How to Brief an SEO Agency

A vague brief produces vague SEO work. Agencies can only build a strategy around what they actually understand about your business, and most businesses hand over far less useful context than they think they do, assuming the agency will simply figure the rest out through research alone.

Explain the business in customer language, not internal language

Every business has internal shorthand and jargon that means nothing to an outside agency, and often nothing to your own customers either. Brief your agency using the language your actual customers use to describe their problem, not your internal product or service names. This single shift often does more for keyword targeting accuracy than any tool-based research.

Name your actual competitors, not just your industry category

“We’re in the fitness industry” tells an agency almost nothing useful. Naming the 3 to 5 businesses you genuinely compete with for customers, including ones that might not show up in an obvious industry search, gives an agency a real, specific competitive landscape to build a strategy against instead of a generic one built from category assumptions.

Share what’s already been tried, including the failures

If a previous agency, an in-house effort, or a specific tactic has already been tried and didn’t work, say so explicitly, along with why you think it failed if you have a theory. Withholding this, even unintentionally, risks a new agency repeating an approach you’ve already proven doesn’t work for your specific business.

Define what a valuable customer actually looks like

Not all traffic is equally valuable. Tell your agency specifically what makes a great customer for your business, higher order size, lower support cost, repeat purchase behavior, whatever it genuinely is, so content and keyword prioritization optimizes for the right kind of visitor, not just the highest possible volume.

Give a real answer on approval bandwidth

Be honest about how much time you or your team can realistically dedicate to reviewing and approving content, technical changes, or strategy decisions, the same bandwidth question worth revisiting when splitting responsibilities between your team and the agency. A roadmap built assuming fast, same-day approvals will stall badly against a six-person, multi-week sign-off process that never got mentioned upfront.

Share your actual sales conversations, not just your marketing copy

The objections and questions that come up in real sales conversations often reveal genuine customer concerns and language more accurately than your own website copy does, since marketing copy is aspirational while sales conversations are where real hesitations surface. If possible, share this directly, or a summary of the recurring themes, with your agency.

A simple briefing checklist

• Describe your business in customer language, not internal jargon
• Name your 3 to 5 real competitors specifically, not just your industry category
• Disclose what’s already been tried, and why you believe it didn’t work
• Define what a genuinely valuable customer looks like for your business
• Be honest about realistic approval speed and bandwidth on your side
• Share real customer objections and questions, not just polished marketing language

A thorough brief isn’t extra homework that slows the engagement down. It’s the single fastest way to skip past weeks of an agency guessing at context you could have simply told them on day one, exactly the kind of clarity that makes the first 90 days actually work.