SEO Agency in Bangkok: 10 Questions to Ask Before You Hire
Before you hire an SEO agency in Bangkok, ask for past work you can verify. Ask how they measure success and whether they will explain every change to your site. Check that they follow Google’s published guidance, and ask what experience they have in Thailand and in your languages. Walk away from anyone who guarantees a first-place ranking. That advice comes straight from Google’s own page on hiring an SEO. Google calls the hire a big decision: a good agency saves you time and improves visibility, and a bad one can damage your site and your reputation.
For a founder who relocated to Bangkok or Phuket, the stakes are higher. You don’t know the local agency scene yet. Your customers may search in English, Thai or Russian. And your inbox fills with offers from firms you have never heard of. The checklist below turns Google’s guidance into questions you can ask on a first call.
When it makes sense to hire, and when it doesn’t
Google is candid here. A small local business can probably do much of the work itself, starting with the SEO Starter Guide. Hiring pays off when the work grows past the basics. Google names the best moment: a site redesign or a new launch, the earlier the better.
We agree with that timing. A website is a growth system your team runs every week, not a project you launch and forget. When SEO and GEO (getting your pages quoted in AI answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini) are part of the structure from day one, you don’t pay twice to fix them after launch.
10 questions to ask an SEO agency in Bangkok
1. Can you show me past work and let me call a client?
Ask for examples and success stories, then check references. Google suggests asking past clients whether the service was useful, whether the agency was easy to work with, and whether it produced positive results.
2. Do you follow Google Search Essentials?
The answer should be a plain yes, with examples. A good follow-up: do you cite official Google documentation when you make recommendations? You can check advice that is backed by Google’s docs, or clearly framed as opinion based on data and experience.
3. What results do you expect, and by when?
Google tells you to ask this, but it publishes no standard timeframe itself. An honest agency gives a range tied to your site and your competitors, and explains the reasoning. A fixed promise of a ranking position is a red flag.
4. How will you measure success?
Look for numbers you can open yourself in Google Search Console: clicks, impressions, and leads from organic traffic. Google’s guide on optimizing for generative AI features, added in May 2026, points to a Generative AI performance report in Search Console for tracking how content performs in those features. If an agency only sends screenshots of its own dashboard, you can’t easily verify its numbers.
5. What experience do you have in my industry and in Thailand?
Google lists expertise in specific markets as one of the services SEO agencies offer. For a Bangkok business that sells locally, that includes your Google Business Profile. Ask whether they have managed profiles before, for businesses with similar budgets and audiences. Those questions come from Google’s guidance on working with third parties, which also notes that the profile itself is free and that third parties can’t promise or directly influence your local ranking.
6. How do you handle a site in more than one language?
Many relocated founders serve expats, tourists and Thai customers from one site. Ask how the agency would structure it. The answer should match Google’s guidance for multilingual sites: a separate URL for each language version, hreflang annotations linking them, one language per page, and no automatic redirects based on a visitor’s assumed language.
Google also notes that Googlebot usually crawls from the USA without a language setting. Versions served only through cookies or browser settings may never get crawled.
7. What does your GEO or AEO work actually involve?
GEO (generative engine optimization) and AEO (answer engine optimization) describe work aimed at visibility in AI search. Google’s position is that optimizing for its generative AI search is still SEO. It says that, for Google Search, you can ignore tactics like “chunking” content or creating llms.txt files. Ask what the agency does beyond the basics, and whether it lines up with Google’s guidance. For how we see the three disciplines working together, read our guide to SEO, GEO and AEO strategy.
8. Will you share every change and the reason for it?
Google recommends asking this directly. If an agency has access to your server or CMS, they should explain each change. You remain responsible for what any company you hire does to your site, so keep a written change log.
9. How will we communicate?
Agree on who your contact is, which language you work in, how often you get a report, and how fast they reply. Google suggests reviewing a Business Profile’s performance every month. A monthly SEO review with the same people on the call is a sensible baseline.
10. Who owns the accounts, and how do you handle personal data?
Agree in writing that Search Console, analytics, the Business Profile and the domain sit in your name, with the agency added as a user. If the agency touches contact forms or customer data, ask how they handle it under Thailand’s Personal Data Protection Act, which took full effect on 1 June 2022. As the data controller, you must report a breach to the PDPC within 72 hours of discovery unless it poses no risk to individuals. So find out who would spot one and tell you.
Good answers and bad answers at a glance
| Question | Good sign | Walk away if |
|---|---|---|
| Past work | Named clients you can call | Only anonymous screenshots |
| Results and timeframe | A range, with reasons | A guaranteed position |
| Measurement | Search Console data you can open | Their own dashboard only |
| Multiple languages | Separate URLs plus hreflang | Language switched by cookie or auto-redirect |
| GEO and AEO | Matches Google’s AI features guidance | llms.txt files sold as a Google ranking fix |
| Changes to your site | A written change log | “Trust us, it’s technical” |
| Pricing | An itemised agreement | A vague package with no contract |
Red flags that end the conversation
- A guaranteed #1 ranking. Google says no one can guarantee it.
- Talk of a “special relationship” with Google, or a “priority submit” service.
- Someone claims to work for Google. Ask for an email from an @google.com address.
- The offer arrived in your inbox out of the blue.
- They ask you to link to the agency’s site, or talk about link popularity schemes and submitting you to thousands of search engines.
- Tools sold as “approved by Google”. Google doesn’t endorse third-party SEO tools, and none have access to its internal ranking data.
- The plan is to publish a page for every search variation. Google treats content made mainly to manipulate rankings or AI answers as scaled content abuse.
- Threats about your listing, or pricing that keeps shifting.
Before you sign: access and contract checks
Start with an audit. At that stage, give the agency read access to Search Console only, not write access. A useful audit gives realistic estimates of improvement and an estimate of the work involved.
Get an official copy of the agreement that lists each service and its cost. Use one agency at a time for your Business Profile, since a business can only appear once on Google.
What a good agency asks you
The questions go both ways. Google says a good SEO should ask what makes your business unique, who your competitors are, how search can help, and how your customers find you. If the first call is all pitch and no questions, expect a generic plan.
At Pixerry, that first conversation shapes the site structure and the content plan, because SEO and GEO work best when built in from the start. One example is our SEO-powered, UX-driven website rebuild. You can also see what our SEO & GEO service covers, from technical SEO to AI-answer optimization.
