What Should You Ask Before Hiring a GEO Agency?

"Can you show me a live audit of my current AI visibility?"

The single most useful question. Any competent GEO agency should be able to type a handful of your category's real buyer prompts into ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini in front of you and explain what's currently happening — not promise a report in three weeks. If they can't do this live, they likely haven't built the muscle for it yet. Asking these questions upfront also protects the relationship later, since expectations set clearly at the start rarely turn into disputes at renewal. Keeping a written record of the answers given in these early conversations also makes it far easier to hold an agency accountable six months into the engagement. It's also reasonable to ask how an agency stays current as AI engines change their behavior, since a static playbook from a year ago may no longer reflect how today's models actually retrieve and cite content. In the end, the goal of this list isn't to catch an agency in a bad answer — it's to build enough shared understanding that the engagement starts aligned rather than drifting apart after month two. Asking these questions upfront also protects the relationship later, since expectations set clearly at the start rarely turn into disputes at renewal.

"How do you check crawler access, and which bots specifically?"

A serious answer names specific crawlers — OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended — and explains how they check robots.txt, server logs, and JavaScript-rendering issues. A vague answer about "technical SEO" without naming these bots suggests the agency hasn't separated AI crawler access from traditional SEO crawlability, which are related but distinct checks. A vendor uncomfortable answering any of these directly is telling you something worth taking seriously before signing. A founder who treats this list as a genuine filter, not a formality, usually ends up with a shorter, stronger shortlist of agencies worth a second call. Ask, too, whether the same team doing the audit will do the ongoing work, since a strong initial audit followed by a junior execution team is a common source of disappointing results. Treating the first engagement as a two-way evaluation, not just the agency assessing you, tends to produce a more honest and more productive working relationship from the outset. A vendor uncomfortable answering any of these directly is telling you something worth taking seriously before signing.

"What does your reporting actually show me?"

Ask to see a sample report. It should name specific prompts tested, which engine answered which way, and how the answer changed over time — not a single "visibility score" with no underlying detail. If outcome tracking (leads, trial starts) is possible for your business, ask whether it's included or a separate add-on. The goal of this list isn't to be adversarial — a good agency welcomes these questions because they've already answered them for other clients. Finally, ask what happens if a specific fix doesn't move the needle — a credible agency has a next step ready, rather than simply repeating the same tactic and hoping for a different outcome. A founder who brings this list to every vendor conversation, not just GEO ones, tends to make better hiring decisions across the board. The goal of this list isn't to be adversarial — a good agency welcomes these questions because they've already answered them for other clients.

• Named prompts tested per engine, with before/after snapshots
• Crawler access logs showing bot activity trends
• Where trackable, correlation with leads, trials, or conversions

"What's a realistic timeline, and what could slow it down?"

Anyone promising guaranteed placement within days on a competitive comparison prompt is overselling — no agency controls the model. A credible answer distinguishes between fast technical fixes (crawler access, weeks) and slower off-site consensus building (months), and explains which of your specific prompts fall into each bucket. None of these questions require deep technical knowledge to ask, even if the answers themselves get technical. None of these questions require deep technical knowledge to ask, even if the answers themselves get technical.

"How do you price, and what happens after the initial period?"

Market retainer pricing for GEO ranges roughly from $2,000/month for a single-market engagement to $10,000+/month for enterprise work with digital PR included. Ask what's included at each tier and whether pricing is scoped after an audit — a vendor quoting a flat number before seeing your site or testing your prompts hasn't actually assessed your gap yet. A founder who asks these questions once tends to ask sharper follow-up questions in every future vendor conversation, GEO or otherwise. None of these questions require an adversarial tone — the best agencies answer them enthusiastically, because they've already built the muscle to answer them well. A founder who asks these questions once tends to ask sharper follow-up questions in every future vendor conversation, GEO or otherwise.

How Suggesting.ai answers these questions upfront

Suggesting.ai's free 48-hour audit is designed to answer most of these questions before any commercial conversation happens: current prompt-level visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot, crawler access status, and a prioritized list of what to fix first — so you're evaluating a demonstrated capability, not a pitch deck promise. Bringing this list to a first call is usually enough to separate a serious practitioner from a reseller of generic content packages. Bringing this list to a first call is usually enough to separate a serious practitioner from a reseller of generic content packages.