SEO Proposal: What to Put In It, the Nine Questions Google Says to Ask, and Why One Assumption Can Quadruple a Forecast
· Royking Niba
An SEO proposal is the document that says what an SEO will do for a website, how the results will be measured, what it will cost and what is out of scope, and a good one never guarantees a ranking, because Google says no one can. The useful test for any proposal, whether you are writing one or reading one, is Google’s own list of questions to ask before hiring an SEO. Below are those questions quoted exactly, a proposal template with each section mapped to the question it answers, the red flags that point to tactics Google’s spam policies prohibit, and a worked model showing why every traffic forecast has to show its assumptions.
What Google says to check before you hire an SEO
Quoted from Google Search Central, “Do you need an SEO?”, last updated 2026-06-05. Google’s position on guarantees is blunt: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.” The page tells site owners to “Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings”, and adds “If they guarantee you that their changes will give you first place in search results, find someone else.” It also warns: “Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.”
The same page lists nine questions to ask a potential SEO, quoted here as Google writes them:
- “Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?”
- “Do you follow the Google Search Essentials (previously known as Webmaster Guidelines)?”
- “What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe?”
- “What’s your experience in my industry?”
- “What’s your experience in my country/city?”
- “What’s your experience developing international sites?”
- “How long have you been in business?”
- “How can I expect to communicate with you?”
- “Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site”
A proposal that answers all nine in writing, before anyone asks, has already done most of the work of earning trust. One that dodges question three, the one about results and timeframe, is the one to read most carefully.
An SEO proposal template, section by section
The table is my own structure. Each row is a section of the proposal, what it should contain, which of Google’s nine questions it answers, and the version of that section that should make you stop.
| Proposal section | What it should contain | Google question it answers | Red flag in this section |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Findings | What was checked on the site before pricing, with evidence: crawl results, indexing status, Search Console data if access was given | 9 (changes to my site) | No findings at all, so the price was set before anyone looked |
| 2. Goals and measures | The business outcome, the search metric that tracks it, and the baseline today | 3 (results and timeframe) | “Page one for 50 keywords” with no baseline and no link to revenue or leads |
| 3. Scope of work | Named deliverables: technical fixes, pages to write or rewrite, profile work, outreach rules | 9 (changes to my site) | “Ongoing optimisation” with no list of what is actually done |
| 4. Out of scope | What is not included, such as development hours, paid ads, content volume above a set number | 8 (communication) | No exclusions, which turns every later request into a dispute |
| 5. Method and rules | A statement that work follows Google Search Essentials, and how links will be earned | 2 (Search Essentials) | A set number of backlinks per month sold as a package |
| 6. Forecast | A range, with every assumption written next to it | 3 (results and timeframe) | A single traffic number with no assumptions, or any ranking guarantee |
| 7. Evidence and relevant experience | Comparable work, sector and market experience, stated honestly | 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 | Case studies with no site, no date and no metric you can check |
| 8. Reporting and access | Report cadence, the metrics in it, and confirmation that the client owns every account and asset | 8 and 9 | The agency owns the Search Console property, the Business Profile or the content |
| 9. Price, term and exit | Fee, what it buys, minimum term, notice period, and what is handed over on exit | 8 (communication) | A long lock-in with no exit terms |
Sections 2 and 6 are where most proposals go wrong, and the measures that belong in section 2, with what each one can and cannot tell you, are set out in my guide to SEO metrics.
The red flags that point to spam, not just to a weak proposal
Some proposal lines are only vague. Others describe work that Google’s spam policies (last updated 2026-08-28) prohibit, and those are the ones that can cost a site its traffic. Google’s definition is: “Link spam is the practice of creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings.” The first example on Google’s list is “Buying or selling links for ranking purposes.”
- “Guaranteed first page” or “guaranteed number one”. Google says no one can guarantee it, so the claim is either untrue or relies on something you would not approve if it were written down.
- “50 high-authority backlinks a month”. A fixed monthly link count is a purchase of links, whatever the invoice calls it. The structures behind these packages, and what Google’s policy says about each layer, are in tiered link building and PBN backlinks.
- “Proprietary method we cannot disclose”. This is the secrecy Google tells you to be careful of.
- Hundreds of location pages for areas you do not serve. That is the doorway pattern Google names in its spam policies.
If a previous provider already did any of this and traffic has since fallen, the order of work changes: the clean-up and any reconsideration request come before new growth work, as set out in my Google penalty recovery guide.
A worked model: why every forecast needs its assumptions printed beside it
Google tells you to ask “What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe?” The honest answer is a range built from stated assumptions, and the model below shows why. It is a worked example with labelled assumptions, not data from any real site.
- Assumption A, demand: the target keywords together get 20,000 searches a month.
- Assumption B, click-through rate: the share of those searches that click through to the site once it ranks. Tested at 5%, 10% and 20%.
- Assumption C, conversion: 2% of visitors become a lead.
| Click-through assumption | Monthly visits (20,000 x CTR) | Monthly leads (visits x 2%) |
|---|---|---|
| 5% | 1,000 | 20 |
| 10% | 2,000 | 40 |
| 20% | 4,000 | 80 |
Changing one assumption across a plausible range moves the forecast fourfold, from 20 leads to 80, with demand and conversion held still. Real click-through rates depend on position, on whether the page shows a map pack or an AI Overview, and on the brand, so no proposal can know assumption B in advance. That is the case for a forecast written as a range with its inputs visible, and against a single headline number. Assumption A is the one you can check yourself, with the steps in my keyword research checklist.
SEO proposal or SEO contract?
The proposal persuades and the contract binds. Once a proposal is accepted, the parts that matter in a dispute, scope, exclusions, ownership of accounts and content, notice period and handover, should be carried into the contract word for word rather than summarised. Two clauses deserve particular care: who owns the Google Search Console property, analytics and Business Profile, which should always be the client; and what happens to links or content the agency placed if the relationship ends. This is general guidance, not legal advice, and a contract should be checked by a lawyer in your own jurisdiction.
Before signing either document, a site owner gets more value from an independent audit than from a second proposal. My SEO audit checklist covers what that audit should look at, and gives you the findings section of any proposal to compare against.
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