Google recommends bringing in help before a site redesign or migration rather than after, because those are the moments when large amounts of value are gained or lost in decisions that are expensive to reverse.
What a good engagement includes
- A technical and content review with specific, prioritised findings
- Clarity on what will be changed, by whom, and when
- Access to measurement, not just reports about measurement
- Explanations you can follow, not a black box
Warning signs Google lists
Guaranteed rankings, unsolicited email offers, secret methods, no clear explanation of what will be done, and an emphasis on link buying.
Alien Road recommends: ask any prospective partner to show you a change they made that failed, and what they did next. In our experience the answer separates people who run a process from people who run a script. We publish our own method for exactly this reason, if you can read the plan, you can hold us to it.