules you answer to
2. How to use these 15 questions
The questions below are chosen on one principle: a good question is one a weak agency cannot fake. Anything any agency can answer well has been left out, because it does no work for you.
When you ask them, watch how the agency answers as much as what they say. Three signals are worth more than any single answer:
- Specific beats fluent. “That depends, and here is what it depends on” is usually stronger than a polished answer for everything.
- Honesty about fit. Willingness to say “we might not be the right fit for that” is a good sign, not a weak one.
- Plain English, not jargon. Jargon used to impress rather than explain is a warning. If you cannot follow the answer, that is often the point.
The fifteen questions fall into five groups: specialism and people, strategy and scope, measurement and reporting, pricing and contracts, and compliance and communication. You can take them into a pitch and score each agency as you go. The downloadable scorecard below lays them out for exactly that.
Take the questions into the room
Download the 15-Question Agency Evaluation Scorecard. It lays out every question with its good answer and red-flag answer summarised, and space to score each agency you are considering, so you can fill it in live during a pitch. It is free and takes nothing but the time to read it.
3. Questions about specialism, track record, and people
This group tests whether the agency knows law firms, can prove results, and will put real people on your account rather than winning the pitch with a senior face you never see again.
Do they know law firms?
1. Have you worked with UK law firms or comparable regulated professional-services firms, and can you show me the results? A good answer names relevant experience, offers case studies or references, and shows awareness of Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) constraints without being prompted. A red flag is “SEO works the same in every sector”, no relevant examples, or a quick pivot to unrelated industries. Sector knowledge is not everything, and a strong generalist can serve a firm well, but knowing the legal market buys a faster start, an instinct for compliance, and benchmarks that apply to you.
Who does the work day to day?
2. Who exactly will work on my account day to day, and what is their experience? A good answer names the team, explains how senior people stay involved, and is honest about who does what. A red flag is the impressive person in the pitch turning out to be sales, with the real work handed to junior staff the agency will not name. Ask who you will email on a Tuesday afternoon, and listen for a real name.
3. How would you approach a firm like ours, in our practice areas? A good answer starts with questions about your firm, shows they have looked at your website, and resists giving a full plan before they understand you. A red flag is a generic pitch that could have been delivered to any business, with no sign they have looked at you at all. The best agencies diagnose before they prescribe.
4. Questions about strategy, scope, and the first 90 days
This group tests whether the agency has a real method or just a promise to “improve your rankings”. The difference shows up fastest in how they describe the early work.
4. What would the first 90 days look like, with specific deliverables? A good answer has shape: a defined scope, named deliverables, clear targets at 30, 60 and 90 days, and a review point where you decide together whether to continue. That five-part structure, scope, deliverables, success criteria, reporting, and a go/no-go review, is what a serious 90-day engagement contains. A red flag is vagueness: “we will get your rankings up”, with no idea what you would receive in month one.
5. How do you decide what to work on first? A good answer is led by an audit and prioritised by impact and effort, specific to your site. A red flag is the same checklist for every client, or activity that looks busy without a reason behind the order.
6. How do you handle AI search visibility, not just traditional Google rankings? This one matters more every month. A good answer treats AI visibility, getting your firm surfaced in tools like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot, as a built-in part of the work, and can explain it in plain English. The strongest answer comes with proof: real examples of client content appearing in AI answers. A red flag is an agency that does not mention it, treats it as an expensive add-on, or waves it away as hype. Ranking well in the old search results no longer guarantees you appear in the AI answer above them, and AI search now shapes which firms get recommended.
7. What do you need from us, and how much of our time will it take? A good answer is honest that your input matters: partner sign-off on content, a contact for questions, access to your accounts. A red flag is “nothing, just leave it all to us”. For a law firm that answer is doubly worrying, because content that goes out with no review from the firm is a compliance problem waiting to happen.
What a serious 90-day scope contains
- A defined scope of work, written down
- Named deliverables you can point to
- Success criteria at 30, 60 and 90 days
- An agreed reporting cadence
- A 90-day review with an honest go/no-go recommendation
If a proposal is missing two or more of these, you are being asked to buy activity, not outcomes.
5. Questions about measurement, pricing, and contracts
These two groups are where firms get hurt most, so they share a section. Measurement separates agencies that drive business from agencies that report activity. Pricing and contract structure separate a fair deal from a trap.
Measurement and reporting
8. What exactly will you measure, by when, and how will you report it? Hold any answer to four tests: what exactly are you measuring, by when, measured how, and reviewed in what setting. A good answer talks about enquiries and new matters, sets a cadence, and puts you in the room for the review. A red flag is a wall of vanity metrics, rankings and “impressions” with no line to business, or a dashboard you are left to interpret alone.
9. How do you connect SEO to actual enquiries and signed matters, not just traffic? A good answer covers conversion tracking, call tracking, and enquiry attribution, and talks in terms of business outcomes. A red flag is an agency that shows traffic rising and calls that a result. Traffic that does not turn into enquiries is a cost, not a win.
10. What happens if results are slower than expected? A good answer sets realistic expectations by practice area and competitiveness, and points to an honest review rather than a guarantee. A red flag is either a promise of fast results or, worse, an agency that pre-blames you for a slow start. Honest timelines are a sign of an agency that has done the work.
Pricing and contracts
11. How is your pricing structured, and what exactly am I committing to? A good answer is a transparent, scope-based retainer or a defined pilot, with clear inclusions and a reasonable notice period. Two pricing structures deserve real caution. Ranking-based performance pricing sounds appealing but rewards the wrong work, because no one can honestly guarantee rankings, so the incentive is to chase easy positions rather than enquiries. Per-lead pricing is structurally awkward in law, where the value of an enquiry varies enormously and quality is hard to control. Long lock-ins with no break clause protect the agency, not you.
12. Do you guarantee rankings or results? The right answer is no, with an explanation of why a guarantee is itself a warning sign. Google states plainly that no one can guarantee a number-one ranking. Its own guidance on hiring an SEO goes further: if a provider guarantees you first place in search results, Google advises, “find someone else”. Any agency that promises a ranking is either misleading you or planning to use tactics that put your site at risk. A good agency commits to process, effort and an honest review instead. A red flag is a confident “yes, we will get you to page one”.
13. If we part ways, who owns the website changes, content, accounts, and data? A good answer is simple: you own everything, and you keep access to your own analytics, Search Console and Google Business Profile throughout. A red flag is an agency that controls those accounts on your behalf, so that leaving means losing your data, your content, or your history.
| Pricing and contracts | Green flag | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| How pricing is structured | Transparent, scope-based retainer or defined pilot; clear inclusions; reasonable notice period | Ranking-based performance pricing; per-lead deals; long lock-ins with no break |
| Guarantees | “No, and here is why a guarantee is a warning sign” | “Yes, we guarantee page one” or a specific position |
| Who owns accounts and data | You keep ownership and access throughout; clean handover on exit | Agency controls your analytics, Search Console or Google Business Profile |
6. Questions about compliance, risk, and communication
This group is the one most specific to law firms, and the one a generalist agency is most likely to fumble.
14. How do you make sure the content you produce meets our regulatory obligations? A good answer shows the agency understands that your publicity must be accurate and not misleading, builds in review by a named, competent person before anything is published, and steers well clear of outcome claims. A red flag is an agency that produces generic content at volume with no compliance awareness, or one happy to make the kind of guarantee-style claims that could breach advertising rules. This is not a soft point. The SRA’s Code of Conduct requires that any publicity about your practice is accurate and not misleading, and that duty applies to material produced on your behalf, not only to what the firm writes itself. The SRA reinforced the point in a December 2024 warning notice, reminding firms that they stay accountable for the marketing conduct of third parties they instruct. An agency is exactly such a third party. If they do not grasp that your firm carries the accountability for their work, they are a liability, whatever their rankings. Many firms also carry content risks already sitting on their sites that a good agency should help reduce, not add to.
15. How will we communicate, and who do I call when something is wrong? A good answer is a named contact, an agreed rhythm of updates, and a straight reply when something slips. A red flag is a ticketing system you shout into, an account team that changes every few months, or no way to reach anyone who can make a decision. The relationship is a year or more long; the day it goes wrong is the day this answer matters.
The compliance question generalist agencies fumble
Your firm stays accountable for marketing published in its name, even when an agency wrote it. Under the SRA Code of Conduct, publicity about your practice must be accurate and not misleading, and that duty reaches the material third parties produce for you. An agency that does not know this is a risk to your firm, not just your rankings.
7. How to check what they’re telling you
The fifteen questions only work if you test the answers. A confident agency can say all the right things in a pitch; your job is to find out whether they are true before you sign, not after. Three checks do most of the work.
Ask for proof in a client’s own accounts, not on a slide. A case-study slide is the agency’s own edit of the story. Ask to see a real result where it lives: a client’s Google Search Console or analytics, showing impressions, clicks, or enquiries over time, even as a redacted screenshot. An agency that is proud of its work can usually show you something real. One that only has polished graphics is asking you to take the result on trust.
Don’t rely only on the references they hand you. Any agency will introduce you to a client who loves them, which tells you little. The stronger signal comes from references you find yourself: ask your network whether anyone has worked with them, or look for firms in your sector who have. In a market where firms know each other, that is often easier than it sounds. You can still ask the agency whether they would be comfortable connecting you with a client whose engagement has ended, but judge the answer fairly: client work is often covered by confidentiality, so a polite “no” can be entirely proper and is not a red flag in itself. What you are really listening for is whether they talk openly about their track record, including the clients who left, rather than steering you only to a curated win. Whoever you speak to, ask specific things rather than “are they any good?”: did the work match what was pitched, did results arrive roughly when promised, were there quiet months, how did they handle it when something went wrong, and would you hire them again.
Buy a small piece before the big commitment. A short paid audit or a defined first phase, such as a paid pilot, tells you more than any number of meetings. You see how they think, how they communicate, whether they hit a deadline, and whether the work is any good, all before you are tied into a year. A strong agency is usually happy to start small and prove itself. Reluctance to do anything other than a long contract is itself an answer.
Three ways to test a claim
- See the result in the client’s own data, not on a slide
- Find your own references, not just the agency’s picks
- Buy a small, paid piece of work before you commit to a year
8. What to get in writing before you sign
A good conversation is not a contract. Most agency relationships that go wrong do so over something that was assumed rather than agreed, so before you sign, get the things that protect you written down. For a law firm this is familiar ground; apply the same care you would to any other supplier agreement.
Scope and deliverables. What you receive each month, named, rather than “ongoing SEO”. Vague scope is how a retainer quietly turns into very little work with no way to call it out.
Notice and exit. How much notice each side gives, and what happens on the way out. A month’s notice is typical; a long lock-in with no break clause is not, and an auto-renewing term you must remember to cancel deserves a second look.
Ownership of accounts, content, and data. Spell out that your firm owns the website changes, the content produced, and the analytics, Search Console, and Google Business Profile accounts, and that you keep access throughout. This is the single clause that decides whether leaving is clean or painful.
Offboarding. What the agency hands over if you part ways: access, content, documentation, and a reasonable handover period. Agree it while everyone is still friendly, not in the middle of a breakup.
Confidentiality. This matters more for a law firm than for most clients. An agency working on your site and content may come close to information connected to client matters, and your firm’s confidentiality obligations do not stop at your own door. A clear confidentiality clause, and clarity on who at the agency has access to what, are reasonable to insist on, and an agency that understands why you are asking is the kind you want.
Committed work versus best-efforts outcomes. Be clear which things are promised and which are not. A credible agency commits to the work and the process, a set of named deliverables, a reporting rhythm, a review, and is honest that outcomes like rankings and traffic are best-efforts, not guarantees. If a contract promises specific results, re-read question 12 above.
Get these in writing
- Scope and named deliverables, not “ongoing SEO”
- Notice period and exit terms (watch for auto-renewal)
- Ownership of your content, accounts, and data, with access kept throughout
- Offboarding and handover if you leave
- Confidentiality, and who at the agency can see what
- Which deliverables are committed, and which outcomes are only best-efforts
9. So how do you pick?
Come back to the core idea: you do not need to be a marketing expert to choose well. You need these fifteen questions and a sense of what a good answer sounds like.
The fifteen questions, at a glance:
| # | Question | Green flag | Red flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Worked with UK law firms? | Relevant experience, references, SRA awareness | “SEO’s the same in every sector”; no examples |
| 2 | Who works on my account? | Named team, real senior involvement | Pitch star is sales; unnamed juniors do the work |
| 3 | How would you approach a firm like ours? | Asks about you first; has read your site | Generic pitch; hasn’t looked at you |
| 4 | What do the first 90 days look like? | Scope, deliverables, 30/60/90 targets, review | “We’ll get your rankings up”, no specifics |
| 5 | How do you decide what to do first? | Audit-led, prioritised by impact | Same checklist for every client |
| 6 | How do you handle AI search visibility? | Built in, explained plainly, with proof | Ignored, dismissed, or sold as an add-on |
| 7 | What do you need from us? | Honest about sign-off and access needed | “Nothing, just leave it all to us” |
| 8 | What will you measure and report? | Enquiries and matters; set cadence; you in the review | Vanity metrics; rankings only |
| 9 | How do you tie SEO to enquiries? | Conversion and call tracking, attribution | “Traffic’s up, so it’s working” |
| 10 | What if results are slow? | Honest timelines; a review, not blame | Guarantees speed, or pre-blames you |
| 11 | How is pricing structured? | Transparent scope-based retainer; fair notice | Ranking or per-lead pricing; long lock-ins |
| 12 | Do you guarantee rankings? | No, and explains why that’s a warning sign | “Yes, page one” |
| 13 | Who owns accounts and data? | You keep ownership and access throughout | Agency controls your accounts |
| 14 | How do you meet our regulatory duties? | Named review, accuracy, no outcome claims | Generic content, no compliance awareness |
| 15 | How will we communicate? | Named contact, agreed cadence, straight answers | Ticketing black hole; account churn |
Then put the questions to us. We will answer all fifteen for your own firm, openly, with no pitch and no obligation. The strongest proof of confidence we can offer is to sit on the other side of the same checklist we are telling you to use, including the questions about how we approach law firm SEO, what we would and would not promise, and who would work on your account.
Put these 15 questions to us
Book a free 30-minute evaluation call with a senior Crescat strategist. We will answer all fifteen questions for your firm, with no pitch and no obligation, so you can benchmark us against the same standard you would hold any agency to. You speak with someone senior, not a salesperson, and you leave with a clearer view whether or not you work with us.
10. Frequently asked questions
Should a law firm use a specialist legal marketing agency or a generalist one? Either can work, but they buy different things. A specialist starts faster, understands SRA constraints, and brings benchmarks that apply to law firms. A strong generalist can do excellent work but will take longer to learn the legal market and its rules. The test is not the label but the answers to the questions above.
What is the single biggest red flag when choosing a marketing agency? A guarantee of specific rankings or results. Google itself says no one can guarantee a number-one position, so an agency that promises one is either misleading you or planning risky tactics. A close second is an agency that controls your accounts and data so you cannot easily leave.
How long should I expect to wait for results from a law firm SEO agency? It depends on your practice area and how competitive it is, which is why honest agencies talk in ranges rather than guarantees. A serious engagement should show early signals within the first 90 days and build from there. Our guide to realistic SEO timelines sets out what to expect.
Is it normal for an agency to ask us to do some of the work? Yes, and it is a good sign. The best results come from a partnership where the firm provides sign-off, context, and access. An agency that says it needs nothing from you is either over-promising or planning to publish content no one at the firm has reviewed.
Should an agency guarantee rankings? No. Rankings depend on factors no agency controls, including Google’s algorithms and what competitors do. A credible agency commits to a clear process and an honest review, not a guaranteed position.
Who should own our website accounts and data, us or the agency? You should. Your analytics, Search Console, Google Business Profile and website should be in your firm’s ownership, with the agency given access. That way, if you change agency, your data and history stay with you.
Sources
- Law Firm Marketing Club, Professional Services Marketing Survey (2025 edition, 130 firms) — marketing spend and strategy figures.
- Solicitors Regulation Authority, Code of Conduct for Solicitors, paragraph 8.8 — publicity must be accurate and not misleading.
- Solicitors Regulation Authority, Marketing your services to members of the public (warning notice, 19 December 2024) — firms’ responsibility for third-party marketing.
- Google Search Central, Do You Need an SEO? — guidance on ranking guarantees.
