SEO company in Nigeria: questions to ask before hiring

Before you hire an SEO company in Nigeria for your clinic, ask four sets of questions: who does the work, what they will change, how they will report it, and whose name the accounts sit in. Walk away from anyone who promises first place on Google or won't explain their methods. Keep ownership of your Google Business Profile, Search Console, domain and website logins.

Why choosing an SEO company in Nigeria goes wrong for clinics

A clinic owner gets a cold message. The sender promises page one in 30 days. A deposit is paid. Six months later the reports are full of keywords nobody searches, the phone rings the same, and the agency holds the logins to the website.

That last part hurts most. When the relationship ends, the clinic can't update its own Google profile or see its own search data. Starting again costs time and patients.

New to the topic? Start with what SEO is for clinic owners, then our post on SEO services worth paying for. This post is about the company you hire.

Questions to ask about the work

Who will actually do the work?

Ask for names and roles. Is it the person in the meeting, a junior team member or an outside freelancer? You want to know who touches your website and your Google profile.

What will you change in the first 90 days?

A good company can list it: treatment pages to write, profile details to fix, broken pages to repair, reviews to request. Google's page on whether you need an SEO warns against any company that is secretive or won't clearly explain what it intends to do.

Have you worked with healthcare businesses here?

Google suggests asking about experience in your industry and your locality. A clinic in Lekki or Wuse has different searches and different competitors from an online shop. Ask how they handle medical advertising care: no promised outcomes, no patient details.

Can I speak to past clients?

Google suggests asking past clients whether the SEO was useful, easy to work with and produced results. A company that won't connect you to anyone is telling you something.

Who owns the accounts?

Most clinics skip this question. Ask it before anything is set up.

1. Google Business Profile. Google's help page on profile owners and managers says a profile has one primary owner, and owners can add or remove users while managers can't. The clinic should be primary owner. The company can be a manager.
2. Google Search Console. Google's Search Console help lists owner, full user and restricted user. Only an owner can add or remove users. Keep owner status at the clinic. For an audit, Google advises giving read access only.
3. Domain and hosting. The domain should be registered in the clinic's name, with the login held by the clinic.
4. Website login. The clinic keeps an admin login. The company gets its own account, which can be removed later.

Google also says each person managing a Business Profile needs their own Google Account, so nobody shares passwords.

Questions to ask about reporting

A ranking screenshot is easy to send and hard to pay staff with. Ask what the monthly report will contain. Push for these:

• What was changed this month, page by page.
• Clicks and searches from Google Search Console.
• Calls, direction requests and website clicks from your Google profile.
• Enquiries and bookings from Google, matched with what your front desk logged.

The last one needs your team's help. Ask every new patient how they found you and write it down. Our post on lead generation for clinics shows how to track each source.

Ask Google's own question too: what results do you expect, and in what timeframe? Write the answer into the agreement.

Red flags when hiring an SEO company

Any one of these is a reason to stop:

• A promise of first place. Google says no one can promise a top ranking, and that you should find someone else if they do.
• A "special relationship" with Google. Google says it never takes money to rank sites in its search results.
• Cold messages out of the blue. Google says to be wary of SEO firms that contact you this way.
• Link schemes. Talk of bought links, link popularity schemes or submitting your site to thousands of search engines.
• A link back to them as a condition. Google says you should never have to link to an SEO.
• They keep the accounts. Your profile, domain or website set up in their name.
• No exit terms. No clear answer on how access is handed back if you stop.

Google also says that you are responsible for the actions of any company you hire. If their tricks break Google's spam policies, your site pays the price.

How Kren works with clinics on SEO

Kren is a done-for-you growth partner for private clinics in Lagos and Abuja. We write treatment pages that answer patient questions, keep your Google profile complete and run steady review requests as part of our lead generation work. Your own team does the final follow-up and booking.

On a 30-minute strategy call, we look at how patients find you today and where they slip away. Show me where my clinic is losing patients →

Questions clinic owners ask about hiring an SEO company

Should the SEO company own our Google Business Profile?

No. Keep the clinic as primary owner and add the company as a manager. Google's help says managers can't add or remove users or remove the profile, so control stays with you.

What access should we give for an SEO audit?

Google advises read access to Search Console only at the audit stage. Give more only when you know exactly what they will change.

Is a cold message offering page one a good lead?

Treat it with care. Google says to be wary of SEO firms that contact you out of the blue, and that no one can promise a first-place ranking.

How do we know if the SEO company is working?

Check the monthly report against your own numbers: Search Console clicks, calls from your Google profile and bookings your front desk logged from Google. If clicks rise but bookings don't, look at how fast enquiries are answered.