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Rand Fishkin thinks a competent SEO firm ought to be able to handle ten questions about the search industry, and an eleventh if they are really knowledgeable about their work. If you're at a search firm, big or small, Rand has a little quiz for you at SEOmoz. They also serve as questions he thinks a prospective SEO client ought to be asking when considering such a firm.

"I believe that in the current search marketing environment, less than 30% of companies that spend money on organic search ranking services are getting a good deal," he wrote as a lead-in to his challenge.

His list of questions includes a real scorcher at the end: 'Name twelve unique metrics search engines are suspected to consider when weighting links and how each affects rankings positively or negatively.'

Rand illustrated an interesting point beyond just knowing answers. It's the idea of understanding the questions one should ask of a company that will gleefully take an entrepreneur's money for SEO, and getting answers that indicate the investment will return good value.

An informed businessperson should outperform competitors who aren't so well-advised. The competition tends not to stay uninformed, so having a little grounding in SEO before contracting a firm should benefit both sides. It's much easier to do quality work for an informed client, and to profit from that work.