If you’re choosing someone to handle SEO for a software development company, I’d look at four things before anything else: what they can prove, whether they understand the technical setup of your site, who is actually going to do the work, and how they plan to measure progress when your sales cycle might take months.
That matters more than whether they have the slickest proposal or the biggest client list.
Google says much the same in its own guidance on hiring an SEO: ask for examples, understand what they’re recommending, and be wary of anyone guaranteeing rankings.
If you search for an SEO specialist yourself, you’ll probably find agency pages, directories, “best SEO companies” lists and a few independent consultants. Ask ChatGPT or another assistant and you’ll often get a similar mix.
That’s useful for putting a shortlist together. It doesn’t tell you who will actually be good at the work.
I’m an independent SEO consultant, so I’m obviously one of the people you might be comparing. I’ve written this as the checklist I’d use if I were on your side of the table. You can use it on me as much as anyone else.
What actually matters for a software company?
Software development is a slightly different SEO problem from ecommerce.
An online shop might be trying to attract a large number of buyers and turn a percentage of them into orders.
A software company might only need a handful of the right enquiries all year, but each one could turn into a project worth tens of thousands of pounds.
That changes what good SEO looks like.
Traffic still matters, but not on its own. Rankings still matter, but again, not on their own.
The better question is whether the right businesses are finding you, whether they trust what they see, and whether that turns into conversations, proposals and projects.
So when you’re comparing SEO specialists, I’d be looking at four things:
- relevant experience
- how they measure success
- whether they understand the way your site is built
- who is actually doing the work
Price comes after that. It’s difficult to judge whether £500, £2,000 or £5,000 a month is good value until you know what you’re actually getting.
What experience should you look for?
I wouldn’t get too hung up on whether someone has worked with a company identical to yours.
What matters more is whether they understand a considered B2B buying process.
A software project is rarely an impulse purchase. Someone might discover you today, come back in a month, share your site internally, compare three suppliers and only then get in touch.
That’s quite different from optimising a site where someone searches for a product and buys it five minutes later.
So ask for examples from software, IT services, professional services or other B2B businesses with a longer sales cycle.
Then go one step further.
Don’t just ask whether traffic went up. Ask what changed afterwards.
Did enquiries improve? Were they better enquiries? Did more of them turn into opportunities or projects?
If all you get back is “organic visibility increased by 82%”, I’d want to know what that actually meant for the business.
The same applies to me.
I spent five years working on SEO for Optima Warehouse Solutions, a UK software company selling warehouse management systems into logistics, retail, manufacturing and distribution.
Its search visibility grew over that time, but I don’t have figures I’m allowed to publish, so I don’t quote them.
I also don’t have a published case study for a software development company specifically. I’d rather say that plainly than make the comparison sound closer than it is.
What if your site is built in React, Angular or Next.js?
This is worth asking about because a lot of software companies build their own websites.
React, Angular, Next.js and other JavaScript frameworks can all work perfectly well in search.
The problem is not “JavaScript is bad for SEO”. It’s whether Google can actually get to the important content and links.
Google breaks this into crawling, rendering and indexing, and its own JavaScript SEO guidance is worth reading if you want the technical version.
You don’t need to turn the hiring process into a developer interview, though.
Just ask how they’d check your site.
I’d expect them to talk about things like:
- what Google sees in the rendered page
- whether internal links are real crawlable links
- unique page titles
- canonical tags
- status codes
- what happens when a URL doesn’t exist
If the answer is basically “React is fine, don’t worry about it”, I’d probably ask a few more questions.
The other thing to watch is how well they can work with your developers.
If your team is implementing the changes, you want someone who can explain what needs doing clearly enough for a developer to act on it, without turning every recommendation into vague SEO language.
Who will actually work on your site?
This is one of the questions people skip.
You might meet a senior person during the sales process and then rarely speak to them again. Or you might work directly with the person doing the analysis every month.
Neither model is automatically better, but you should know which one you’re buying.
| Option | What works well | What to think about |
|---|---|---|
| Independent consultant | Direct access to the person doing the work | One person has finite time and availability |
| Agency | Broader team and more delivery capacity | The person you speak to may not be the person doing the work |
| Freelance marketplace | Easy to compare rates and profiles | Experience is largely self-reported until you verify it |
| In-house hire | Someone close to the business every day | Hiring takes time and one person rarely covers everything |
If you already have developers and writers, an independent consultant can make a lot of sense because you might not need another team to execute everything.
You may just need someone to work out what matters, put it in order, brief your team and check what happens afterwards.
If you want everything done for you, an agency may be a better fit.
The important bit is knowing which setup you actually need.
How should SEO be measured when projects take months to close?
This is probably the part I care about most.
If someone tells you they’ll “increase organic traffic”, ask what happens after that.
For a software company, I’d want to agree what a qualified enquiry actually is before doing much else.
Then I’d make sure the basics are recorded:
- form submissions
- phone calls
- email clicks
- where the enquiry came from
- what it was about
- whether it turned into a proposal or project
Nothing complicated. A basic enquiry log can be more useful than another dashboard.
The reason is simple: SEO signals arrive at different times.
You’ll normally see movement in visibility first.
Then you may see better traffic to the pages you care about.
Then enquiries.
Projects can come much later.
So if someone promises a fixed number of leads in the first few weeks, I’d be cautious.
I’d much rather agree what we expect to see first, review it monthly, and use three months as a sensible point to judge whether the direction looks right.
Google’s own guidance recommends asking an SEO what results they expect, in what timeframe, and how they’ll measure them.
That’s a much better conversation than “when will I rank number one?”
How should they price the work?
There isn’t one correct model.
You’ll see one-off audits, monthly retainers, consultancy-only arrangements and full-service packages where the SEO also writes or implements the work.
What matters is knowing what you’re actually paying for.
Ask:
- what is included each month
- what you’ll receive
- what you’re expected to implement
- whether there’s a minimum term
- what happens if priorities change
I’d also be wary of someone giving you a very precise quote before they’ve looked at the site or understood what your own team can do.
If you have developers who can implement technical changes and writers who can handle content, you probably don’t need to pay an SEO to duplicate that work.
You may need analysis, prioritisation, briefs and review instead.
That can make the engagement much leaner.
What are the obvious red flags?
Some are fairly simple.
Guaranteed rankings would put me off immediately.
So would secrecy around what they’re doing, vague link-building promises or anyone claiming to have some kind of special relationship with Google.
Google explicitly says no one can guarantee a number-one ranking.
I’d also be cautious if every recommendation seems to require a new tool, package or piece of work from the same supplier.
You should be able to ask why something is being recommended and get a sensible answer.
Access is another one.
For an initial review, read-only Search Console access is normally enough. Someone shouldn’t need to start changing things just to understand what’s happening.
Ten questions I’d ask before hiring anyone
You don’t need a huge procurement process.
I’d ask these and compare the answers.
| Question | What I’d listen for |
|---|---|
| Can you show relevant B2B or software work? | Real detail rather than vague claims |
| How would you measure success for us? | Qualified enquiries, tracking and business outcomes |
| How do you handle React, Angular or Next.js sites? | A practical explanation of rendering, links and indexing |
| Who will actually work on the account? | A named person, not just a team description |
| What will you need from our developers? | Clear, prioritised requests |
| What will I receive each month? | Actual deliverables |
| How do you price the work? | A clear scope and commitment |
| What access do you need? | Sensible permissions, starting read-only where possible |
| What won’t you do? | Someone comfortable saying where their limits are |
| Can I speak to a client? | Ideally yes, or a reasonable explanation if not |
You’ll usually learn more from the detail in those answers than from a polished pitch deck.
One thing I’ve learned from doing this work
The first useful question is often not about keywords.
It’s about tracking.
I recently looked into a site where traffic had fallen and the obvious question was whether that had affected bookings.
The problem was that analytics hadn’t been recording properly for almost two years. Form submissions weren’t tracked. Phone taps weren’t tracked. There was no reliable way to connect the traffic loss to the number of bookings.
So before making any big SEO recommendation, that had to be fixed.
I wrote up the investigation in the driver training case study.
The same principle applies to a software company.
If the person you’re talking to starts by asking how enquiries arrive, what a good enquiry looks like and what becomes of them, that’s usually a good sign.
If they start with a list of keywords before asking anything about the business, I’d want to know why.
And on the question of agency versus independent consultant, I don’t think there’s a universally right answer.
What matters more is whether the person doing the work understands your business, can explain what they’re doing, and has a sensible way of showing whether it’s working.
Ask the questions. Compare the answers. The differences normally become fairly obvious.
If you’d like to put these questions to me, you can request a free assessment or get in touch. The SEO for software development companies page explains how I work with them.
FAQ
How much does an SEO specialist for a software company cost?
It depends on the size of the site, how much needs fixing and how much your own team will do, so a firm figure before anyone has seen your site is a warning sign. Ask what’s included each month, what you’ll receive and how long the commitment is.
Should a software development company hire an agency or a freelancer?
It depends on who you want working on it and how much your team will do. An independent consultant suits a team that implements its own changes. An agency can suit a business that wants everything done for it. Whichever you choose, ask who will actually work on your site.
Do I need an SEO who understands JavaScript frameworks?
If your site is built in Angular, React or Next.js, yes, it helps. Google processes JavaScript, but content and links need to reach it in a usable form, and server-side or pre-rendering is still recommended. Ask how they’d check what Google sees and what they’d do if it’s wrong.
How long does SEO take to work for a B2B software company?
Google doesn’t give a timescale, and nobody can promise one. Visibility on target searches usually moves first, then enquiries, then projects, with long sales cycles adding time. Agree what to watch each month and a review point at three months, instead of a number of leads.
Can an SEO guarantee a first-page ranking?
No. Google says no one can guarantee a number one ranking and advises being wary of anyone who claims to. A trustworthy specialist agrees what to measure, explains what they’ll do and is honest about what they can’t control, including what Google itself decides.
What access does an SEO need to your website?
For an audit, read-only access to Search Console is enough, and Google advises not granting write access at that stage. If someone later makes changes on your server, they should explain every one. Keep control of your own domain, hosting and analytics accounts.
Sources
- Do you need an SEO?, Google Search Central, last updated 5 June 2026, accessed 21 October 2026. Supports: the questions to ask before hiring, the red flags, guarantees, references, read-only access and asking about timeframe and measurement.
- JavaScript SEO basics, Google Search Central, last updated 4 March 2026, accessed 21 October 2026. Supports: how Google crawls, renders and indexes JavaScript, and server-side or pre-rendering.
- Paul Myers, traffic investigation for a local driver training business, 2026 (client details withheld). Supports: the tracking example.
- Paul Myers, five years of SEO for Optima Warehouse Solutions (no publishable figures). Supports: the experience statement.
- Own searches on google.co.uk for suppliers and directories, October 2026, one snapshot each. Supports: the observation that results are directories, lists and agency pages.
