GEO Agency Procurement Checklist Template

GEO Agency Procurement Checklist (fill-in)

When to use: One row per required field for each agency you shortlist, with the written answer, proof, owner and status, plus a completion check.

GEO agency procurement checklist

Fill one copy per agency. Every row needs a written answer from the agency and a proof you have seen, not a verbal promise.

Buyer: [company] - Agency: [agency name] - Proposal date: [YYYY-MM-DD] - Decision owner: [name]

Per-row detail (fill for every field)

• Deliverables: [each item with a count and a due date, e.g. pages rewritten, schema fixes, audit]
• Out of scope: [what the agency will not do, in their words]
• Measurement: [who picks the prompts, which engines, how often re-run, baseline date]
• Proof: [which claim each proof supports, and whether you could verify it]
• Guarantee wording: [exact sentence copied from the proposal]
• Ownership on exit: [what you get back, in what format, within how many days]
• Access requested: [read-only or edit, for which accounts]

Next action

• Decision owner: [name] - action: send the question bank to each agency by [date]
• Reviewer: [name] - action: mark each row pass, gap or fail and list follow-up questions by [date]
• Legal or finance: [name] - action: check guarantee and ownership clauses against this sheet by [date]

Completion check

• All five required fields have a written answer from the agency, not notes from a call.
• Each answer has a proof you have seen, with a file or clause reference.
• The measurement method names the prompts, engines and re-run schedule.
• No clause guarantees rankings, citations or mentions in AI answers.
• The contract says you own the content, data and prompt set when the work ends.
• Every row has one owner and a status of pass, gap or fail.

Question Bank (send with your RFP)

When to use: Written questions for each required field, so every agency answers the same things and you can compare replies line by line.

Question bank

Send these as one document and ask for written answers by a set date. Same questions for every agency, so replies line up.

Deliverables

• List every deliverable with a quantity and a due date. What is out of scope?
• Who does the work: named roles, in-house or subcontracted?
• Which pages, schema, technical fixes or content will you change, and who approves each change?

Measurement method

• Which prompts will you track, and can we review and approve the list before the baseline?
• Which AI engines, how often, and how do you handle answers that change between runs?
• How will AI-referred visits show up in our own analytics, not only in your tool?

Proof

• Show one before and after report from real work, with the client's permission or redacted.
• Give us two references we can call.
• Which claim in your pitch can we check ourselves, and how?

No-guarantee terms and ownership

• What exactly do you guarantee? Paste the contract wording.
• On exit, what do we receive, in what format, and how fast?
• What account access do you need, and is read-only enough to start?

Draft your own prompt list first so you can judge theirs. The AI Buyer Query Library Template gives you a buyer-written set to compare.

Proof Review (what counts, what does not)

When to use: A picker for judging each piece of evidence an agency sends, and a way to check their claims against your own baseline.

Proof review

Proof is something you can check. A logo wall or a confident slide is not proof. Rate each item before it moves a row to pass.

Check it yourself

• Record your own baseline before any agency starts, so a later report has something to compare against.
• Look up your domain and a case-study client's domain in the AI Visibility Checker to see recorded AI answers that name or link them.
• Compare your domain with competitor domains in Competitor Analysis, so you know the gap before a pitch describes it.

Proof review owner: [name] - Baseline saved on: [date] - Files: [folder link]

No-Guarantee Terms (acceptable vs walk away)

When to use: Sample guarantee wording sorted into acceptable and reject, so you can read a proposal clause and decide fast.

No-guarantee terms

Search engines and AI assistants decide what they show. An agency can promise its work, not their output. Google says plainly that no one can guarantee a #1 ranking.

Acceptable wording

• "We guarantee delivery of the agreed scope by the agreed dates."
• "We will re-run the agreed prompt set at the end and report the change, up or down."
• "We do not guarantee rankings, citations or mentions in AI answers."
• "We replace any deliverable that does not meet the agreed spec."

Walk away or renegotiate

• "Guaranteed citations in ChatGPT within 30 days."
• "Guaranteed #1 position in AI Overviews."
• "Special access" or a partnership with an AI engine or search engine. Google warns about SEOs who claim a special relationship with Google.
• A long lock-in with no deliverables listed for the first months.

Clause check

• Guarantee clause number: [clause] - Wording copied: [exact text]
• Verdict: [acceptable / renegotiate / reject] - Checked by: [name]

Google also says there are no extra requirements or special optimizations needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Treat any "secret method" with care.

Ownership and Exit Terms

When to use: What you should own on day one and get back on exit: content, data, prompt sets, accounts and access, with a handover date.

Ownership and exit terms

Decide what you own before you sign. If the agency stops, you should keep everything you paid for and be able to repeat the measurement.

You should own

• Content: every page, brief and rewrite produced for you.
• Prompt set: the list of tracked prompts, so a new team can re-run it.
• Measurement data: raw run logs and reports, exported in a file you can open.
• Accounts: analytics, Search Console and any tool accounts stay in your name; the agency gets user access.
• Technical changes: a change log of what was edited on your site and why.

Access rules

• Start with read-only access for audits. Google advises read access to Search Console at the audit stage.
• Grant edit access per task, and remove it on exit.

Exit fields

• Notice period: [days] - Handover within: [days]
• Export format: [CSV, docs, folder link]
• Access removal owner: [name] - Date: [date]

Keep the run data comparable after handover with the AI Visibility Repeated-Run Log Template.

Spreadsheet Header (CSV)

When to use: A paste-ready header row and allowed values to compare several agencies in Google Sheets or Excel.

Paste-ready spreadsheet header

Paste this row into cell A1, then split text to columns by comma. One row per agency per required field.

agency,required_field,written_answer,proof_type,proof_reference,proof_verified,gap_or_risk,guarantee_wording,ownership_on_exit,access_level,owner,status,follow_up_question,due_date,notes

Allowed values

• required_field: deliverables, measurement, proof, no_guarantee, ownership
• proof_type: report, reference_call, sow_clause, screenshot, none
• proof_verified: yes, partly, no
• access_level: read_only, edit, admin
• status: pass, gap, fail

Sheet tips

• Filter by status fail first. One fail on guarantees or ownership can end the review.
• Highlight rows where proof_verified is no. Those claims are still unproven.
• Pivot by agency to see how many rows each one passes.
• Keep the agency's exact words in written_answer. Do not paraphrase.

Already score link vendors this way? The Link Vendor Scorecard & Placement Approval Template uses the same pass and fail logic.

Worked Example (fictional Varnhollow payroll software)

When to use: A filled checklist comparing two invented agencies for an invented payroll software company, with one pass and one walk-away.

Worked example: Varnhollow payroll software

Example only. Varnhollow, Quellstone Search and Orrowick Media are invented. The answers, clauses, names and dates are made up to show a filled checklist.

Buyer: Varnhollow - Decision owner: Head of marketing - Proposals received: 2026-11-03

Next action (as filled)

• Head of marketing: ask Quellstone to add the change log to the SOW by 2026-11-12.
• Finance: confirm the notice period in clause 11 by 2026-11-12.
• Orrowick: thanked and declined; reason logged as guarantee and ownership fails.

Why this works

• Both agencies answered the same questions in writing, so the gaps were obvious.
• The guarantee claim alone was enough to stop the review, and the sheet records why.
• Varnhollow owns the prompt set, so any future agency can re-run the same baseline.

Want a second opinion on a GEO proposal? Book a free consultation with Anatolii Ulitovskyi, or see how our SEO and GEO services define scope and reporting.