A B2B SEO proposal is easy to make impressive and hard to falsify. Rankings can be promised because the buyer cannot inspect the method. Use this list before you sign.
Ask which URL owns which query
If the proposal cannot point at one existing or future URL for each priority query, the work is not planned yet. Two pages targeting the same query is a warning, not thoroughness.
Separate three kinds of work
- Technical fixes that change crawl, indexation, or templates.
- Pages and articles a buyer can read.
- Authority: mentions and links you could defend out loud.
A single blended retainer that never says which of the three you are buying is how months disappear.
Refuse unsupported proof
Named results need a source the client would recognize, or they should not be on the page. A percentage with no time window, no baseline, and no definition is decoration.
Check the commercial page, not the blog count
Ask to see the page that is supposed to win a money query. If you cannot tell who it is for, what is included, and what to do next, more articles will not repair it. That is the difference between B2B SEO and a content calendar.
Treat AI claims as a method, not a channel guarantee
A serious proposal can explain how pages will be made easier to quote: clear answers, consistent names, visible evidence, crawlable HTML. It cannot honestly promise that ChatGPT or an AI overview will cite you.
If you want a second opinion on a proposal you already have, the working session is the place to do it.